Treat your staff well, & reap the rewards

Annand Sarnaaik

The booming economy, friendlier regulations and, more importantly, self-belief, are the reasons for the rapid growth of the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector in recent years. This has also enhanced appreciation of the sector’s critical role in driving the economic growth of the country.

Realising the important role that SMEs can play, the government is also planning to lend more support to the sector. SMEs will soon be assured of a guaranteed proportion of the government procurement market, thanks to a new scheme that would make it mandatory for government departments to buy 10% of their services from small enterprises.

While this provides a big opportunity for SMEs, it also requires them to be more competitive. According to Charles Darwin, it is not necessarily that the strongest and the largest species survive, but the ones most responsive to changes will certainly do. The same rule applies not merely to biological species, but to corporate organisations as well.

In order to graduate to the next level, SMEs need to align themselves to new ideas, processes and acquire a professional outlook by adopting the best management practices. In short, they need to change the ways of managing businesses.

Devising strategies is the first significant step towards achieving desired goals. However, the battle can be won only when these strategies get converted into action plans that can be implemented.

The organisation can then create a foundation for collaboration by providing everyone with a holistic view of the company’s strategies, and helping them understand how their roles impact the overall performance of the organisation.

It is therefore important that, SMEs need to collaborate closely with their employees, to increase organisational efficiencies.

However, most small entrepreneurs are keen to keep a firm grip on staff rather than appoint an HR director. A recent survey by a leading SME recruitment and retention firm revealed that as many as 41% respondents agree that they were not spending enough resources on HR.

For any organisation, be it a small start-up or a large-sized corporate, employees are an important factor. It is very important to be in touch with them and interact with them constantly and consistently. It has been noticed that the higher the involvement, the greater will be the benefit for entrepreneurs.

Information technology can play a big role in achieving that involvement. Today, human resource management software can help an organisation find solutions to a wide range of HR issues. It can help the organisation to put the right people in the right job, develop their skill sets, reward the top performers, retain key talent and increase efficiency of its workforce.

This means reduced costs, paperless work environment, an inspired workforce and increased profits. Today, we live in a global village where our best resources are our people and their collective intelligence. That makes it imperative to adopt world-class business practices in order to become globally competitive.

The author is the CEO and MD, Paradyne Infotech Limited

mail to: annand@paradyne.co.in