Whether you are running a large multinational corporation or a growing startup or small to medium-sized business, HR is one is one of the most important departments in your company. Why? The answer is simple: people. Regardless of how good your product or service or how well you have positioned your brand on the market, the most important piece of the puzzle that is your business is the people that make up your company.

And regardless of how many employees you have, you will have to start thinking about HR, not just for recruiting new people, but also for making sure the old ones are still motivated, and organizing timely employees training, building a strong company culture, transparency, and handling employee grievances. Let’s take a look at some points which illustrate the importance of HR. As much as 83% of all employees think that attracting and keeping talent is a growing challenge because there is more competition out there than ever.

In addition to that, according to Randstad, and HRs of essay writing services, the main values which keep employees motivated and loyal are salaries, benefits, long-term job security, and as well as a pleasant working atmosphere. Moreover, 93% of employees are more likely to remain loyal to their employer is the employer is empathetic. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how you should tackle all the challenges of HR in your company, and structure an effective HR team of any size.

Avoid the 1:100 Guideline

Peter Barton, the HR in best paper writing services, says:" When it comes to determining how many employees your HR team needs to have, you will often come across information which is pretty contradictory or downright outdated". According to one such guideline, you should have one HR person per 100 employees. However, while this may have worked in the past, that is no longer the case, and you should determine the size of your HR team based on the size or scale of your organization. And it also depends on whether your company is growing or not. In the case of the latter, you may have to start increasing the size of your HR team.

As a result of this flexible approach, small businesses often do business without an HR team in place, as they choose to build it up as they hit new growth milestones. Also, they rely on HR software solutions which help them automate certain aspects of recruitment, hiring, as well as to do payroll runs and time tracking. According to HR technology experts over at CakeHR, your company may not need its first HR person until it hits 150 or more employees in some cases.

Of course, if your rate of growth is fast, you will need to add more HR staff at least to deal with the FMLA and ACA acts.

Start by Hiring Two More HR Employees

As we have already pointed out, if your company has over 150 or more employees, you will probably not be able to handle all of the HR demands yourself, which means you need to hire at least one more person. And this is where things get a bit more complicated.

The first option would be to hire an HR assistant which would allow you to become the head of HR and handle all the internal HR needs of the company, such as company culture, employee relations, and productivity management. Your assistant, on the other hand, would be required to handle administrative tasks, file paperwork, as well as post job ads in case your company is looking for new people. This approach works because it will allow you to be more productive. With your assistant shouldering the burden of administrative work and repetitive tasks, you would be able, as a manager, to focus all of your capacities toward strategic HR decisions.

The second option involves hiring an HR recruiter which will be required to recruit and hire new staff members. As recruiting is probably the most time-consuming aspect of HR, it would make sense to hire someone to handle it full-time. This option is especially convenient if your company is growing and you need to hire a lot of new people over a relatively short period of time. Again, this would allow you to handle all of the other aspects of HR properly, without having to go back and forth between managing all of the internal company needs and hiring new people.

The third option, and probably the best one for most businesses, would be to hire both the HR assistant and the recruiter, which will further enable you to channel all of your skills and efforts toward developing company culture, employee retention strategy, and so on.

Separate HR by Function and Hire an HR Person for Each

As you know, HR includes a whole spectrum of different activities and functions which will become increasingly complex as your company starts to grow in terms of staff, revenue, as well as market share. While the three-person HR team (manager-you, assistant, and recruiter) may be able to handle everything in the beginning, you will have to expand to include other HR staff members with their appropriate specializations. Let’s take a look at how you might want to structure your team:

• HR director- this is you, and you are in charge of making all of the strategic HR decisions and facilitating communication with top senior staffers, such as CEO, CFO, CMO, and so on.

• Administrative expert - this HR staffer would be responsible for jobs such as compliance, compensation, benefits, as well as HR information systems.

• Recruiting manager - creates job ads, reads and selects resumes, interviews all of the potential employees, and decides which ones will be extended a job offer, and is well-versed when it comes to the application tracking system.

• Employee relations manager - this HR staffer is responsible for managing labor and employee relations, employee disputes, recommending policy changes, as well as making sure that the Equal Employment Opportunity policy is implemented.

• Compensation manager - is accountable for establishing pay and compensation models for company employees within a given budget, works using core HR software solutions, and makes sure that payroll and benefits are carried out without a hitch.

• The training manager - as your company grows, you will need to integrate and train your employees. Training manager is tasked with developing training courses for your employees, all the learning materials, as well as implementing a learning management platform of choice. Apart from, they are also in charge of employee training assessments.

• Compliance manager - whether you are a small or large company, you need to make sure that you are doing business in accordance with all of the latest regulations and policies on safety, health, and employees.

Choose the Right Model

The good news is that you can choose between several models, depending on how your company is organized:

• Matrix model - this model works really well in companies where employees need to report their results to different departments. This sort of organization requires effective everyday collaboration between mid-level managers and employees working for different departments. This approach also allows employees to grow and to collaborate with different teams and manages, therefore expanding their skills and responsibilities, which keeps them motivated over time.

While the positive sides are obviously employee growth and increased autonomy, in order to keep everything running smoothly, your HR team needs to be very hands-on and dedicated at all times. If you can manage to do that, you can also look forward to other advantages, such as better coordination of resources, development of highly specialized employees, and tighter communication and collaboration among all the teams in your company.

• Shared service model - this model is usually focused on administrative aspects and activities of HR, which are centralized and shared. In addition to cost reduction, this model also prevents you from duplicating your work, and with the lesser workload, you have the opportunity to focus on the strategic aspect of HR. Another key element here is the customers, which are your employees, that get to decide which services they want to acquire, as well as their level.

While this model is primarily used for administration, it can also be used for providing advice and support. When switching to shared services, you need to plan out the way in which the change management process will be carried out, and that includes making the decision about which staff members will become a part of the shared services, and how their development will be handled.

• HR business partner model - in this case, your HR department is a part of the strategic planning whose goal is to assist your company in meeting their short and long-term objectives. In other words, your HR team will not be focusing on carrying out the usual HR tasks, such as payroll, employee relations, company, culture, and benefits, but rather helping the company increase its value. How? The answer is through the selection of new employees, timely training of your existing ones, their career development, and finding the right position for them inside the department.

The key benefit of the business partner model is that it relieves the management of certain tasks, such as employee productivity, honing of their skills, as well as their advancement. All of those are then handled by the HR team, which also analyzes employee review data. That way, they can decide which employees need more training in order to meet the requirements, which need to face disciplinary action, and which needs to be groomed further in order to find them their ideal position.

However, this can only be achieved if your HR team is relatively large and not too overworked when it comes to their regular activities. Because this model requires HR to be a part of just about every single aspect of the business, your company may not have enough resources to spend on expanding its HR department.

Things to Consider

If your company is huge, the structure we have talked about above can be divided into further sections to accommodate your needs. For instance, you may choose to hire additional HR assistants or specialists for employee relations, recruitment, and so on. You may even choose to hire another HR manager that will share your workload, especially if your company has offices in different locations or countries.

One thing you may want to avoid when structuring your HR team is assigning your staffers with a task or a role they aren’t qualified for, simply because you need someone to fill the position. In some cases, this may work out well, but in most, trying to retrofit your staffers to your needs is a bad idea. If your recruiter is not good at being the head of HR or isn’t interested in the position, finds someone else or hire a new person.

HR software platforms and solutions, such as those offered by CakeHR, are definitely worth a look, especially if your company is small and you don’t have the resources to hire additional HR employees. These solutions allow you to automate some of the repetitive and menial tasks you are faced with on a regular basis, such as running payroll and tracking clock-ins. HR technology will also enable you to save money and be more productive until you can afford to hire more people. Software and machines are still no match for them.

Another reason why you may want to use HR software is that it makes it easier for you to track employee performance and abilities. Identifying the best performers and grooming them into specialists can add significant value to your company. Also, as mentioned before, you will be able to see which employees need additional training to expand their skills, and which ones need to be let go.

Final Word

As you can see, there is no silver bullet, no one-size-fits-all solution. However, there are some guidelines and suggestions that you may want to adhere to because they have proven themselves as effective, time and time again. Think about what your company is like, its goals, growth, employee skills, and market share, and then structure your HR team in a way which reflects those factors. Good luck!

Lauren Adley is one of the term paper writers and editor at best essay writing service 2019, essay mama, Edubirdie review service, and Bestessays. She is dedicated to her family, work and friends. She is keen on reading, playing the guitar and traveling. She is interested in educational, marketing and blogging issues. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter if you need my assignment help australia.