- Companies often go through a five

- Companies often go through a five-step process to determine their HR needs. They prepare an inventory of all their employees to make sure they're technically up-to-date and properly trained in order to be relevant in today's business world. They perform a job analysis to understand the function of each employee within the organization. This information is then used to prepare job descriptions and specifications that detail the type of person needed to perform the job. HR also assesses future needs in order to stay ahead of the curve and properly train employees. Companies additionally assess the labor supply outside their organization to be better prepared to act when the need arises to hire more employees.
- Human resource planning really starts at the highest level, understanding the areas that the company is growing. For SAS, over the years, we have gone from being a high-end technical tools provider to a— truly, a business analytics company, so our users have changed over the years. The types of people that we have had to hire over the years have heavily been influenced by the direction we've been going as an organization. It's important for human resources to be actively involved in those conversations so that you can meet the demands that are going to be needed.
- Once they know what their needs are, HR managers often perform certain steps in their quest to hire qualified candidates.
- The recruitment process includes not only an enormous amount of prescreening and interviewing for the technical skills that we need, but we also look for cultural fit, and decisions are not made in isolation. It includes a hiring manager along with stakeholders who will be involved in either interacting with this individual or will be a consumer of their services internally. We want to make sure that we make good decisions on the front end.
- Training is an integral portion of human resources management. As the business world becomes more technology-driven, employees need to be trained to keep up with its ever-increasing pace.
- Training is very important to us at SAS. We have—20% of our workforce have advanced degrees, and in our research and development area, over 10% have PhDs, so education and ongoing training is just in our DNA. And then, through our work/life programs, we have what we call interpersonal training, offerings that just help make life a little easier for our employees.
- Training occurs within all levels within an organization. Many companies have structured development programs to help employees become quality managers. In come cases, employees network with mentors inside their companies. Typically, a mentor is someone who is at a higher level and can advise, provide guidance, and introduce the employee to appropriate people within the organization that can further enhance their career.
- 90% of the positions that we have open are filled internally.
- We grow our leadership organically, and that's really intentional. It's important in order to be a good leader here at SAS that you really understand the culture. A lot of managers want a manual, and HR's great at handing the book of rules, and at SAS, we are managing human beings, and so there's not going to be a manual that's going to tell you exactly how to handle every scenario that comes up. So we want our managers to understand how to motivate and empower their employees, and we think that's best done when they have an understanding of who we are as an organization.
- Creating a diverse workforce isn't just legally and morally correct. Successful HR professionals understand that hiring women and minorities makes good business sense, because they are able to bring more qualified and quality employees to the table. Plus, by increasing the amount of women and minorities within an organization, companies are better able to serve their female and minority customers.
- At SAS, diversity is very important to us. We believe that the best products and solutions come from diverse thoughts and ideas. Over—nearly half of our workforce are made up of females, and half of our leadership team is females. That's quite unusual for many organizations, certainly in our industry, and we're very proud of that.