Every organization wants to be the most successful—the organization that changes the most lives and reaches the most people. To be successful, you have to not only have a strong donor network, but also a strong team that works seamlessly together. In other words, if your donor network is your lifeblood, then human resources is your heart. Your staff members are the people who help to carry out your mission, and they need to have the same consideration as your donors. That’s why you need a great Human Resources department.
HR department is where staff members are hired, interviewed, paid, and where they can have their questions answered. While your organization might not have a separate HR department, it’s still vital that your organization has policies in place to evaluate staff performance and to facilitate the hiring, training, or termination of that staff. To create a great team, you also need a human resource strategy. Having these operations processes in place will help you to be able to focus on reaching more people and increasing donations.
So what is HR strategy anyway? It refers to the way your organization integrates culture, people, and systems to achieve goals. Having a great strategy means that your organization will be able to function at it’s best. Even if you already have policies in place to manage your staff, it is worthwhile to review them— so we’ve come up with some quick steps to generate an HR strategy that will help your organization to thrive.
Assess
To create an HR strategy, you should examine what existing policies your organization has in place. It’s important to review these policies periodically—as your organization grows, certain procedures may not be applicable, while others may become more necessary. Ask yourself:
- What works/doesn’t work about those policies?
- Is there anything that’s not addressed in these policies?
- Does your organization’s culture support your policies or undermine them?
- What staff resources do you currently have available?
This is also the time to evaluate your long-term goals, and how those goals align with how you hire, manage, and train staff.
Draft
Once you’ve reviewed your current staff guidelines, it’s time to fill in the gaps. If you started your organization with three people and an informal structure and now your organization employees twenty people, there are probably some staff policies and procedures that need re-writing. Make sure to include the following:
- Hiring and recruitment practices: How do you interview and find potential staff members? Do you remember to put the details of employment in writing? If a staff member is being let go, do you have a specific letter of termination that you use?
- Job descriptions: Are staff members provided with job descriptions when they are hired? Having written descriptions for each position will give your staff members a clear idea of what is expected in their position.
- Training: How do you make sure your staff feels comfortable in their positions? Is there a specific person who handles training?
- Assessments: Do you have a standardized way you evaluate your employees’ performances and offer pay raises?
- Volunteer Practices: For nonprofits, your training policies should also extend to volunteers. Do you have a way to screen and train your volunteers?
Standardizing these practices will insure that each person involved with your organization will understand the requirements of his or her position, and you’ll be able to worry less about acclimating new employees and taking time from cultivating donors to train or assess employees. As you create your HR strategy, remember to put these practices in writing and store them in an accessible place. That way, your employees will be able to reference it if needed.