HR department is responsible to perform various aspects of employment, from recruitment to labour law and compliance. HR personnel also needs to ensure that new hires’ onboarding process is conducted well because onboarding employee learns rules and ethics in the workplace from the orientation program. Thus, they will understand who to contact and what to do when problems occur. With that in mind, HR practitioners should not forget the rule-of-thumb of human resources management and recruitment process.

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Rule-of-thumb refers to a series of guidelines aimed to make HR law and policy more flexible and reliable for every HR responsibility. So, instead of following theory of HR and recruitment all the time, you can easily apply procedure and standard based on practical experience. In our list, here is HR rules-of-thumb list to be followed constantly – what is your favourite rule?

Rules of recruitment:

• Human resources must always present in all interviews to avoid a hassle in the future- which means no matter how busy you are, always make yourself present during the session either by call or video call. 
• In recruitment, the first interview session only provides an outer-skin of employee’s ability.
• Personal questions are never allowed in an interview.
• You should never give reference check besides dates of employment, otherwise, your company or your employees can be vulnerable to phishing attacks.
• At first, you should hire values and attitude – because the rest will be easy to get.
• Acknowledge yourself that a bad reference can be as hard to find as a good employee.
• Robert Half said, “The best person you interview is not necessarily the best person for the job.”  
• A new hire has not really been accepted until they show up to work on Day 1.

Rules of workplace culture:

• There are more than two sides to every employee harassment story, therefore, always find more facts to the report.
• It is not an open discussion if there are no side-snacks in the conference room. That means if you want an open discussion with your employees, make the atmosphere relaxed and happy as much as possible, such as providing snacks or meal. 
• Everything might fall apart around day 2 of your vacation – meaning that since HR is responsible for the entire workforce wellbeing and programs, thus, if you want to take a long vacation, make sure you have done your homework and assigned someone you trust to take over your responsibilities.
• You should take every allegation of wrongdoing seriously and investigate, otherwise, you might lose top-performer “again”.
• If it is important and vital to business, it should be WRITTEN in a policy.
• Employees’ files are very confidential and should be guarded with your life.
• Always remember that company’s most valuable asset is its people.

Read also: Important Company Policy that should be in a Written Clause