We’ve all heard of Human Resources (HR) before, we know that we need to follow laws and regulations to avoid penalties, know how to hire the right candidates, manage performance, and enable learning and development.

But what are the advantages of moving to a dedicated HR function? What does the future of HR look like? And what is the best way to fill your organisation’s HR role?

Why Every Organisation Needs an HR Function

Having HR staff that can provide legally-compliant advice, handle day-to-day HR-related queries, and support leaders with a wide variety of processes and systems is key to ensuring that your organisation operates smoothly, doesn’t breach any HR laws and provides your workforce with the welfare, learning, and development they need.

Following HR best practices is also the foundation of creating a workplace culture that attracts and retains the best talent, and keeps employee satisfaction high; an organisation is nothing without motivated, skilled and knowledgeable staff that can turn its vision into reality.

HR requires constant time, attention, and resources. Often, in smaller organisations such as family-run businesses, HR is tackled further up the organisational chart, with leaders taking on HR responsibilities. Whilst this may work with a small amount of staff as a temporary solution, it isn’t the optimal way of working, it isn't sustainable. With competition fiercer than ever, leaders should aim to free up as much of their time as possible to allow them to leverage their power and focus on the vision and future of the organisation, instead of getting tied down with responsibilities like HR compliance. This is a scalable strategy.

The Current State of HR

Research shows that in 2020, the number of permanent roles for HR professionals fell by almost 40%. However, there is a growing demand for interim HR roles, with temporary HR hires increasing from 13.2% to 17.8% last year.

These statistics suggest that many organisations are using interim hires to get their organisation back on track post-pandemic, but not necessarily planning for the future. This could be an opportunity for your organisation to consider.

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What Does the Future Look Like for HR?

The landscape of modern business has changed dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic, affecting all areas of business - including HR.

Pre-pandemic, most employees worked in the office, where it’s often easier to manage people, spot and resolve issues, and communicate concerns. However, with 82% of organisations planning to adopt a hybrid or fully remote working model, we are now faced with a very different way of working. Having remote staff can make settling disputes, supporting staff, and gauging employee satisfaction much more difficult.

Even though we are still living and working in an era of uncertainty, businesses need to start thinking about how they will tackle HR long term.

Whilst hiring interim HR staff is a great, flexible, quick-fix to deal with a specific or short term issue, HR is a permanent job role that will always be needed in an organisation; you can’t fill a permanent role with a temporary hire. The best way to fill your organisation’s HR role is with a permanent hire, through either internal or external recruitment.

Recruiting Internally for a HR Position

Do you already have a member of staff who you can see taking on a HR role to take pressure off top leaders?

Internal recruitment can be used to either:

• Reskill existing staff into a solely HR-focused role
• Develop existing staff into a dual role, e.g. Office Manager and HR Support

Recruiting internally has many advantages, including:

• Quicker Process
  Internal recruitment often has a quicker turnaround time than external recruitment as you already know the candidates and what skills and experience they have, saving you time looking through CVs.
  
  
• Often Less Expensive
  Internal recruitment is typically less expensive as it eliminates the need for external job vacancy advertising which can be quite expensive.
  
  
• Shorter Learning Curve
  Recruiting internally means that the member of staff already knows what your organisation does and how it operates, removing the need for a long, in-depth onboarding process.

The Benefit of External Recruitment

However, external recruitment also has many benefits, including:

• Access to a Larger Talent Pool
  Recruiting externally allows many more people with many different skills to apply for the role, rather than limiting yourself to choosing from only your existing staff.
  
  
• New ideas
  Recruiting somebody completely new to the business with new skills and expertise brings new, innovative ideas to your organisation.
  
  
• Fresh perspectives
  External recruitment can increase diversity in terms of staff’s background and experience, enabling them to look at your organisation from a fresh perspective.

If you are looking at recruiting for a HR position externally, have you thought about hiring an apprentice?

Whilst many roles can be learned as-you-go, HR isn’t one of them. A core part of being a HR professional is having concrete knowledge of HR laws, policies, and best practices, all of which are best learnt through a formal training programme, like an apprenticeship. In addition to having a strong foundation of knowledge, the best of the best HR professionals also have an ISM membership, which is included in our HR Support Staff programme.

Recruiting an apprentice also enables you to leverage government grants - there is currently a £3,000 incentive available for organisations that hire an apprentice!

If you are interested in hiring an apprentice, we can do the hard work for you and find candidates that are perfect for the role, saving you a lot of time and resources. Hiring an apprentice also means that their training and membership are tied to their job, increasing buy-in and often leading to a more dedicated and motivated member of staff.

Our Level 3 HR Support Staff apprenticeship is ideal for new hires as it builds a strong development momentum early on in their career, and gives them the core knowledge, skills, and competencies required of an outstanding HR professional.

If this is something that you would be interested in, please click here to download our HR programme brochure, call us on 01332 527 905, or click here to request a call with one of our training experts.

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Next time on the Daily Dot, we will be looking at how apprenticeships can help take your customer service team to the next level.

Until next time...