Human Resources Trends

Including Employee Rights in the Workplace

Behavioral theory and human resources trends for small business include employee rights in the workplace; handling employee layoffs and re-sizing; work-life balance; ethics; globalization; employee development and talent management and corporate social responsibility.

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Small businesses do not have a large number of employees, but they still need to develop human resource policies and practices.

Why? Partially because there are labor laws to follow; but primarily because your most important resources are your employees.

You need to treat employees well, train them, and pay them fairly.

Consider your employees an investment in your business and in your future.



Human Resources Trends: Workforce Planning and Employee Development

For effective workforce planning, include your human resource plan as part of your overall business plan. Workforce planning always need to be considered a key business function. Growth plans need to be supported by human resources planning and organizational re-sizing (including employee layoffs or employee recruitment ).

Employee development plans include goal setting, training programs,using behavioral theory, and progression and succession planning.

The workforce plan needs to identify human resource needs on a part time, full time or contract basis. Your human resource planning must include job descriptions for all positions, salary ranges for each position, track who is being paid what at the present time and where they are in the range of their position. It should also identify the standard operating procedures for the job and/or the department as well as the reporting structure.

Your human resource plan needs to include and update job application forms and standard testing, sample letters of acceptance and letters offering employment (with detailed terms and conditions), sample termination letters, all employee policies and practices (all need to meet the guidelines for employee rights in the workplace). The plan also needs to identify skills gaps and identify training requirements, training budget and either in-house trainers or outside training programs.

Human Resources Trends: Employee Rights in the Workplace

Employees need to understand not only the labor laws in their areas but also that employees need to be treated well in the workplace – by the employer and by other employees. Developing harassment policies, safety and health programs, and equality practices are human resources activities that all small businesses need to engage in.

Human Resource Planning – Necessary for All Businesses

As part of the human resource planning process, identify how many staff you presently employ (full time, part time, contract): include the length of service as of the date of the plan; include the employee demographics, such as age, sex, first language spoken; include the employee training that you have conducted; include any current-year employee lay-offs or employee termination issues; and any other characteristics that might affect your plan.

Also review reasons for firing employees and/or for employees quitting: wrong fit, poor hiring practices, no or poor testing, the job wasn't as described, the employee oversold his/her skills, and more. Address these, and other employee turnover, reasons in your planning process.


Your human resource planning needs to identify and include the employment standards it operates under (reference the source documents and the date accessed - because they change), to identify the industry requirements, to identify any agreements such as union contracts or employee agreements, and to incorporate business plan elements such as sales plans - including seasonality issues (not just volume), business operations plan, business financial plan, etc. into the workforce plan.

Track human resources trends and adjust your human resource plan to incorporate the trends that best-fit your business today and also fit your business growth plans for the future.


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