On the road to performance thanks to good HR management

By Nathalie Pouillard & Emma Gil

Published: 25 October 2024

HR management is one of the strategic pillars of human resources management, because it allows you to see your strengths and weaknesses.

The aim? To adapt HR strategy and optimise performance.

Over and above the analysis and reporting challenges, it also generates essential HR communication media. ✨

Let's take a closer look at the challenges of human resources management, how to set it up and which tools it relies on.

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What is human resources management?

HR management: definition

HR management is part of the company's overall strategy through its HR policy. It revolves around forward-looking management of jobs and skills (GPEC), social and administrative management and the use of an HR information system (SIRH).

HR management can be global or focused on certain points, in particular :

Operational or legal management:
Does the company comply with all its legal, administrative and operational obligations?
Customised management:
What are other companies of the same size or in the same sector doing?
Strategic management:
Is the HR policy in place effective and profitable in the long term?

The challenges of HR management

Between analysis, monitoring and reporting, its primary purpose is informational:

What is the company's current HR situation?
What are its objectives?
Which HR indicators should be monitored?

The information gathered is then used as a valuable decision-making tool, to determine the actions to be taken in terms of :

recruitment;
retaining talent ;
improving working conditions;
reducing accidents and illness;
developing CSR policy, etc.

What are the objectives of HR management?

The main objectives of HR management are

to collect and centralise relevant and reliable information ;
Disseminate this information to all managers and employees;
Identify problems and bottlenecks in HR management;
Measuring the results of HR actions;
calculating the return on investment (ROI) of the HR strategy.

To achieve these objectives, HR management relies on a number of tools that enable the HR department to :

promote its actions to all employees ;
demonstrate to management its contribution to the company's overall performance.

How do you manage HR management?

1. Building solid foundations

HR management begins with the definition and selection of key performance indicators (KPIs) aligned with the company's strategic objectives.

These indicators enable performance to be measured in a consistent way, ensuring that HR initiatives support the organisation's overall vision.

Tailoring HR KPIs to the company's specific needs allows for better assessment of various aspects such as recruitment, training and employee performance.

☝️ Please note, however, that a relevant KPI is one that is customised and well chosen, depending on the size, sector of activity and strategic objectives of the organisation.

2. Automate to create value

Automating HR processes using modern technologies and specialised software, such as HRIS, makes it possible to collect data in real time. What's more, it makes repetitive tasks such as time-consuming administration run more smoothly.

This automation therefore improves efficiency, reduces errors and provides a solid basis for rapid, well-informed decisions.

3. Professionalise HR management

Using qualified experts is essential for interpreting HR data accurately and proposing strategies that are both appropriate and in line with industry standards.

👉 For example, a company with a high staff turnover rate can turn to a human resources consultancy. The consultants will then carry out analyses (of satisfaction test results in particular) to uncover any shortcomings, and then propose a programme accordingly: mentoring, training, deployment of internal communication tools, etc.

4. Offering a differentiating experience

The use of data visualisation and artificial intelligence tools to analyse and interpret HR data means that informed decisions can be made.

However, human expertise remains crucial to contextualise this information. This combination of technology and human intervention adds value to HR actions, and above all contributes to improving the employee experience. ✨

What are the 5 HR management tools?

The ISB, a tool for communication and motivation

The Bilan Social Individuel (Individual Social Report) is a summary and educational document issued by the Human Resources department to the employee once a year, in paper or digital form. It is not a compulsory document.

It summarises each employee's individual rights and benefits, such as :

remuneration ;
bonuses
training proposals ;
profit-sharing.

It enables employees to see the company's competitive advantages in their entirety and how they have changed from one year to the next.

It's a valuable tool that is ideally suited to retaining talent: it's a technique for building employee loyalty.

The BDESE, an inter-hierarchical information tool

The economic, social and environmental database (or BDU, unique database) is used to prepare for the annual consultation of the Economic and Social Committee (CSE) with management.

Management is obliged to make it available to the CSE or to employee representatives, where there are 50 or more employees.

The BDESE comprises :

social data (social investment, gender equality, etc.) ;
remuneration (managers, employees, funders) ;
accounting data (equity and debt, investments, financial flows and commercial transfers, etc.);
environmental data (the impact of the organisation, its management and activities on the environment, etc.).

It has a number of objectives:

to simplify and deepen the exchange of information between management and employee representatives;
to reiterate the company's strategic orientations
show their impact on business activity, employment, changes in professions and skills, and work organisation.

With GrafiQ software, it's easy to set up a BDESE according to the rules by importing your DSN, Excel or any other file from your HRIS. Customise it to suit your needs and your image, then distribute it securely (restricted access, secure IP, etc.) to authorised persons.

The HR dashboard, a decision-making tool

The human resources dashboard is one of the essential management tools for decision-making, thanks to its ability to measure and summarise statistics on:

headcount ;
staff turnover;
absenteeism, etc.

Carried out by the human resources department, sometimes by a social management controller, it can be used in situations where:

monitoring recruitment;
training;
performance assessment;
career management
or monitoring the social climate.

The HR dashboard is made up of a set of performance indicators, focused on key success factors (or action levers), all defined according to the company's size, sector and strategy, and is presented in the form of tables and graphs.

💡 You can have an HR table within human resources management software.

👉 For example:

Eurécia HR Portal, one of the modules of the flexible and comprehensive Eurécia HRIS, is used to group and analyse all employee data within a single portal (and therefore a dashboard). What's more, the tool makes it easy to distribute your BDESE to all stakeholders.
Nicoka HRIS uses Business Intelligence to combine your data and create advanced, customised reports to help you make the right decisions. You get a clear and precise view of your projects, while securing your information.

HR reporting, the control tool

Initially used by marketing teams to get to know customers better, reporting is now used in HR management too.

Built up a posteriori, it supplements the HR dashboard with a set of result indicators to inform management of the performance of human resources at a given point in time.

It is a control tool that highlights :

absences ;
sickness
pay differentials
workplace accidents
staff turnover ;
training needs, etc.

Unlike the dashboard, which is an analysis tool used by the human resources department, this is a report on the department's results and trends, for analysis and assessment by the company's decision-makers.

Where human resources management is decentralised, reporting is used to check and unify the actions of all units.

Differences between HR dashboard and HR reporting :

Criteria	HR dashboard	HR Reporting
Recipients	HR Department Management	Management
Indicators	Performance indicators Lever indicators	Results indicators
Objectives	Performance management Service management Change management	HR department performance assessment

HR Balanced ScoreCard

The Balanced ScoreCard (BSC) is a strategic management tool developed by Robert S. Kaplan and David Norton. Applied to HR, it provides a balanced view of performance by integrating financial and non-financial indicators.

The HR BSC is structured around four main perspectives:

Financial perspectives with an analysis of the contribution of HR to the company's financial performance, such as the return on investment of human capital.
Employee perspectives, with an analysis of employee satisfaction and the effectiveness of talent management.
Internal process perspectives by assessing the effectiveness of HR processes such as recruitment, training and performance management.
Learning and development perspectives, measuring efforts to develop skills and innovation within the organisation.

To implement the HR Balanced Scorecard, you need to :

align HR objectives with the company's overall strategy;
Select relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) for each perspective;
implement monitoring tools to measure the achievement of objectives and make any necessary adjustments.

The BSC provides an overview of HR performance by integrating various dimensions, which encourages continuous improvement across all processes.