Whenever employees seek clarity about the organization or want to tender a request for their benefits; there’s just one person to turn to – the HR. Time and time again, we have heard HR professionals lament about the rate at which employees bombard them with questions and feedback on what should be communicated to the management. In a bid to help young HR professionals have a seamless blend, we have compiled a list of 5 common issues employees approach their HR for.
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Why have I been taxed so much?
In many cases, HR ends up fielding questions about payroll. Apparently, the most common cause of this is an abnormality on employees’ payslip. One of the most common questions employees ask HR is “why have I been taxed so much?” Meanwhile, there are a number of reasons why employees may be charged higher tax than expected. For instance, they might have underpaid the previous year, and the deficit needs to be rectified. Another possible reason is that their tax code may have changed.
In truth, you were hired as an HR specialist and not a payroll specialist. Regardless, you should make it your priority to understand the pros and cons of employee payslip, and the way tax is calculated. This way, you may be able to spot the obvious answer to employees’ questions. This gives you the opportunity to build trust between yourself and your employee(s).
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How do I access the web portal? I forgot my user ID/password.
This question is inevitable, as new employees tend to forget their login details while they strive to settle into the new environment. Either way, your payroll person should have unrestricted access to this information. At least, he/she should have the eligibility to reset the login credentials of your staff. Again, you can create a simple system for helping your employees remember their user IDs.
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What’s my remaining holiday entitlement?
After all the work is done, everyone sure needs a break. After the salary has been discussed, one other thing employees want to know is how much vacation they are entitled to. If your organization has automated systems that allow self-service functionalities for employees, they obviously can log in and get this information themselves. If on the other hand, there are no such automated systems in place, the HR’s office is definitely the place to go.
As an HR professional, you should be conversant with your organization’s entitlement rules and be sure to know how to navigate the employee database as quickly as possible. Furthermore, you should have a solid grasp on how to calculate holiday entitlements for casual workers.
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“My colleague isn’t pulling their weight”
You should be aware that many of the questions and queries you would attend to might not relate directly to employees’ roles or productivity. As a matter of fact, HR is the department where employees walk to whenever there are grievances between co-workers. HR managers are saddled with issues like: “my team member isn’t pulling their weight; can you transfer them?”
Apparently, situations like this can be very tricky to handle. Be it as it may, the very first thing to do is to calm the dissatisfied party down. The reported employee may truly have breached the company’s policy or made things uneasy for his/her colleagues. However, the dissatisfied party might also have come to lay such allegations over what was a petty and avoidable fallout.
Hence, your next move should be to call the alleged perpetrator to order and liaise with him/her. If it’s an issue related to performance, you may want to have the perpetrator’s supervisor or line-manager involved in the discussion. That way, the supervisor can help monitor and facilitate the progress of the lagging staff.
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My job description isn’t right
Often times, HR managers have to answer questions that aren’t related to their roles or responsibilities within the organization. Some of the common problems HR managers have to deal with is that of an incorrect job description. As the HR, you might have helped to setup an employee’s initial contract. In many cases, their job description would have been prepared by the employee’s direct manager, or the hiring manager. This literally means you do not have the autonomy to change their job description directly. However, you could be of help to the employee by organizing a meeting between the employee and the relevant staff. This way, the employee would feel listened to, even if they would end up carrying on the set of tasks they’re complaining about – which is usually the case anyway.
Dipo Umoru
+234 703 719 5924