What Personal Advice Should HR Professionals Give to Employees?

April 16 2021 - In any given company, human resources professionals can be of great help to employees. This can take the form of providing any useful advice or services in terms of personal guidance on all manner of subjects. Here’s what some of those are, and also the kinds of advice that they should be providing.

Work-related personal matters on which HR can advise

interesting thing on which HR might be able to provide advice and assistance could be any reimbursement the firm offers for any relevant tuition. For instance, if an employee needs to gain a specific qualification in order to perform their duties in a better way, then HR may be able to indicate if this is something that can be accommodated. This could be a full training course in Adobe Photoshop if they’re asked to perform any graphic design work, for example. HR can also point employees in the direction of open online courses that can help to fill in any gaps in someone’s knowledge.

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HR professionals could also advise employees on how to write a good CV. This may only be if someone is angling for an internal promotion, but nonetheless, a good HR professional could provide guidance on how to make sure a CV looks and sounds the part.

In terms of the more long-term solutions, HR professionals could also help with advice on the matter of pensions. With some company plans being more lucrative than private schemes when to comes to overall contribution, having the benefit of more funds upon retirement isn’t something that should be glossed over. Even if the firm doesn’t offer the highest amount of contributions, a workplace pension scheme is definitely worth considering and a matter that HR professionals should help to deal with. This is also true if an employer hasn’t auto-enrolled any employees in a workplace pension.

Certain matters aren't for the HR department to advise on

This is typically the case for any matters that fall outside of one’s employment. There is no reason for HR to get involved in providing personal financial advice to employees, concerning mortgages and so on. A professional dedicated to helping out company employees may find it useful to keep a list of impartial third-party resources should employees come to them for advice. For example, there are websites providing mortgage advice, providing free, expert guidance on this point. The site acts as an intermediary between the user and lenders, comparing different deals to help the user find the best match. Providing suggestions like this allow a HR professional to help out without giving advice that falls outside of their remit; note that this is by no means a requirement of the role and it would be advised against for such a professional to give advice directly on this kind of personal matter.

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There is a myriad of services that HR professionals can provide for their employees, although it must be said that their advice does not cover every single base. It is at this point where other advisers come in who can provide more expert guidance that should give employees well-rounded and informed opinions on a range of matters.