Having trouble scaling your business when it comes to HR? According to recent guest Matt Tanner, Head of People Operations at RoadSync, you’re not alone. When it comes to growth, one critical aspect is taking the HR Hat off of the financial person, the organized person, or the dedicated-no-matter-what person and placing it on an HR expert. Whether you outsource or hire, it’s time to recognize that getting HR right is critical to the growth of your business.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Matt Tanner is the Head of People Operations at RoadSync and Founder of Same Page. Matt is passionate about developing organizations in areas of employee experience, scaling and growth, company culture, and goal-setting and achievement.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
THE “HR” HAT
In smaller organizations, it’s not uncommon for someone to wear the “HR Hat” who isn’t necessarily trained or who lacks the experience to do the job effectively. And that’s really who Matt Tanner and his team try to help. After all, most of these employees don’t want to take on the burden of HR anyway, and they may be better suited somewhere else.
“We’ve found,” Matt explained, “that it’s often an office manager or a right-hand person, somebody who’s really strong and organized, and it makes sense, right? They can handle payroll and everything else, and it just kind of mushrooms from there.” But is that what’s best for the business?
Fortunately, there are ways to pass the hat off to an HR professional without breaking the bank. Read on to learn if it’s time for your business to unburden your HR hat-wearer.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Scared To Death
“One thing that I’ve been adamant about from the start is that I don’t want to use any sort of fear-based marketing for our business. Clients come to us with that though. They say, ‘Hey, when we were five people, we didn’t need a handbook. We didn’t need policies. Because we all knew each other. We were all buddies. […] And now we’re just worried we’re going to get sued.’ So folks come to us just terrified.”
The Last Hat
“Clients always say, ‘I just don’t know what I don’t know.’ And I hear it on every call. It’s stress. It’s confusion. They’re not just wearing the HR hat. They’re wearing a lot of hats and they’ve probably already handed off some of the other ones. And so, oftentimes, the HR hat is one of the last hats that small teams pass off.”
Working Together
“Folks come to us and say, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do the HR stuff. Can you all just handle it?’ And we can certainly handle it, but we prefer to work alongside folks in the organization and really get embedded with the company, because it’s not a thing that you can just hide. It just doesn’t work that way. The word ‘human’ is literally in the title — you’re dealing with your people.”
When To Make The Jump
“The second you’ve got an actual employee working for you, you need somebody that you can talk to for HR. Now that might be as simple as some of these payroll systems out there that have a chat function where you can ask a quick question. […] I mean, it’s never clear cut depending on the industry, but if you’ve got 10 people, you need somebody to take charge of the HR role, or at least somebody in the organization who is wearing that hat officially. That way, everybody clearly knows to go to so-and-so for HR needs.”
Falling Between The Cracks
“For years, HR has been saying that we’re going to be this strategic seat at the table. And it’s just not happening. Instead, it’s bureaucratic. It’s compliance. We go for efficiency in lieu of adding value. And so when you’ve got folks handling HR that are not in a strategic role or do not have the kind of business acumen or ability to think strategically, what they’re going to lean toward is just staying out of trouble — putting processes in place, just for the sake of doing it.”
Staying On Top Of It
“If you are just kind of trying to make sure everything is compliant, you might try to make a handbook that hits every single rule and put some language in there that’s a little broader. And then we can kind of cross that bridge when we get there. […] You can’t stay on top of every single thing, and that’s why there is some benefit to some of these outsource products where they claim that they’ll do that for you, but I just don’t think it’s humanly possible.”
LEARN MORE
If you’re wearing that HR hat and you don’t want to wear it, check out this guide. It’s a great starting point for people trying to navigate the complex world of HR.