It’s not very common for start-up small businesses to prioritize HR.
What should you think about?
You’ll need to create HR plans, policies and processes that meet short-term requirements and budgets but also take into account your long-term goals.
Small businesses rarely have dedicated HR staff and the duties often fall to someone who may not have experience in the various aspects of Human Resources like hiring, payroll, benefits, employee relations, etc.
The following items generally fall under human resources and should be considered with any size company:
- Organization structure: Who reports to whom? If the company becomes large enough, how will teams/departments be structured?
- You don’t need to have a formal, comprehensive organizational chart when you open the doors but you should have a simple document showing the structure. This will help with decisions on workforce planning and, if needed, outsourcing
- Recruitment/Hiring/On-boarding: How to write a job posting? How to attract top caliber talent?
- While you may not be hiring a lot of employees at first, it is still important to know how and where to advertise your open positions, interview and decide who you’re going to hire as well as make their first day meaningful. You should have offer letters, payroll data and employment verification forms, as well as any employment agreements that might be relevant like a non-solicit agreement.
- Compensation/Benefits: What is the proper compensation for each position? How do you decide what benefits to offer?
- Once you’ve hired an employee, hopefully you will want them to stay. If so, a competitive rewards program is important. Determining a general salary structure, what payroll system you’ll be using, paid time off, insurance benefits and 401k are all important to your employees.
- Training/Performance Management: You want employees to stay with the company so training and development are key. Are the employees growing/developing in their roles?
- It is important to make a commitment to launch a plan for employee development and training so employees can continue to grow in their positions and with the company. By the completion of your first year in business you should have a performance management process in place so you can review employee performance and possibly provide a pay increase.
Don’t let the fact that you are a small business fool you into thinking that you don’t need to worry about human resources.
With hard work and a little bit of luck, your company will grow and that’s when you’ll be glad you took the time to think about Human Resources.
To avoid HR problems and for more help with your HR policies and challenges, reach out to us for quick consultation. We have spent over 9 years specializing in HR solutions and providing small businesses the additional HR support for their growing back office.
