What Are HR Best Practices

Asking what are HR best practices is reasonable and the phrase itself deserves some scepticism.

Practices travel badly. An approach that works in a large professional services firm may fail in a business with shift workers, a dispersed workforce and thin management capacity. What actually transfers is usually the underlying principle rather than the mechanism.

A small number do hold up nearly everywhere, and they are unexciting. Terms confirmed in writing. Concerns raised at the time and recorded. The same situation handled the same way across teams. Records kept for as long as required. People told what is expected before being assessed against it.

Anything beyond that list is worth testing against your own conditions before adopting it because somebody else published it.

The Fair Work Ombudsman covers the obligations underneath those. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s HR management system and HR policy templates.