The backbone of any successful company is the HR department, and without a talented group of people to hire, nurture and inform employees, your company will not reach optimum performance. The functions of an HR professional should focus on the company’s greatest resource of all – its employees. Plans and business ideas are important, but just as important is having the right team do carry out the plan.
In your business there are experts to oversee and advise you on various areas and departments. To demonstrate this, your company’s CFO has a mandate to supervise and make decisions related to the financial area of the business. Without good accounting and insight on your cash flow, investments, and balance sheet you risk making poor business decisions and potentially going out of business.
Similar to this, HR has a function of great importance to the longevity and profitability of a company. HR has different functions, in relation to employees or management.
So, when is it time to create your own HR department?
Much needs to be taken into account. Basically when you begin to see that your current employees do not have the time or knowledge to continue picking up some of the above listed responsibilities.
Of course, some HR functions can be held by a recruiter or manager, such as salary determination or promotions. At times, dealing with employee issues take too much of management’s time, and that’s when it makes sense to have a person dedicated to HR. Having a HR person to manage time off requests and benefits and other staff issues becomes even more essential as a company gets bigger. When effective HR personnel implement a strategy that works, staff will be happier and will put in more effort to work. Part of this strategy should include employee management software or an hr software solution that can grow as you grow.
Employee standards need to be kept up to regulation as well as other laws have to be followed carefully. Having an HR expert dealing with these issues will ensure that no codes are broken, and that no slowdowns in the operation of the company are happening because of it.
ROI Matters
Spending money on someone who’s sole job is HR seems like an unnecessary expense for some smaller business owners. This idea makes sense to many, but when you look deeper you get a different picture of the situation. When there is no HR, the job that they would be doing must be done by other staff at the company.
Managers can do these duties obviously, but they usually have more important matters to attend to, and these jobs are not the best usage of their time. There is also the compliance issue to contend with and it could end up costing money.
When it comes to compensation, HR professionals are used to keeping tabs on the levels of pay that organizations need to offer in order to compete effectively for talent in their markets. Professional HR staff can do much for a company, including improving training methods, workplace environment, morale and also can make benefits programs work more efficiently, thereby saving the company money.
The reality is that even the smallest businesses stand to gain tremendously from having a dedicated HR professional on their teams. A business is risking their profitability by not taking advantage of quality HR.