What is Lean Methodology?

Have you ever considered applying the lean methodology to your HR function?

Hi, I’m Alana from Employment Innovations and I’m here to give you a brief overview of Lean HR.

Lean as a concept has been used across many industries and divisions for years and this approach can also be applied to HR.

The idea of Lean is to identify processes that don’t add value to a business, eliminate what are called wasteful activities, and ultimately increase efficiency.

HR has not historically been seen as revenue generating or value adding however a lean approach helps you focus your, commonly limited, HR resources to deliver maximum value. When implemented well, you should be able to see a tangible return on investment.

Lean HR is flexible and enables you to manage your HR investment based on your ever-changing business needs and fluctuations whether this be an increase in support or a reduction.

An important element of Lean HR is the capability of managers – by building strong people managers, a lot of HR responsibilities can inherently be absorbed and issues mitigated before they escalate. Your managers are your culture curators and the leaders when it comes to driving the right behaviours, so it’s important that they are provided with access to the right tools, training and expertise.

Lean HR can be achieved through the introduction of 8 Lean HR Principles.

The 8 lean principles include:

1. The implementation of cloud based HR Software to simplify and automate hr management and administration
2. Access to on-demand HR expertise to help you and your managers make better and faster people decisions
3. Providing your managers with the right tools to ensure role clarity, drive the right behaviours, manage performance and develop their teams
4. Have genuine coaching and career conversations between managers and employees
5. Measure employee happiness and engagement, to actively improve this
6. Use data to reasonably predict turnover and, as a result, minimise time to hire
7. Set goals across the business, including HR, that are aligned to company objectives
8. Take a continuous improvement approach to the health of HR in the business

Lean HR is about removing waste, increasing efficiency, prioritising impactful HR activities and building capability.

Keep an eye out for our future videos where we dive deeper into each of the lean HR principles.

If you’d like to know more about Employment Innovations and how we can help you improve your current HR practices, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.