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Human resource management should be part of general management strategy for any business. It is important to realize that people who work for the company are the most valuable asset. Intellectual capital is being collected for years. Educated and loyal employee is the supreme value for any company. Human resource management is about finding professional employees, hiring them, educating and coaching, creating suitable working conditions for them, offering them competitive salary and compensation systems, and of course retaining them, i.e. creating all conditions for such employees to stay with the company.
Of course, every business requires different approaches. Human resource management approaches and methods are individual for every company. There are many factors to be taken into account before adopting any decision related to personnel. Remember that if the company fails to have loyal and professional personnel it has no chances for survival.
As we are living in the age of information publishing services and publishing business are very popular. Books, encyclopedias, magazines and newspapers are published to meet customers’ demands. Of course, every aspect in the work of a publishing house should be measured. So far, balanced scorecard system has proved to be the most effective tool to evaluate business performance and link operational and strategic management in order to reach strategic goals.
Balanced scorecard uses key performance indicators which are regularly evaluated to get information on the progress of the company on its way to strategic goals. In the publishing business these key performance indicators may look like this:
- Average equipment cost per employee. Publishing business uses various equipment in production of newspapers, magazines, books etc. This includes computers, special scanners, printing equipment etc. Of course it wouldn’t be reasonable to save too much on equipment has this will have a negative impact on the product quality. At the same time measurement of average equipment cost per employee will give company management a general idea on how much it is spending and it needs to spend to provide employees with everything they need to do their job. Company management may think of the way to decrease this cost for example by offering employees share certain equipment.
- Turnover of new hire during first year. The company may suffer losses because of staff turnover, especially when it concerns new hires. When a new person is employed with the company he needs to be educated and he needs time to get used to the work. Moreover, while not doing the complete work, such an employee still requires salary. So, when he or she leaves in a few months it turns out that the company wasted its money. This indicator shows how newly hired employees value working conditions, relations with management and their work in general. By keeping this KPI at the lowest possible level HR department does not only save money but also improves intellectual potential of the company, since after a year such an employee will possess knowledge and experience necessary to do the job and show high performance.