Community Speak
You shouldn't treat HR as an avoidable cost. And now you don't need to!
Written by: Chhavi Mishra
16/09/2019
4 minutes read
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Once a business idea strikes and takes shape in an entrepreneur’s mind, he or she is in a tearing hurry to give it life and form. And thus, a start up is born that needs a small team to get it afloat. It has been seen that in most cases, start-ups generally function without any formal ‘human-resource’ policies in place. For an entrepreneur or a new business owner it is more critical to focus on the concerns of the business at hand.
It is a common observation that an entrepreneur will put off the task of setting up or writing a human resource policy. In most of the start-ups the human resource policy is what the founder thinks or perceives. This often leads to confusion (and) non-conformity. Delaying a formal human resource policy impacts not only employees but has a direct impact on the way business is conducted and impacts other stakeholders outside the organization.
It is very important to set up a human resource policy and process in place, even when the business is still in its infancy.
A well-constructed human resource policy accomplishes several tasks:
A clear-cut policy binds every employee in the business and helps in applying the same consistently and fairly across the organization
It serves to pre-empt many misunderstandings between employees and the employer about their rights and obligations in the business place
It enables entrepreneurs save valuable time and resources on policy disputes or potentially legal cases
The absence of a clear policy may result in the decline in worker morale, deterioration in employee loyalty, and increased vulnerability to legal penalties
Here are a few HR policies that every start-up must have:
Processes
Currently most Organizations, including SMEs, Start-ups view HR as an additional (avoidable?) cost. This is mostly due to them having to hire HR personnel who they may not need on a full-time basis.) Organizations spend a lot of money on having experts on their roll to help them: Acquiring talent, formulating policies and process, managing payroll, employee engagement, training and development etc. Most of these tasks are not continuous in nature.
Talent Acquisition
Most of the start-ups have a dire need to quickly grow their team in a minimum time period with limited recruitment cost. They avoid hiring a full-time resource, as the requirement is temporary (and thus,) end up spending a huge amount of money by hiring through recruitment agencies and spend a lot of time and effort in recruitment, as they don’t have a dedicated resource from the organisation focussing on the same.
The Gig economy provides a great alternate to SMEs and start-ups to leverage the best talent while spending reasonably. It provides flexibility, easy ramp-up and
ramp-down. Having a consultant on contract, on-board brings the best of both worlds. A consultant not only comes with experience across multiple set-ups that provides an opportunity to select the best policies and processes applicable to the organization, but also comes with zero fixed cost.
The Gig economy essentially ties cost to the value. It has direct benefits to organizations by virtue of lower costs (since there are no benefits, no on-boarding costs for freelance worker, sometimes not even the equipment cost), ability to scale quickly (by contracting ready experts without delay in on boarding, set-up etc.)
Personally, the Gig economy has allowed me to connect with 30 different small and medium scale enterprises and 2 start-ups in very short span of time. I have been able to learn and implement best practices and processes across the domains and industries and assist organisations in laying out what will be best for them and their employees. It also allows flexibility and greater independence and allows for an increase in efficiency.
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