To HR or Not?

Ellen C. Wells

The summer season is over and with it many of your employees may be gone or on their way to fewer hours. Either that or you’re putting out the “We’re hiring!” sign to gear up for the fall festival and wintry weather holidays. In both cases, you may be asking yourself, “I wonder if I should like, maybe, have an HR person on board.”

If that’s what you’re thinking, then you might want to read a recent article on Business.com about it. In the piece, you’ll learn some interesting facts—like that 41% of small businesses choose to handle HR themselves and that small businesses average about 18 hours of HR-related tasks a month—that number jumping to 40 hours if payroll is involved.

If you’re teetering on the edge of “should I, shouldn’t I?” then listen to these three tips the article provided to help you determine when to hire for/contract out HR duties:

Your time is needed elsewhere. At some point, the time you spend doing HR tasks would be more of a financial benefit to your company if you were doing the business-running tasks that make your company money. Find that point for your business.

Uncertainty has crept in. Are you doing the HR stuff correctly? Eighty-six percent of small biz owners say their businesses are compliant on a state and federal basis, but more than half were unsure of whether they’re missing something critical in their maintenance of employee records, handbooks and such. Is that you? Hiring or contracting a professional can help.

You’re growing—with no plans to stop. Growth is great! Except it sucks more time you don’t have with each new employee hire. You want new hires to feel their questions are being considered as they come on board, rather than having a “Thank you, now hurry up and get to work!” conversation with the boss on their first day.

Any of these sound like you? Then maybe you need to find yourself an HR professional. Read the article for further insights at www.business.com/articles/hire-first-hr-person. GP