Yeah, I have heard variations of this comment throughout my whole career, and I have developed a pretty strong (some may say conceited) response to this question. If your HR person or department is good, you know what they do. You know what they do because you are not being sued by ex-employees, you do not have a lineup of people outside your door complaining about their pay, their benefits, their coworkers, or complaining about you. You are secure in the knowledge that you are paying your employees the right amount, and that the Ministry of Labour is not going to be knocking on your door and issuing fines.
You might not need HR right now, but you will. Some people just suck, and you will inevitably hire one of them. This is not about putting in a bunch of useless paperwork and creating work for owners and managers, it is about implementing structure so that those same people can focus on the core business They can stop worrying about compliance adherence, hiring fears, retention issues, and compensation concerns. Not going to lie, there is paperwork involved, but trust me when I tell you it is for your own good. You are going to be kissing my feet, figuratively speaking, when I can pull out a solid letter of offer that clearly demonstrates a disgruntled ex-employee was limited to ESA notice . You will be thankful when I can provide you with data that shows that your manager, the one who always complains about how little he is paid compared to his friends, is actually paid very well compared to the market. Imagine how thrilled you will be when I can then provide you with a salary scale that shows how much you should be paying each subsequent hire so you do not have to get into those awkward conversations with candidates.
You can survive without HR, for a while, but why wouldn’t you want to have structure and a way to efficiently and effectively run the people side of your business – chances are you enjoy doing something else
entirely, so focus on that, let your HR department, be it a virtual or an actual resource, focus on ensuring your people resources are taken care of.
You might not need HR right now, but you will. Some people just suck, and you will inevitably hire one of them. This is not about putting in a bunch of useless paperwork and creating work for owners and managers, it is about implementing structure so that those same people can focus on the core business They can stop worrying about compliance adherence, hiring fears, retention issues, and compensation concerns. Not going to lie, there is paperwork involved, but trust me when I tell you it is for your own good. You are going to be kissing my feet, figuratively speaking, when I can pull out a solid letter of offer that clearly demonstrates a disgruntled ex-employee was limited to ESA notice . You will be thankful when I can provide you with data that shows that your manager, the one who always complains about how little he is paid compared to his friends, is actually paid very well compared to the market. Imagine how thrilled you will be when I can then provide you with a salary scale that shows how much you should be paying each subsequent hire so you do not have to get into those awkward conversations with candidates.
You can survive without HR, for a while, but why wouldn’t you want to have structure and a way to efficiently and effectively run the people side of your business – chances are you enjoy doing something else
entirely, so focus on that, let your HR department, be it a virtual or an actual resource, focus on ensuring your people resources are taken care of.