Sure, if you’re a small company dependent on a recruitment agency in Belfast like Webrecruit Ireland, you might not have much time and money for human resources. If you have fewer than 20 employees, you probably don’t even have a dedicated HR person. Instead, you or a trusted admin might be doing that particular work.

It’s not as if HR isn’t important, of course – it’s just that HR might not seem like a day-to-day thing if you’re a small company. You hire someone when you need them, and that might be that.

Why is the right approach to HR so vital?

Small businesses are often in a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. It takes a lot of effort to get clients or customers, and even more to retain them – but this isn’t possible without a great team. Indeed, it’s also hard to get a good team together unless there are great clients for them to produce work for.

This is why your small business HR strategy is so vital. Don’t make the mistake of treating it as just admin stuff – insurance, benefits, terminations and the like. Nor is it just about recruiting great people – it’s about keeping them there, too.

Retention – overlooked by so many small firms

Don’t make the error that so many small business owners do, of putting furious effort into the initial hiring but then doing little to retain your valuable staff.

It’s perfectly understandable why this happens. You secure a giant project, but don’t have a project manager, so you rush to find one. It might seem difficult to afford or attract such a recruit before the work is there. The problem is that unless you have a recruiting campaign ongoing, it’s also so much harder to find the right people.

Everyone needs to take responsibility for HR

So, what do you do? You make recruitment, hiring and retention central to your company culture, making it everyone’s responsibility.

That means that you constantly recruit, taking a chance on great talent even if there isn’t a role to fill right now. You build a talent pool to call upon when you need it, which helps you to avoid those desperate not-quite-good-enough hires.

It also means investing much more effort into retention. Get to know your employees and their professional goals. Manage them so that they have the opportunities they desire within your company, when they are ready. It saves you the immense financial cost and effort associated with having to replace them when they otherwise leave.

You may take most responsibility for HR within your company, but by making it part of everyone else’s role, you’ll have a better idea of your needs and therefore get more out of your relationship with a recruitment agency in Belfast or Dublin like Webrecruit Ireland.