FinanceFeeds sits down with Li Carmel from Leverate to discuss the importance of HR in running a successful business

FinanceFeeds met with Li Carmel, Chief Human Resources Officer of Leverate to discuss the importance a good team has to succeeding as a business. Andrew Saks-McLeod investigates.

It is often said that your greatest asset in a business are your people. How important is this in today’s tech driven world especially for a company like Leverate?

I know it may sound as a cliché, especially coming from someone from with the HR sector, but the best asset we have as a technology provider is not necessarily our technology, but our human resources. One comment we get constantly from people visiting our offices is what a good vibe there is at Leverate.

I’m not kidding, we hear this regularly in the hallways when visitors come for meetings, and it isn’t something that has magically happened. For a company to have a good vibe, employees need to be happy, and for that to happen, a great effort has to be set forth on the part of the HR department as well as company executives.

We’ve been in business for 8 years and in the time I’ve been here, I’ve come to realize there are certain things we have done right in order to make the company HR-oriented.

I want to share with you the top 5 things that I think we have done right, and that are in my opinion absolutely critical within a HR department in this industry.

1: A HR department must be a happy department

For us to transmit a happy philosophy around the company, we must be happy ourselves. When hiring new people for our HR department, we look for individuals who are easy to connect with, who are optimistic and extroverted. We make a big effort to implement employee satisfaction within the department and invest in the team’s growth, we encourage learning new skills and we strive to create cohesiveness and union amongst team members.

2: Great recruiters

We realize there are a lot of talented recruiters out there and we strive to gather some of the best there are, but we don’t only pay attention to their professional skillset. We also consider whether they will be a good fit for the company and the team of which they’ll be a part, besides analyzing whether they’ll be a good fit professionally.

3: Let new ideas flow

A HR department should always open to new ideas from people around the company and we listen to what everyone has to say. Right now for example we are working on the company’s core values and we realize that these are more than just catchy words on our website. Core values should be the essence, the soul of a company and so we are involving people from all around Leverate in their development.

4: We keep innovating

We are always looking for new ideas, new projects, new components to our HR strategy. We hold brainstorming sessions about how to improve recruitment and retention and we show everyone in our department that their opinions matter and that their input makes a difference.

5: Management has our backs

Our senior management knows that it’s important to invest in people and they are eager for HR to develop new ideas. It’s important to have management that encourages HR to focus on its employees as a priority.

Working with people, as opposed to machines or technology, is fun and engaging, but it is also challenging because individuals are unique and different and to look for ways in which we can help everyone feel happy and excited about coming to work every day is not an easy task, but having an executive team that supports our efforts and actually encourages our efforts certainly makes our work easier.