Tag Archives: Human Resources

Financial Planning, HR and Payroll

Management Functions That Will Keep Your Business on Track

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What is management? To understand management, firstly, the true meaning of management must be understood. A business combines several functions at small and large scales to execute a common goal through strategies that are not ideal, but effective for the success of the business in the long term.

Several business functions include:

  • Utilizing Resources
  • Managing Resources
  • Coordinating Activities
  • Selling Products
  • Offering Services
  • Creating Jobs
  • Preparing Budgets, Forecasts and Financial Accounting
  • Payroll Activities
  • Human Resource Activities

All the above functions of the business need a force to bind them together. This binding force of the functions of the business is known as management. Management is commonly explained as an art that coordinates people’s efforts to achieve goals and aims of a business using the resources available efficiently.

Management brings discipline to a business environment. It combines the functions of organizing, planning, controlling, formulating policies and steering a firm’s resources in the right direction to achieve the policy’s objectives.

One of the most important management functions these days is organizational development (OD). With a fast change in technology, people’s intellect, and the world moving towards scarce resources, an organization must properly organize itself to use every resource to its benefit rather than wasting it.

Organizational development takes notice of the changing management needs of a business and tries to cope with them and ensuring that the needs are met immediately. Organizational development is a business process that involves efforts to change people’s attitudes, relationship styles, belief systems etc. for collective benefit of the employees and the organization.

Organizational development was previously categorized as HR function but recently the relative importance of this function has made a separately recognized function. OD is regarded as a strategic business management function that executes various roles in a business.

  • It ensures a balanced organizational climate.

The OD management function helps structuralize the organization and educating the employees with the art of multi-tasking. It helps reduce the number of people or employees by using technology making the production or work process more efficient.It encourages teamwork and train managers to treat the business as their own asset adopting appropriate leadership styles at all levels. Periodic training and effective communication are some of the other roles of the OD function.

  • Installation of PMS – Performance Management Systems

This involves setting clear parameters for performance through job targets, policies and procedures and making these performance levels known. Informing about inadequate performance, warnings and ensuring supply of essential resources is key to efficiency.

  • Minding the cash outflow by:

o   ensuring resource accountability, reviewing and monitoring the pattern of resource utilization and eliminating wastage

o   use of latest technology to execute tasks that prove cost and energy efficient

o   developing the thinking of managers and executives to adopt cost efficient  ways of achieving the goal

o   Identifying employees that contribute to increasing costs and monitor their attitudes and behavior during work hours, and counseling them as a cost reduction initiative

SK Financials provides with a complete guide for startups and growing businesses on how to survive the tight competition. For more info, visit: www.skfinancial.com

Financial Planning, HR and Payroll

Human Resources Are the Driving Force of Any Business

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Human Resources are the group of individuals who specializes in forming, binding and maintaining the workforce of a firm, business sector or an industry. They play a vital part in any organization to get things done the right way. Therefore, it is imperative to setup an efficient human resource department because without it, businesses cannot carry out their day-to-day functions optimally.

An organization cannot build a great team of professionals without adequate human resources. Most of the small business owners do not have HR departments because they are the sole owner and operator of their business. The owners themselves take care of the hiring and firing of the employees and analyze the performance of each of the employees, and provide them with adequate benefits and compensations.

On the other hand, when we talk about large organizations, the HR department plays an important role in the success of the organization. What good would be a business without professionally trained employees who are ready to infuse their skills into the business? The main purpose of a HR department is to seek out individuals with potential and skills relevant to the business and motivate them to unleash their potential for the benefit of the organization.

Functions of a HR Department

The prominent functions of a Human Resource department include:

  • Recruiting people
  • Selection and Screening process
  • Training new employees
  • Compensation
  • Performance appraisals
  • Informing about the company policies on workplace safety
  • Motivating employees
  • Workplace communication
  • Organizational hierarchy

The basic function that the HR department performs before hiring an employee is participating in a decision-making process, where it outlines the staffing needs, the personal qualities of an individual, his/her abilities and skills necessary to be an asset to the business. HR compensation specialists scrutinize and conduct right compensation measures according to the duties of the new employee.

Another important role of the HR Department is to reduce the potential liability to the firm after a new recruitment and maintaining the company atmosphere. Through an effective selection and screening process, HR manages to lower the allegations of unfair practices in employment. They identify and resolve workplace issues that are unattended and could spiral out of control. They help keep the company safe from legal issues that can hold on for long periods.

Maintaining workplace atmosphere is essential to create a positive environment for employees that come every day and perform their duties with honesty and professionalism. The HR department makes sure that compliance is at every level of the organization from top to bottom.

Employee compensation is an important part of the HR management. Employees tend to get de-motivated when they are compensated inadequately. This breaks the sense of trust and responsibility in the employee, and the business may suffer due to poor performance. Payroll of employees should be according to the quality of work they deliver and each employee is to be treated differently rather than compensating everyone on the same level.

Therefore, HR plays a crucial role in binding the whole business together physically and mentally. It recognizes the need for human resources and the quality of work expected, and delivers individuals that are confident and motivated.

Financial Planning, HR and Payroll

Effective Accounting and Payroll is Crucial for a Booming Business

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Many of you might not exactly know the true essence of accounting and payroll, especially to those who are starting up a new business. An idea and a business plan are important to start a business and a strategy is paramount for building a business. However, no one has ever thought of accounting, which is the building block to a booming business.

Why is Accounting Important

Accounting provides entrepreneurs with a clear picture of the business, the rate of success and failure. Though entrepreneurs are not a fan of going through heaps of financial documents, though they are the most important and informative documents of a business. Effective record keeping is essential and helps keep owners informed of the expenses and revenues.

Owners also keep copious records for legal and tax purposes. Accounting is a collective term comprising of various types like cost, management, finance etc. Accounting helps focus on costs of running a business, which involves production and non-production costs, and management. For a new business, focusing on and managing costs is the key to success.

Payroll in Relation to Accounting

Another factor crucial to managing a business is payroll. It is a branch of accounting, which relates with production units, time or a fixed salary. It is the financial record of employees, their wages, salaries, net pay, bonuses and deductions. It is very important to pay your employees on time, no matter what size of amount is paid. Effective payroll calculations and timely transfer might not be as important to employer as it is to the employee.

Employers can also lose huge amounts if execution of the payroll process consists of errors. In small companies, an accountant will deal with all of the financial statements like, payroll, journals etc., whereas in large companies, different individuals are hired to perform different roles. A company’s payroll system influences the morale of its employees and motivates them to work harder especially if bonus payments or share options are linking to the basic pay.

Managing Payroll System

Managing payroll system is also important for tax deductions and lowering tax bills. Often companies use accounting and payroll software, who forget to ask themselves these important questions:

  • What are my ongoing annual costs, and what does it include?
  • Can I use the same software as my competitor?
  • Is the software compatible with others I use?
  • What are the limitations in functions offered by the software?
  • Is the support staff experienced enough to provide the technical support needed?
  • Is the software easy for everybody to use at my company?

Businesses spend a lot of time and money in searching for the right software. Integrating unsuitable software in the business system can be costly to replace and disrupt the day-to-day business functions. No software is compatible with every business and not all software covers every function of a specific business.

Outsourcing a business’s accounting and payroll functions is very common these days and effective results are achieved. Large firms often have their own accounts and payroll departments but outsourcing can help reduce costs and time spent, and a test run might help to lock in on your choice.

HR and Payroll

HR Tools for All Businesses

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Human Resources is one of the most difficult departments to handle in a business. It has a lot of aspects to it and its assets, the employees, are the key to the whole organization. Good HR management techniques can make or break the entire organization!

There are some tools available online that can greatly help facilitate the HR processes in order to smoothly run the whole department.

Employee Cost Calculator

This calculator requires you to set the default expenses that incur for each employee. These include the equipments cost, the training costs and many other recruitment costs. While hiring the employee, you can either simply put in the numbers or use the default ones to calculate how much the employee is going to cost you exactly.

While this may seem like an unnecessary tool, it is not. At the time of hiring, there are so many aspects to consider that you usually forget a cost or two before calculating the hourly rate for your employee. These small miscalculations, as a whole, can cost you a lot more than you can imagine. This is why it is advisable to keep an Employee Cost Calculator in hand when hiring new employees.

Federal Poster Advisor

The U.S. Department of Labor requires all businesses to put up posters for related laws and regulations across the organization for all employees. The Federal Poster Advisor can help you identify the compulsory posters that you need for your office and provide you with a printable download version of them.

All you have to do is input some relevant details about your business to allow the tool to provide you with a list of posters that apply to your business sector. These posters can include ones for:

  • Equal Employment Opportunity
  • Employee Polygraph Protection Act
  • Fair Labor Standards and Minimum Wage
  • Family and Medical Leave Act

This tool is an excellent method of employing the rules and regulations set by the U.S. Department of Labor without having penalty imposed on your business.

Interview Questions Generator

No matter how expert you are at taking interviews, you can still miss out on important questions that may help you assess the prospective employee candidate for your organization. To help you out, you can use the Interview Questions Generator that has a built in set of questions that can help you assess the potential employee on a number of aspects including:

  • Leadership Skills
  • Teamwork Attitude
  • Interpersonal and Communication Skills
  • Out of the Box Thinking Skills
  • Analytical Skills

Only a good interview, that helps evaluate the prospective employee from all angles, can help you find the ideal candidate for the job on offer.

Salary Benchmarking Tool

This tool helps you find out just how much the salary is being offered for a particular job position in different states of U.S. Using this tool, you can get a compensation report and an hourly rate report for a number of different job positions from a library covering over 800 positions in the U.S. Once you know the popular benchmark, you can easily set your own salary rate for the position at your organization.