by Ian Cowley, managing director of www.cartridgesave.co.uk
Hiring an in-house professional is a decision lots of entrepreneurial businesses struggle with. Sometimes it isn’t necessary, but I’ll tell you why hiring a dedicated HR Director was an excellent decision for my business.
As your company grows, so does the amount of people you employ as well the HR issues that come with them. Often, these issues would be resolved by the department managers or end up on my desk, using up a lot of time. Now, I don’t have to familiarise myself as much with the latest policies to ensure that employees are treated fairly and my managers can focus on their core tasks.
Hiring dedicated support ultimately helps us to be more efficient so it’s a great asset to have.
For greater efficiency and cost reduction, we ensure that the people we hire are qualified to create and draft policies. We no longer have to outsource the work to law firms that are pretty pricey. We also make sure we chose someone who has the experience and the drive to keep up to date on the newest revisions so we have the utmost confidence that we are getting the proper guidance and advice.
Besides the financial benefits, we also expect to see a better business atmosphere. We want people to work for us so we strive to make the company a happy place. This is why, for her first assignment, she spoke to every one of our employees individually. We want to make her as approachable as possible and we’ll also receive valuable feedback. Our goal is for everyone to view her as an extra service who can help as well as for her to build a stronger sense of community.
For us, recruiting has been a little tough. We’ve had dozens of applicants who seemed perfect for the role until we met them and saw that they were too corporate. We needed to find someone that meshed with the company culture and understood how an entrepreneurial business functions. This means that besides all the typical HR tasks, she would have to do the full range of her role – including doing her own admin, working on fostering close relationships with everyone here and creating policies.
I believe that the best way to guide her is to throw her in at the deep end and immerse her in the role. Of course, we will support her integration and ensure everything she does fits the company well. In the future, we expect her to handle most things by herself and keep us updated through weekly meetings.
Ian Cowley is the managing director of the UK’s largest dedicated printer cartridge company – www.cartridgesave.co.uk.
