While on client site, sitting in Leadership meetings, attending training, there is always one key initiative all companies are talking about right now: How do we attract top talent and, how do we get those people to stay?

For the majority of American’s, at one point or another we have probably had some sort of authority figure directing our work. If you are one of those who decided to skip this step and go into business yourself at the age of 15, I applaud you! For the rest of us, we have had some incarnation of a boss or supervisor who has directed our daily activities at some point in our lives.

I have recently been a part of conducting several HR Compliance and Effectiveness Assessments for our clients and one of the first questions we ask the executives and employees is, “What do you think Human Resources is responsible for?” We ask them to think in general terms and not just what HR is doing at their current organization.

"In your opinion, what does the HR department do?” Is one of the first questions we ask during stakeholder interviews when conducting HR audits. Business leaders come to Helios HR for a variety of reasons: when they are establishing HR for the first time, believe they may need a change in their HR department, or after they've experienced rapid growth. With HR audits, we look at the effectiveness of the HR department including best practices and compliance.

There are some questions out there I can answer on the spot. For instance, Why are light bulbs to blame for your terrible sleep habits? Well, it could be that your suprachiasmatic nucleus is no longer able to differentiate between daytime and nighttime, so it doesn’t know when you should sleep. (This is a real thing!) Another one I know: Who has the cutest dogs in the world? Literally the easiest question ever – that would be me, of course! Others, though, are a little more difficult.

With spring in the air, the habit of spring cleaning often stretches beyond scrubbing the kitchen and perfecting the landscape around your house to streamlining and organizing your work life as well. Perhaps you’ve taken a step back and looked at your HR department and thought to yourself “there’s got to be a better way to do this.” Maybe you’re anticipating growth within your organization, and you know that with more employees comes the need for enhanced processes and compliance requirements. Engaging with a third party human capital consulting firm to conduct an HR audit may be just what you need to hit the ground running with your HR spring cleaning!