Human resources (HR) is a broad term that covers everything involving employees, and the tools and processes you use to manage them. This includes hiring, compensation, payroll, employee training, termination, and tax and labor laws. Some aspects of HR involve compliance with state and federal requirements.
If your behavioral health business has any employees, you should have some type of HR in place. Not only does it keep you compliant with regulations, but it helps you attract and keep good employees.
Here are the basics you should know about establishing HR functions in your new behavioral health business.
- Create an HR plan.
The first important step in setting up your HR is to create a strategy to help guide future HR decisions. While this plan will differ from one business to another, some general things to consider include:
- Written policies for management and employees, with your business’s policies, office procedures, and conflict resolution
- Stating your business mission and goals
- Clearly defining employee roles
- Plans for managing employees, including how to handle scheduling and absences
- Processes for recruiting and hiring, training, and even terminating employees
- How to compensate employees, including benefits such as healthcare and vacation
- Following federal, state, and local labor laws
Your plan may change as you figure things out and learn what works and what doesn’t. Your HR needs also may evolve as your practice grows or laws and regulations change. You don’t have to stick to the first strategy or processes you choose.
- Fill in your talent gaps.
Does your business already have the talent you need to follow your HR plan and fulfill all your HR tasks? If so, decide who will handle which HR tasks.
Are there areas where you don’t have all the necessary skills or experience to handle your HR tasks? You and your team members may need additional training. Alternatively, you may need to hire someone to handle your HR.
At this point, you should start looking into specialized software that can help you handle certain HR-related tasks, such as scheduling or payroll. If your behavioral health business already uses digital tools, ask your vendors and third-party partners about its HR capabilities.
- Define HR success.
Even after fine-tuning an HR strategy, you should not just sit back and see what happens. Instead, decide how to determine whether your HR processes are actually working. Choose a few key performance indicators (KPIs) that you will follow over time to see what is or isn’t working.
Some common KPIs to measure for your HR processes include:
- Length of time to hire employees
- Employee retention
- Client satisfaction
- Employee satisfaction
- Absenteeism
- Employee performance
Choose KPIs that make sense for your business. If you are not looking to hire many (or any) employees, you probably don’t need to track time to hire or employee retention. However, if you have a small team, then each employee’s performance can have a huge impact on your business, so that may be a beneficial KPI to track.
Software and other tools can help you automate HR tasks and better track and analyze certain performance measures. Which tools you choose may partially depend on the particular KPIs you decide to track.
Launching (or growing) an independent behavioral health practice? The right tools can help determine whether you are frustrated and disorganized, or streamlined and profitable. Contact the team at BestNotes to learn how our software can help make your practice more efficient.