Human Resources (HR) tasks are boring, sometimes confusing, and very time consuming. No one wants to bother with HR tasks in a small business and many business owners feel they are too small to hire a full time Human Resources employee. They may be right!
What exactly is HR anyway?
Human Resources is actually your people. Human Resources Management is everything that is involved with managing your people from recruitment through termination of employment and beyond. This also means implementing, managing, and enforcing rules and regulations not only set by the company, but also set by federal, state, and local agencies.
The shocking truth
Even though small business owners feel they don’t need HR, they are actually performing human resources related tasks themselves and it is taking up too much of their time. A study by SCORE found that small business owners are spending 25-35% of their time on HR tasks.
If this sounds like you, that is up to 35% of your day away from your core business!
That means 35% more of your time can be spent developing your strategy and driving growth! Since it is crucial for small businesses to grow, anything that takes up this much time is jeopardizing your success.
What can you do?
Passing off Human Resources related tasks to other employees can be a good temporary solution. However, you are then taking time away from their core job duties. It also puts you at risk of noncompliance, lawsuits, and other issues. Why? Because they are most likely not HR experts.
How about seeking an HR Consultant or outsourcing HR?
This can be a great solution for small businesses. A lot of HR tasks are heavily time consuming upfront. This means setting policies and procedures, creating a handbook, developing an onboarding strategy, confirming compliance with regulations, etc.
Utilizing an expert to take care of these time consuming tasks will get you back to working on your core business.
In the long run, establishing a relationship with a Human Resources Consultant will allow you to access a ton of knowledge and experience. As your business grows, you will be subject to more regulations and experience more unexpected and unpleasant situations with your employees. Having an HR Consultant who understands your business operations can be a great asset to quickly resolve any issue.
You had a great idea, you created a business, now grow! Leave the daunting HR tasks to an expert!
