HR Must-Haves for Your Small Business to Succeed

You know what’s funny is 50% of small businesses are happy with the way they handle HR matters.
Here’s the best catch.
They think so because they push HR stuff to other staff who have little or no knowledge and training in HR.
It’s like just because no one was hired and trained enough, anyone can do it.
Truth is quite different from fiction.
And here’s the truth.
You can’t sign your employment contract (and that will happen if you keep pushing HR and allied functions to anyone in your organization).
So, if you don’t have a clue where to start with the HR function, here are the HR must-haves for your small business to succeed.
By no means, this is an exhaustive list; but this is a great starting point.
5 HR Must-Haves to Ensure You Forward the Right Foot Forward
These five elements are critical if you begin to install the HR function in your organization –
Holistic management of your business
You can’t run your business in a vacuum.
You need people, processes, technology.
How would you expect to run your business without the right nourishment of your people?
Your people are your employees, who exchange their life to fulfill your dreams.
To nurture them, to make them productive, to enable them to do the best work for you, you need a team of people who are dedicated to their well-being, and in essence, are devoted to the perpetuity of your small business. You need to build the right framework for your people to excel.
Talent Planning & Acquisition
As your business grows, you need to hire new employees to support your vision.
How would you find them?
How would you know that they’re appropriate for the positions?
How would you ensure that they’re properly nurtured and have opportunities for career growth?
The answer to all of these questions is the team of HR.
Before you ever do recruitment planning & hire someone in a technical position, hire an HR first.
She will not only reduce your responsibilities, but she will also make it super-easy and effective.
From human resource planning to create a job description, to attract the right pool of talents, to finally hiring the ones that best support the direction & vision of your organization is the work of art of HR people.
Learning & Development
Every employee is a knowledge worker no matter what s/he does in her job.
Since knowledge is the only power that sustains a knowledge worker, you cannot afford to not train your employees.
Now, when you’re planning to teach them a skill, how would you do it if you don’t have any idea how?
At this juncture, a team of HR enters the room.
They plan the entire training program, create the content, help your employees understand the perspective, and deliver the training program.
Yes, sometimes you need to depend on the experts for skill training, but for the foundational learning & development, the HR team is your best bet.
Performance Management
Not all seeds germinate at the same time.
Some need a little nudge, some need a little nourishment.
And how would you know what a seed requires?
It’s through the result.
When an employee performs poorly, it may not be due to his lack of ability.
It could be a personal trauma that’s bothering him.
Or maybe the fear of failure.
Often it becomes difficult to sit with every employee when you’re running a business. Plus, you need to have specific knowledge to be able to understand, nurture, manage and act.
An HR team will sit with every employee, understand their challenge, help them course-correct, and become a valuable asset for the company.
Often the organizations that don’t have HR end up scribbling a rating on the performance assessment sheet.
Organizations with a sound HR team look within the sheet and help the human beneath the assessment.
Employee Relations
Even if HR is paid by the founder of the organization, when it’s a choice between what’s right and what’s profitable, HR is the forerunner of keeping the interests of the employees.
If you’re planning to maintain a great employee relation by asking someone from your team to handle it, that’s not only a wrong approach; but it harms your organization more than you can imagine.
What if someone doesn’t understand the human element in human resources? Would he be able to manage the tricky task of employee relations?
To play a pivotal role as an HR, it’s utterly important to understand human emotions, human behavior, and inner psychology behind any task they perform.
That’s why they say that starting a business is easy, running it becomes the toughest job in the world. But with an HR team, running a business is as fun as opening your arms to a gentle breeze while voyaging around.
In the final analysis
It’s not easy to build an HR team.
But if you understand the above elements well, you will slowly begin to put one brick after another and build your organization for good.
And we will wait for your thank you letter once you begin.
Good luck!