Dear Consultant,

Our organization has just over 30 people and we find that we’re spending an inordinate amount of time hiring and dealing with HR issues. Would it make sense for us to hire a full time Human Resources Manager?

The question that you’re grappling with is a common issue faced by small to medium sized enterprises (SME).  Full time human resources managers are frequently the last position to be hired, and the first to be fired in SMEs during financial difficulty.  This is mainly because of a lack of understanding of the importance of the HR function within organizations. It is common for managers to say, “Our company is not actively growing, so our management team can handle the HR functions associated with regular attrition. We’ll hire and HR consultant when we can’t handle it.”  This viewpoint assumes that HR is only about hiring new employees.  In fact, progressive organizations recognize the strategic importance of a significantly broader range of functions that a professional HR manager can offer an organization.  Some of which can be fulfilled by professional HR consultants, some of which are best suited for an on-staff HR Manager. Schwind, Das and Wagner (2010) talk about a number of value-adding tasks that HR managers provide.  Some of them include:

1. Understand can educate the rest of the organization about the legal landscape with respect to management functions like hiring, firing, human rights, pay equity, labor laws, background checks, etc.
2. Help to maintain harmony in working relationships with employees and managers, including acting as a neutral broker in work-related disputes.
3. Help to create a work environment that facilitates high employee performance.
4. Create processes for managers to follow related to discipline and counselling of employees.
5. Understanding how to attract the right talent to your organization.
6. Build standard new employee selection processes to ensure equity in employee selection.
7. Educate and advocate for processes that maintain a positive and productive culture within the organization.
8. Create standard methods for creating job descriptions that accurately attract the right candidates for your positions.
9. Help establish equitable compensation strategies to retain talent.
10. Maintain safety metrics and ensure safety compliance throughout the organization.

HR Managers provide significant value beyond simply hiring and firing.  Many of the value-added functions of an HR Manager are intangible and add to the organization’s bottom line indirectly through improved moral, decreased turn-over, improved employee and manager productivity and through risk mitigation related to labor litigation and human rights complaints.