Human Resources (HR) is an area that requires significant focus in today’s successful companies.
This famous picture of workers having lunch 850 feet in the air atop the Rockefeller center construction site in 1932 is iconic to say the least, but it highlights some significant changes that have taken place in the last 90 years.
Historically employees were pretty much on their own, not only in safety, but in almost every other area concerned with their welfare.
Nowadays we have much needed legislation and regulatory governance mandating worker safety, but today’s norm also includes pension, health plans and often other factors that focus on the well-being of employees.
HR is such an important focus of today’s workplace that we need dedicated people whose job description outlines the tasks of caring for the well-being of our people.
Just like any job that requires good tools, human resources departments require structure and resources to be effective. We’ve been very fortunate to have a top-notch local company that supplies us with pension and wellness benefits. They regularly review and report to us so that we can keep our packages current and pertinent to our team member needs. They monitor our team benefits to the point that they can tell us on a percentile basis how our benefits compare to other manufacturing companies in our demographic across Canada. This is a very valuable metric for us to understand in maintaining the benefits that support our team.
We’re also fortunate to have an HR software system that helps us stay organized for everything from employee development & training to holidays & employee satisfaction surveys.
Without these structured resources we’d be faltering in the care of our people.
Today’s workforce needs so much more than a safe place to eat lunch!
“To win in the marketplace, you must first win the workplace.” – Doug Conant
Warren Peters (President of Atlas Industries)
