Member Article

Think Your Business Is Too Small To Worry About HR? Think Again…

Growing a business from the ground up can be one of the most challenging but rewarding experiences in the world, and we’ve worked with ambitious leaders at practically every stage. From recruiting your very first member of staff, to really stepping things up a level and recruiting entire teams and departments, we’ve helped business owners navigate it all.

When you’re at the beginning of the journey though, you can feel like getting some help with HR is not entirely necessary. You might see it as an extra expense that you just don’t need, or a ‘nice-to-have’ that you’ll come to at some point in the future. The reality though is that if you’ve got big ambitions for your business – whether that is in terms of income or impact – then working with an HR consultant in the early days could be one of the wisest moves you make.

Of course, you could say we’re biased, and you’d have a valid point. But if you think your business is too small to worry about HR, we’d like to at least encourage you to consider whether you might in fact be ready for that next step.

Here are some important reasons why even the smallest of business owners should reconsider their approach…

**Small business owners aren’t exempt from complying with legislation **

It’s true that there are certain legal requirements that don’t apply to smaller businesses. Gender pay gap reporting is something that’s regularly hitting headlines at the moment, for example, and it only applies to businesses with 250 or more employees.

Still though, there are many, many pieces of employment legislation that you must comply with whether you have 1 or 1,000 members of staff. If you’re not compliant, you’re running the risk having legal action taken against you, regardless of how small you might be, or how recently you started hiring staff.

**Prevention is always better than cure **

It’s easy to take your eye off the ball with your HR practices, and let issues bubble away beneath the surface. So for example, you might have no problems whatsoever when it comes to absence management with the three members of staff you currently have, so see no reason to implement a policy.

But you might find that as your team grows, you start to hit bumps in the road. Having some robust and clearly communicated policies and practices from the offset is likely to save you from a whole load of HR headaches, and ensure that you’re growth-proofing your business.

**Good HR practices could save – and make – you money **

You’re no doubt already aware that HR problems could cost you money, and could also cost you your reputation as a business owner and employer. A little investment could go a long way towards saving you a chunk of cash in the near and distant future.

HR can help you to generate more cash and more profits, too. Whilst plenty of leaders turn to marketing to tick this box, it’s essential that HR plays a role in cash creation. We can help to ensure that your staff are performing, your leaders are inspiring, and that everyone is working effectively towards a common goal.

**It might be more affordable than you think **

Getting some professional HR help doesn’t mean that you have to splash thousands and thousands of pounds on big projects, or have consultants trailing through your office for months on end. We offer a range of packages for small business owners who recognise the importance of HR, but aren’t in the position just yet to embark on long term and costly commitments.

One of our most popular services for SMEs is our HR health check. We do a deep dive on how your HR practices are performing, where there’s room for improvement, and any risks that need to be mitigated. Get in touch today to book your initial consultation and discuss your options.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Oculus HR .