16 HR Management Tips For Small Business Owners

From creating a checklist to outsourcing HR, the list continues

From trying out the Porter Value Chain Model to offering training opportunities, 16 small business owners answer the question, “Can you share your most effective tips on how you successfully delegate HR tasks?”
 

•    Use the Porter Value Chain Model
•    Outsource HR When You Start to Grow
•    Recognize and Appreciate Success
•    Ensure Legal Compliance
•    Find the Right Person for Each Task
•    Approach from Every Angle
•    Write Documentation
•    Create a Checklist of HR Duties and Control It
•    Summarize the Responsibilities
•    Choose Someone With Excellent People Skills
•    Provide Resources, Training, and Autonomy
•    Leave Space for Two-way Feedback
•    Hire an HR Leader as Early as Possible
•    Be Clear and Specific With Your Expectations
•    Find Partners and Services that You Trust
•    Give Generous Opportunities When Training People

 Use the Porter Value Chain Model

A great way to delegate is to focus on creating specific roles or job descriptions within the organization, based on the skill level required. An uncommon technique for achieving this goal is using the Porter Value Chain model as a reference framework. This can help small businesses isolate their core areas of activity, allowing them to clearly delineate which tasks are more suitable for certain employees, and enabling them to delegate responsibilities accordingly. Additionally, it's important for business owners to communicate expectations transparently, maintain open communication lines with employees, and provide adequate training as necessary. Tasia Duske, CEO, Museum Hack

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 Outsource HR When You Grow

I have a small business with around 20 employees. I had been doing HR myself for the last 14 years, but with more employees, it was taking too much of my time. Paychex is helping us outsource some of our HR projects. We had been using Paychex for payroll for years and decided it would be easy to implement since they are already similar to our business. We are not big enough to hire our own full-time HR employee, so outsourcing is a great option for us. With outsourcing HR, I could pick which features I wanted to handle myself and which features Paychex would handle. The best part is now my employees can go directly to Paychex with questions and free me up to do the role of a CEO. Evan McCarthy, President & CEO, SportingSmiles

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 Recognize and Appreciate Success

So, you've cautiously delegated an HR responsibility that you've been handling on your own for years. You're already mentally preparing yourself for the inevitable letdown since you know no one will replicate your success. Then, Joe Bloggs comes along and plays a blinder, finishing the job faster and more efficiently than you ever could have. Don't let any of this ruffle your feathers. You got it; this is proper delegation. Joe deserves your thanks and recognition for his hard work, so be sure to tell him how crucial his efforts were to the success of your company. Joe is far more likely to maintain his high standards if he is encouraged by the knowledge that his efforts are recognized and appreciated. Edward Mellett, Co-Founder, Wikijob

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 Ensure Legal Compliance

Ensuring compliance with labor laws is a crucial aspect of HR, and small businesses can delegate this task to an HR consultant or attorney. These professionals stay up-to-date with changes in labor laws and can advise the business on compliance with laws such as minimum wage, overtime pay, equal employment opportunity, and anti-discrimination laws. By delegating this task, small businesses can reduce the risk of legal penalties and create a fair and equitable workplace for employees. Mark Pierce, CEO, Cloud Peak Law Group

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 Find the Right Person for Each Task

When handing over HR tasks, it's important to choose the right person for each job. You may have some experts in certain areas on your team and not even know it. One way to ensure the best person is matched for the task is to look a little further into your team members' backgrounds and interests and see who might have the skills and experience they can apply to a new role. Alternatively, have a team meeting and find out who might be interested in taking on certain tasks; the level of interest you get may surprise you. Employees understand that being assigned meaningful and challenging tasks can be a great opportunity to develop their skills and increase their engagement. This way, you can align your employees' skills and interests with the HR tasks you give them. You will feel much more confident handing over HR tasks when the right person is on the job. Anthony Martin, Founder & CEO, Choice Mutual

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 Approach from Every Angle

As a small agency, we've run our HR side of things a few different ways over the years. For a while, it made sense to outsource to an HR agency that could support us with their experience on an as-needed basis while we grew the business. Over time, we brought more of that work in-house. I hired a Chief Financial Officer to oversee some of that work, alongside our existing Chief Happiness Officer and bookkeeper. Recently, we brought in a full-time HR professional with over 20 years of experience. So, we delegate HR tasks between several team members looking at it from different angles-employee advocacy, company culture, finances, and so on. That way, we have a rounded team. Matthew Stibbe, CEO, Articulate Marketing

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 Write Documentation

Creating extensive written documentation is the most important piece for successfully delegating HR tasks, whether to a dedicated HR pro or across multiple people on your team. There is a lot to get right with HR, and mistakes can be expensive in terms of both actual cost and employee goodwill. Documentation is the only way to ensure that everybody understands the same thing, and the only way you can hold your team accountable for doing something the right way, every time. Gordana Sretenovic, Co-Founder, Workello

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 Create a Checklist of HR Duties and Control It

With our remote workforce, it is crucial to delegate HR tasks effectively in order to keep our employees satisfied and our business running smoothly. To ensure that tasks are being completed in a timely and accurate manner, I recommend creating a checklist of HR duties to be completed each week. Once the checklist is created, I recommend assigning each task to a specific person. This will ensure that you hold each person accountable for their assigned tasks and will also allow you to track who is completing the tasks and how quickly they are being completed. Finally, it is important to set strict deadlines for each task so that the work gets done in a timely manner. By following these simple steps, you will delegate HR tasks successfully and keep your business running smoothly. Luciano Colos, Founder & CEO, PitchGrade

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 Summarize the Responsibilities

It's important to communicate to the person you're delegating to what the purpose of the task is, and how it fits in with the overall goals of the business. It can be easy when delegating to explain tasks focusing myopically on the individual steps that must be taken, but without an understanding of the intended outcome or how the task contributes to the success of the department or business, it can be difficult for the employee to grasp its importance. Handing over tasks without context also stifles creativity and innovation, as the narrow focus on the task may limit the employee in thinking outside of the box. Therefore, it's important to summarize why the task is important and what you want to get from it. Doing so will allow your employee to truly understand how their work is contributing to the success of your business, and to potentially think of new and better ways of getting the job done. Ian Wright, Managing Director, Business Financing

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 Choose Someone With Excellent People Skills

In a small business, you can delegate HR tasks to a capable team member. Choose someone with excellent people skills because they will deal with lots of people-handling tasks, including conflict resolution and delivering bad news. When you find someone with the right soft skills, it is also important to train them formally for HR functions. That includes the technical stuff, such as ensuring that you comply with employment laws. Aidan Kang, CEO, House of Debt

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 Provide Resources, Training, and Autonomy

The best strategy to follow in this involves three important steps. First, make sure that the person you are delegating HR tasks to has access to enough resources that will allow them to actually do the job. There also needs to be proper training to ensure that this person has the skills and capabilities to get the job done. Also, perhaps more importantly, there must be 100% autonomy in decision-making. Let the junior staff take a much more significant role in making hands-on decisions without always having to consult management. This makes the process more efficient and gives junior staff more responsibility at work. Logan Nguyen, Co-Founder, MIDSS

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 Leave Space for Two-Way Feedback

To ensure your delegation process is as effective as possible, debrief with your team after previous tasks are complete. If there's room for improvement, give constructive feedback that will help your team next time, but be sure to mention the positive feedback, too! Ask your HR team for feedback on your delegation and communication skills. If something gets lost in translation because you were unclear, you can use employee feedback to improve for next time. Make space for that two-way communication and feedback, before, during, and post-delegation. Tory Gray, CEO & Founder, The Gray Dot Company

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 Hire an HR Leader as Early as Possible

My best tip for delegating HR tasks is to bring in someone as a partner who is the de facto HR leader of the business early on. For many companies, especially SMBs and startups, HR is one of the last functions they look at. They feel like they need to get marketing, sales, and finance ready first, or they don't have a proper business. These companies can win by leveraging any outstanding HR tools for administrative HR activities that allow for minimal cost, infrastructure, fuss, and time. On top of bringing in somebody as a partner and using tools, I would ask what tasks we consider administrative and outsource versus what we want to keep in-house and build into a talent management or talent acquisition function. Overall, the key is to hire that first person upfront whom you trust and look at them as a partner. Don't look at them as the last hire or function that you stood up for. Instead, look at them as somebody who will help take your business from good to great. Oz Rashid, Founder & CEO, MSH

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 Be Clear and Specific With Your Expectations

Provide the team member with all the information and tools needed to complete the task, check in regularly, and be available to answer questions. When delegating tasks, it is important to be specific so that the person you are delegating understands the tasks that need to be completed, when they need to be completed, and what resources they have to draw on to complete the tasks. If the expected outcomes are not clear or if you did not clearly outline the project timeline, it can lead to confusion and delays in completing tasks. Being clear and specific when delegating HR tasks will help to ensure that there is a clear understanding of tasks that need to be completed and help ensure that projects are completed in a timely manner. Harman Singh, Director, Cyphere

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 Find Partners and Services that You Trust

As a small business owner, I'm still taking on a lot of HR tasks. Fortunately, because of some outstanding technologically enabled solutions and partners we've hired to off-board important but time-consuming tasks, I've been able to deal less with HR-related initiatives. The key to allowing myself to be hands-off is that we spent a lot of time upfront getting recommendations and vetting partners and services before agreeing to anything. Without understanding the full capabilities we were unlocking and building partnership agreements that delivered on our needs, that wouldn't have been possible. Dan Gray, CEO, Vendry

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 Give Generous Opportunities When Training People

Delegating means letting go of the control that you have over your business and giving it to other people, trusting that they will deliver and do what they're supposed to do. As a CEO of a growing small business, one tip in delegating HR tasks successfully is to never train people with only half your energy and enthusiasm. Train them generously and adequately and give abundant opportunities to grow and apply all their learning to their tasks. There will be that fear that after all the training and time you invested, they will leave the company, but it's something you have to compromise on as a business owner. One way to prevent that from happening is to treat your employees right. Daniel Petkevich, Founder & CEO, Fair Square

Author Bio

Brett Farmiloe is the Founder / CEO and currently the CHRO of Terkel.io Connect Brett Framiloe