Every day, more than one billion people drive a vehicle for work, school, or leisure. Often on auto-pilot, we pay little attention to the individual parts of our car, unless of course, we run into a problem. Without even thinking about it we trust that all of the parts are working and keeping us safe as we go about our day. One important part most of us don’t think about is the metal plate known as a firewall. Henry Ford invented the first firewall out of necessity. Who would want to buy a car if the engine could catch fire and the driver inside would be injured?
Much like the firewall in our car protects us from the engine compartment in case of fire, taking steps to mitigate risk in your business serves as a “firewall” for your organization in order to reduce potential adverse effects. The risks we face when we introduce a new product to the market or when we make a critical change to an operation are more obvious. However, the “people risks” are ever present and no less important to our everyday operations. Building a firewall becomes a necessity!
Some questions to consider:
1. How do my recruiting efforts stack up and are we hiring and retaining top talent?
2. Do we have written job descriptions that accurately reflect the work being done by employees?
3. Do we have a system for performance management?
4. When was the last time we provided training for our supervisors?
5. Have we aligned our employees with key company initiatives and goals?
From supervisor training to audits to strengthening record-keeping processes, it is possible to build the firewall that your business needs. Once in place, it will work for the business, helping to keep things running smoothly. And should a “fire” erupt, we can be confident in knowing that protections have been put into place to fight the flames.
Achilles Group’s HR Professionals are here to put best practices into place and help you mitigate your “people risks”.
