When to Hire an Employee Relations Consultant
If three employees resign in the same year, is that bad luck or a pattern?
If one supervisor receives repeated complaints from different employees, is it a personality conflict or a management issue?
Those are the kinds of questions an employee relations consultant asks. Not because every resignation means something is wrong, or because every complaint points to a serious management problem, but because sometimes the details behind those situations tell a different story than what appears on the surface.
The most important time to bring in an employee relations consultant is often before any of those situations become a crisis. Before an employee formally complains, threatens to resign, or contacts an attorney, there may already be a long history of smaller issues that nobody has connected.
As the highly-rated HR consultant in Texas, Straight Talk HR Solutions doesn’t only look at the incident they were called for. We’re looking at what happened before it, what else has been happening around it, and whether there’s a pattern that a business owner or manager may not have the time, distance, or perspective to notice.
Are the complaints coming from the same department? Do they involve the same supervisor? Are employees leaving after reporting concerns? Are performance problems increasing after a new manager takes over?
A business may think it has a series of difficult employees when the actual problem is a manager who has not been given the training or support to lead people effectively. If that distinction is missed, the business can spend months disciplining employees who are not actually the source of the problem.
Turnover is another area where patterns are easy to overlook.
Every business loses employees. That’s normal. We have seen situations where an employer assumes a position simply because it has a high turnover rate. But when you look closer, the employees who left have something in common. They may all have worked for the same supervisor. They may all have raised concerns about scheduling or workload. They may have left within the first few months of employment. And that tells us there’s something worth investigating.
An employee relations consultant could show that the position was poorly defined from the beginning, that employees were sometimes promised something during hiring that was never communicated to the manager, that the workload is unrealistic, or that there’s no training process, so new employees are set up to fail.
The same is true with employee performance. Before considering disciplinary action or termination, an employer needs to understand whether the employee is actually failing to meet a reasonable standard or whether the company has failed to provide the clarity and support necessary for the employee to succeed. An employee relations consultant can help separate those two issues.
Inconsistent management is one of the most common problems we see businesses underestimate. Employees notice the differences in how you execute your guidelines and policies. They talk to each other. Once employees believe that management is playing favorites, trust becomes much harder to maintain.
From an employee relations standpoint, we want to understand why decisions were made, whether the business has a policy addressing the situation, and whether managers are applying that policy consistently. If the answer is no, that’s an opportunity to correct the process before the inconsistency turns into a formal complaint.
Business owners often assume that if no one is raising an issue, everything must be fine. Don’t make that assumption. Some employees will speak up. Others will not. They will simply disengage, stop participating, take more sick days, do the bare minimum, or eventually leave.
With over 30 years of experience as an HR consultant and an employment agency in Conroe, TX, Straight Talk HR Solutions advises paying attention to changes in attendance, employee behavior, team dynamics, and communication. There can be a story that deserves a closer look. The timing of the changes in any of those areas matters too.
For example, what happens after an employee raises a concern? Does their treatment suddenly change? Are they placed under closer scrutiny, given different responsibilities, or suddenly receiving negative feedback when there was little documentation of performance issues before? Does their schedule change, or are they left out of meetings or responsibilities they previously handled?
These are the kinds of connections that can be difficult for an owner or manager to see when they are focused on keeping the business running. This is also why we recommend that employers involve an HR consultant Texas businesses rely on before they believe they “need” one. Because by the time a business is facing a lawsuit, a serious employee complaint, or an agency investigation, there may already be a long history behind the issue.
The termination that appears to have happened last week may actually be connected to six months of inconsistent documentation. The harassment complaint may involve previous concerns that were never properly addressed. Or the discrimination allegation may be connected to a pattern of decisions that management never realized could be questioned.
We aren’t suggesting that every employee complaint will become a legal claim. Most don’t. But employers should take concerns seriously enough to understand what is happening and respond appropriately.
Hiring an employee relations consultant is especially useful for small and growing businesses that lack a full-time HR department. As your business grows, employee issues become more complex, and managers are often expected to handle situations they have never been trained for. Having Straight Talk HR Solutions, an experienced HR consultant in Texas, can give you an objective perspective and solutions that are consistent, well-documented, and aligned with employment laws.
We work with employers who need help dealing with employee concerns, workplace conflicts, performance issues, and other situations that can be difficult to manage internally. If something is happening in your workplace that you are unsure how to handle, give us a call and start with a free 15-minute consultation. You can tell us what is going on, ask your questions, and we can discuss whether our HR services are a good fit for what your business needs.
Contact us today!