When you meet with your friends working in different industries or companies there are obviously quite a few differences in how they interact with their peers, managers and how engaged they are with the organization. Such differences have given rise to terms like ‘start-up’ or ‘tech culture’ that mainly reference the degree of flexibility the organization exercises over how employees do their work.
While there are laws governing organizational policies, there are still different approaches to how employees are managed depending on the type of industry and geographical location.
We’ve compiled a list of 10 ways in which employee management differs across industries such as; healthcare, government, manufacturing and education.
1. Recruitment: The demand for talent dictates the length of the recruitment process. In the government sector and educational institutions, the length of the recruitment process can be long and the process more formal. In industries such as technology, the difficulty in finding qualified applicants has shortened the hire process. You simply don’t have the time for prolonged and formal processes. Maintaining a talent pipeline in such instances is crucial as is having a good employer reputation and brand to attract the very best talent.
2. On Boarding: The onboarding process in some industries can be very quick and largely done online. Other industries with health and safety concerns (manufacturing, healthcare, etc.) require job shadowing and formal training before an employee can work on their own.
3. Discipline and Labour Relations: Industries with contracts and collective agreements have pre-defined processes that they must follow in a disciplinary situation. In the absence of those agreements, organizations have much more flexibility in how they handle employee discipline and complaints.
4. Training: Certain industries (education, healthcare, legal, engineering), expect their new hires to come to the job with certain certifications and education. The maintenance of those certifications and the tracking of their expiry etc., is crucial for the company to remain compliant.
5. Time & Attendance: Some organizations are able to provide flexibility in work hours while others require particular levels of staffing to remain compliant and provide the best service for their customers (e.g. retail, healthcare, and manufacturing). Other industries have seasonal requirements and therefore have different staffing needs at different times of the year.
6. Health & Safety: Safety rules and procedures really come into focus in construction, manufacturing, and heavy industry. Metrics tracking safety incidents are tracked not just for internal purposes, but for government legislated reporting for occupational health and safety.
7. Access control: Security and access management is important for all industries in today’s technical world but industries such as banking and healthcare are heavily regulated to ensure access to confidential information is restricted and customer privacy is respected.
8. Social Collaboration: Organizations in tech related industries are heavy users of technical tools and platforms that allow for online collaboration. More traditional industries are slower to make use of these types of tools.
9. Performance Reviews: While there is much talk and research done about the evolution of performance management, many industries are still relying on the annual performance review. 360 degree reviews and more frequent feedback mechanisms are becoming more common in healthcare, technology, and banking.
10. Reporting: Reporting requirements not only differ industry to industry, but also organization to organization. The type of reporting and analytics needed depends on the organization goals for a particular time period.
There are many options out there for HR systems and tools. It is important to keep in mind the industry you are operating in and the kind of policies and processes you have in place for employee management when you go to select a system. One system does definitely not fit all.
Employee Management is a top priority for organizations in 2017 due to the influence of technology and changing expectations. Find out how effective employee management can be systematically achieved in our Employee Management White paper.
