When is the right time for an SME to bring in their first HR Leader?

Kerry White, Co-Founder and Director at RedGreen Partners discusses some important take aways from a recent event she attended.

I recently attended a business event for founders of SMEs called Grow with Confidence and went along expecting to hear lots about growth, finance, sales, strategy, scaling up and all the usual things that come with growing a business.

But do you know which department was talked about in the most positive light by the panel?

HR!

I was a tiny bit shocked!  Not because I don't think HR is important (I’ve built my career around HR!), but because this wasn't an HR event. It was a room full of business owners and leaders talking about how to grow successfully and sustainably.

And HR kept coming up.  When they talked about growing a business, it wasn’t just about creating a business plan and operating model.  Again and again, they talked about having the right people strategy within the business, not just for now, but for 2-3 years’ time. 

Some of the business leaders didn’t have HR when they grew and that was their biggest regret - one phrase in particular was repeated several times:

"You don't know you need HR until you need HR."

This got me thinking. Why do businesses so often wait until they need HR before they bring HR in? 

The Business owners talked about how their organisations had grown considerably. Recruitment became reactive. Managers were dealing with performance issues without the right support. Structures that worked when there were 30 people don’t work now there are 80. And employee engagement had become much harder to maintain now growth had happened so quickly.

And that's where HR comes in.  You don't have a business without your people, so having someone thinking about how those people are recruited, supported, developed, measured and organised has to be part of the wider business conversation.

And perhaps the biggest opportunity for an HR Leader in an SME isn't dealing with the problems that already exist, it's helping to build the foundations before those problems arise.

For me, that's where the value of a great HR Leader really starts to become apparent and it was refreshing to hear HR discussed in that context at a business leaders event.

So come on, let’s spread the word….. let’s get those HR professionals into your business BEFORE you grow, not after!!!

To have a confidential chat with Kerry White, Director at RedGreen Partners, please email kerry.white@redgreenpartners.co.uk or call 07831464981