As May unfolds, it’s not just the flowers that are blooming; it’s also a time to celebrate Small Business Month! For many small business owners, growth is the ultimate goal, but with growth comes complexity, particularly in the realm of Human Resources Management. Keep reading as this blog dives into HR strategies you want to ensure you have covered as you scale your business!

Essential HR Strategies for Growth

As your business grows, so does managing its people. Ensure your strategies and practices adapt and change just as your team does. Here are some key HR strategies to prioritize:

  • Talent Acquisition Plan: Develop a comprehensive strategy for attracting and retaining top talent.
    • Ensure you have clearly defined job descriptions for each role that also align to remote workers (if applicable)
    • Consider the onboarding process for remote workers: everything from equipment, wifi, phones, collaboration tools, to working hours in different time zones.
    • Create a positive candidate experience – first impressions matter
  • Competitive Compensation and Benefits: Offer competitive packages to attract and retain skilled employees. Assess compensation/benefit competitiveness in the market.
  • Performance Management: Establish clear expectations, align goals, and implement a performance management system.
    • Set and communicate objectives with performance metrics
  • Leadership Development: Invest in developing leadership skills among your team members.
  • HR Tech Solutions: Leverage technology to streamline HR processes, from payroll to recruitment and data management.
  • Organizational Structure: As your team expands, there’s a need for more defined roles and reporting structures.
  • Policy Refinement: Streamlining processes and implementing better-defined policies and procedures become essential.
  • Automation: Embrace technology to automate repetitive tasks and streamline operations.
  • Succession Planning: Start thinking about the future of your workforce and how to prepare and empower internal talent for leadership positions.

 

Addressing Complexities and Compliance

With growth comes greater complexity and compliance requirements, especially in the age of remote and hybrid work environments. Consider the following checklist and remember, it is OK to ask for help when you need it.

  • Compliance with state, federal, local, and industry specific regulations
  • Growing a remote team requires registration within each state you have an employee. Make sure you have the following in each applicable state your workforce resides in:
    • Unemployment insurance
    • State income tax
  • Evaluate, select, and implement cost effective solutions for payroll, benefits, and records management (HRIS/payroll systems)
  • Implement HR metrics
    • Time to hire cycles
    • Turn over rates
    • Cost per hire rates
  • Requirements for OT exemption testing against job descriptions
  • Understand unemployment processes
  • Understand Garnishment processes
  • Understand WC investigation processes
  • No more non-compete agreements. Leverage NDAs and Non-interference agreements and fortify private policies
  • Business operating system (EOA, etc)

The human capital strategies, practice, and policies you used to grow the business thus far will need to change to scale which can look like more structure around organizational reporting and roles, better defined policies and procedures, streamlining and automating processes, and beginning to think of succession planning.

Knowing when and what to outsource for help is key. That’s where HumCap can step in. HR issues become more complex the bigger your company is as you must deal with more compliance and employee relations issues.  This also can equate to more risk exposure.  So, companies should think about things like regular employee training, implementing processes for how they handle complaints and investigations, and what tools or technology they can use to track and manage these things. If you feel you need a helping hand with certain HR items – or you need to outsource full HR functions to a dedicated partner – schedule a quick consultation with our HumCap HR experts today to learn more!