WHY IT IS CRITICAL TO DRILL DOWN TO THE ROOT CAUSES OF YOUR EMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS

In the Human Resources business, you can draw from a nearly infinite number of strategies to solve personnel problems. If you have been struggling with your hiring, promotion and firing processes, for instance, you can:

• Hire consultants;• Pay for specialized training courses;• Develop your own in-house methods for finding and rooting out problems.

The 5 Whys methodology — and other techniques that use variations of a strategy called “root cause analysis” — can help you save time, save money and avoid mistakes. By “going deeper” — not just responding to crises but seeking to grasp their origins — you will get a much better big picture understanding of your true HR challenges.

For instance, perhaps the real reason you are having a hard time hiring people is the same reason you cannot attract skilled managers: you have a cash flow problem that is preventing you from attracting good talent. Unless you find and deal with that cash flow problem, you will always have a Human Resources problem. Furthermore, if you focus only on the problems in your Human Resources processes — and you fail to deal with the cash flow constraint — you may never get the results you want.

The moral is simple: find the root cause of your company’s HR issues, deal with them, and then repeat this process. Your business will be healthier, and your team will work better. Stay tuned for our next blog post, in which we will provide a concrete example of how to apply the 5 Whys method to a Human Resources challenge.

For assistance dealing with any California labor issue, connect today with an employment attorney, Nancy Gray, and her team to schedule a confidential and thorough consultation.