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must be on his or her to-do list until the task is complete. A supervisor
should not have to delegate the same task more than once. If someone
cannot handle the task because of time, skill, or other constraints, the
supervisor should be made aware so they can then reassign the task as
soon as possible.
In return, staff should not only react to management’s demands but
should push the envelope to a new level by offering to take on new
responsibilities, which will advance the company and therefore
themselves. All employees should be cross-trained in multiple
responsibilities, so they are as productive as possible. Everyone’s
responsibilities should be clear because the whole team needs to be on
the same page for everyone to succeed.
Fire the Deserving

Firing someone is the most difficult task in running a business. Not
everyone is cut out for this, for it can go against many people’s natural
instincts. However, as unpleasant as it may be, if you want to be a boss
and ensure the best for your company, then it is a skill you must
master.
There may be times when you need to fire friends or family members
who are your partners or employees. Firing someone in general is
difficult—firing someone close to you is even harder. If they do not
follow the letter of your written and verbal agreements, and they have
been provided ample, polite warnings, then they have to go, or you too
are being negligent.
If your otherwise effective team is being dragged down by someone,
then it is like a hole in a dam. If your competitor were to apply the
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is, then this will nip at your market position. Of course, you need to
work with people who you trust. Can you trust them to protect and
enhance your market position?
Managers and employees should be judged on their results alone.
Being a hard working, nice, well-intentioned, and well-qualified
person or friend to the boss should never negate the importance of the
financial outcome of that person’s presence in the company.
Cronyism and nepotism are not profitable. You cannot let nice guys
and gals who are your buddies or relatives negatively affect the
otherwise positive flow of the organization, its morale, or its
operational results. Even if their weaknesses can legitimately be
construed as honest mistakes, it just does not matter. If they are not
benefiting the company financially, they will ultimately have to go—
the sooner the better.
From a self-preservation perspective and despite your affection for
most of the characteristics of this individual who you ostensibly “like,”
the most important characteristic of a business always over-rides—
profit. Profit for a company is equivalent to the oxygen mammals need
in their evolutionary pursuit. If you are not acting in an evolutionary
way by weeding out weak characteristics, you are not optimizing your
business, and your competitors will eat away at your profit margin
until you fail.
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You do not ultimately need a traditional pyramid-shaped
organizational chart for your company to succeed. Instead, you might
be able to do much of your human resources scaling plan through

independent contractors, or even friends, family, and former
coworkers. You could even hire a delicate, cost-effective balance of
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telecommuters, employees, and contractors. Either way, the goal is to
get scale and instill efficiency throughout your organization to give
you a leveraged market position.

Nature of Human Resources

In almost any search for the definition of Human Resources
Management (HRM), you will come up with the following: “A fancy
word for people.” Certainly, there is an obvious truth to this, but this
definition is far too simple in our experience. At the most fundamental
stage, your HRM team should know their apparent roles: deal with
hiring, firing, training, and inter-personal issues.
Beyond the foundation, what your human resources specialist should
offer is a slew of qualifications because they are in charge of one of
the most pertinent positions within your company—your team. Since
their job is to fuse together the company’s competitive needs with the
greater demands of the employees, the person to fill the HRM role
would be by someone who has a loyalty to you and your SOPs, is
trustworthy, and believes in building a team filled with real people
who have real values, like yourself.
The HRM’s objective, as stated by Schwind, Das & Wagar (2005), is
this: “Human resource management aims to improve the productive
contribution of individuals while simultaneously attempting to attain
other societal and individual employee objectives.” Wikipedia claims
the objective of the HR role is “to maximize the return on investment

from the organizations human capital.”
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Responsibilities include hiring, compensations, evaluations of
performance, promotions, relations, and planning, and they should
uphold these responsibilities effectively, fairly (to the business and the
employees), legally, and consistently.
For your HR people to bring value to your company, the research done
by The Conference Board found the following six “people-related
activities”:
1) Effectively managing and utilizing people
2) Trying performance appraisal and compensations to
competencies
3) Developing competencies that enhance competitiveness
4) Increasing the innovation, creativity, and flexibility necessary
to enhance competitiveness
5) Applying new approaches to work process design, succession
planning, career development, and inter-organizational
mobility
6) Managing the implementation and integration of technology
through improved staffing, training and communication with
employees
When going through the hiring process, be sure to outline your
qualifications and specifications, so they are written clearly, honestly,
and with fairness; as a result, you should end up with more than just a
“fancy term for a person.”
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Some managers see their HR role as “laying down the law” and
“keeping people in line.” However, that attitude is not conducive to the
teamwork required within the organization. Typically, younger and
less experienced managers are the ones who disregard this lesson.
Building a team is a matter of trust and communication; talk to each
other.