Don't underestimate the importance of HR within SMEs

You have some IT challenges and contact an IT consultant. You want a clean workplace and hire a cleaning service. You need to translate important contracts and hire an external translator-interpreter. Due to a lack of time and/or expertise, companies regularly hire an outside party. Have you ever considered that you can also call on an external HR Manager?

External HR Manager, your sidekick

Everyone knows it: a strong company needs an optimal HR policy supported by committed and motivated employees. To achieve this, you need a structured personnel policy. By engaging an external HR Manager, you can focus fully on the core business of your company. The HR manager pays sufficient attention to your employees and the HR policy in general.

From personnel director to HR Manager

The days when the personnel director secluded himself in a locked and remote office are far behind us. In the past, the human resources director had more of an administrative role, making sure that paychecks were sent on time and disbursements went smoothly. Today, we have very different expectations of the human resources manager. First, more than ever, the human resources director deserves the title of "manager." Indeed, the HRM has become the company's linchpin figure that keeps the engine running and ensures an aligned HR policy that provides a handle on every employee.

Growing expectations

Over the centuries, human resource management has evolved. From Paternalism during the pre-industrial revolution, in which there was little concern for social aspects and employees were not given their own responsibilities, to Human Resource Management from the 1990s onward. Today, the employee has a high degree of autonomy and is expected to participate in optimizing all business processes. With growing employee expectations and more complex processes, expectations of the HR role are rising faster than ever.

The HR manager should be aware of all competencies present in the company and closely monitors the development of these competencies.

• We link a structured competence policy to a training policy, which ensures that employees remain motivated. This is certainly not unimportant when you know that the new generations are knocking at the door with totally different expectations.
• A structured pay policy provides transparency and a comprehensive motivational framework.
• A company-tailored evaluation policy keeps employees close and engaged.
• A clear mission and vision is translated by the HRM to the shop floor and keeps employees on 1 page.

Does every employee know what values are carried within the company? Is every employee aware of the direction the company is sailing? These are just a few things that ensure that employees are on the same page, they want to grow together with the company and that their intrinsic motivation is stimulated.

All these tasks, combined with figuring out subsidy possibilities and the constant monitoring of changes in social legislation, ensure that every SME can no longer (or cannot) underestimate the important role played by HR. The HR manager today thinks along at a strategic level, can discuss business, monitors the achievement of targets and realizes more than ever that satisfied customers can only be created with satisfied employees.

"Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first" by Simon Sinek

We often get the comment : "We only have a few employees and therefore HR is not needed here". Dear sir, lady, do I hear you saying that your one employee deserves less attention than those 10-odd employees within larger companies? Is it not true, that if just this one employee walks around unmotivated and unhappy, it will have a very big impact on your business results?

That a company with only a few employees should not hire a full-time HR manager is a fair statement. But that HR remains an unknown and unloved concept is a mistake that is made more often and can have dire consequences for your company's future. Don't need a full-time HR manager? Then at least surround yourself with the right partners and get advice, at regular intervals, from specialists.