How HR Can Benefit From Project Management

Without an HR department, an organization is essentially a sinking ship. HR is the backbone of a business’s success, from onboarding new employees to ensuring other departments are smoothly working together. Having to juggle numerous tasks all at once can cause HR projects to unravel into chaos sometimes. Fortunately, you can prevent this through HR project management. 

Statistics show that the market size of project portfolio management software continues to increase and is a way of setting smart career goals for HR. Project management involves managing a project’s entire progress, such as initiation, execution, and rollout, which is similar to what HR does. In this article, we’ll look into the reasons HR and project management skills go hand in hand. 

1. Delegation

Individuals well-versed in project management are skilled delegators. They’re responsible for assembling a team suited for the job, assigning tasks, and overlooking operations until completion. HR departments can take many notes from this method. 

Numerous HR managers have claimed in the past that their department lacked the numbers to maintain workflow. It’s common for an HR department’s priorities to shift from managing the employee life cycle to leadership communication problems, such as with board members, dealing with company social responsibility objectives, and responding to legislative needs.

Though reasonable ventures, there’s only so much one team can do efficiently. For this reason, delegating tasks is of the utmost importance. Project management skills can help an HR team cater to the needs most critical to their department so they can later look toward solving other problems. 

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

2. Fulfill Needs

A diligent project manager won’t just start working on an appointed project without dissecting the fundamentals. They’ll ask the hard questions: What exactly do customers want? What sort of project can live up to expectations? What’s broken? How long will it take to fix it? An HR team can achieve quarterly goals much more efficiently by applying the same policy.

By focusing on what you really need rather than executing projects or schemes based on perceived requirements (for example, a modified performance review plan), you’ll observe being more successful and spending less time on carrying out the wrong tasks even if your intentions are pure. It’s recommended to frequently survey your team regarding their biggest challenges at work and design solutions accordingly. 

3. The Correct Technology Investment

Project portfolio management software makes doing project-based jobs simpler and more efficient. Such tools help improve the quality of products and communication, management of the budget and time, and customer satisfaction. Big projects are a hassle, and without the right software to assist you, they can consume more time and effort than necessary.

 As technology continues to take the world by storm, everybody today can reap the rewards of tech solutions, with HR being no different. Be it employee recognition or recruitment tracking, there’s a stream of project management tools to choose from to address your HR needs and elevate how your team tackles workload. Be careful when deciding upon a tool to increase workplace productivity because otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time and money on the wrong fit for your department. 

4. Structure

For project teams, structure in operations is directly related to success. There’s a set time and priority for meetings, regular reporting, and milestones, as provided by the project manager. When there are expectations and rules, people are more likely to stay on track and avoid slacking. A sound structure also makes it easier to identify any risks and problems creeping in. 

Incorporating structure benefits everyone as it pushes you to meet performance targets. Setting expectations from the first day and following by regular check-ins helps ensure that employees produce satisfactory work. HR can implement structure in various ways like specific and precise job descriptions, performance review processes, and regular meetings. The clearer and more precise the rules and regulations for working honestly and maintaining company standards, the better. 

5. Funding

Receiving support from sponsors or people at the top to run a project is essential for prosperity. This enables project goals to meet organizational priorities and encourages a team to display their best work by portraying how significant the project is to the organization’s vision. 

HR efforts can attain many advantages from this approach. Measures like establishing a fresh set of key values or updating the payroll process have a strong probability of going to waste without funding. You can ensure your plans don’t fall through by involving senior leadership when making decisions or having an HR representative in the executive team. 

Endnote

The time of haphazardly completing numerous tasks, executing manual processes repetitively, and losing vital data is coming to an end. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. Instead, HR teams should focus on introducing seamless recruiting processes, reusable systems, and practical resource storing tools. By integrating project management software and strategies into HR, all of this is possible and more.