Small Business Tips for Assembling an HR Team

Senior HR Professionals

Effective employee management requires professionals possessing critical knowledge to successfully lead and handle all the challenging HR issues of today. When a small business assembles a HR team, it is important to select high caliber individuals. These individuals possess strong interpersonal skills; they have a certain way of thinking about other people. Individuals who are financially-focused are not as likely to have that needed “people sense.”  Any small-to-medium-size business needs to have individuals with that sense, in order---for example---to find the right candidates to interview for that company. 

Also, in my opinion, a business needs a senior HR professional. This type of professional  understands the company’s culture as it relates to the recruiting strategy. They further understand where to find answers to specific HR-related questions that include more than payroll-related practices.  While payroll processes are important and require highly-skilled individuals, answers to payroll questions are straight-forward and easily found. 

This senior HR professional assumes the role of a “generalist.”  A generalist helps develop and execute HR strategies, while managing essential and current best practices.

For Example: Health Care Benefits Analyses

Let’s take health care, which is a hot topic today---both in the media and on the front burner of any small-or-medium-sized business. A business has to decide---how much are we willing to contribute to the cost of health care for our employees and for their dependents. 

Then, they have to collaborate with the finance people to analyze factors such as:

1. Are we going to index this health care contribution to some inflation factor?
2. Are we going to keep this contribution consistent from one year to the next?
3. Will it be a fixed dollar amount?
4. How will it work?

In today’s world of employee expectations, it’s almost impossible for a successful small business to exist without offering some level of employee benefits, whether it’s a simple health plan or whether it covers services like:

• Health care
• Vision
• Dental
• Prescription
• Long term/short term disability insurance

For a business owner, I understand and appreciate the obstacles that they have to overcome when making these integrated-health care benefits decisions.  Not only that, we live in an economy where the employer costs of providing these benefits continue to grow, right along with an employee’s need to have them. 

This is why I believe that a small business owner needs a senior-level HR professional who is highly trained and skilled to help ease these complicated burdens.

Effective employee management requires professionals possessing critical knowledge to successfully lead and handle all the challenging HR issues of today.