TL;DR: An HR manager ensures your company complies with employment laws, helps maintain a healthy and diverse working culture, and facilitates communication between management and employees. That makes hiring an HR professional one of the most critical decisions a company can make.
This playbook provides a step-by-step guide for finding and hiring the perfect HR manager for your business.
The operations team is stretched thin, and the CEO barely has time for a coffee break. Meanwhile, open positions need to be filled ASAP, and your people expect more employee-focused initiatives. But bringing in quality talent while supporting your staff is a double challenge for HR, making this an often lengthy and demanding process.
Why? Because no one has the capacity to take over recruiting, onboarding, learning and development, team building, employee check-ins, and other essential people tasks at the same time/all at once.
An HR manager is the glue that holds your team together, and in this playbook, we’ll walk you through how you can attract and hire the best HR talent — so your company operates sustainably and always has a competitive edge.
A human resources manager, or HR manager, has the core expertise necessary to run a successful business and build scalable people operations.
Getting down to the nitty-gritty of it, human resources managers can support you with HR functions like:
When hiring a dedicated HR manager, you can either promote an in-house employee, transfer someone interested in making a career move from another department, or recruit externally. Generally, providing opportunities for internal mobility is more cost-effective and leads to greater employee satisfaction, while recruiting externally can inject new ideas and skill sets into departments and increase diversity.
Let’s look at each approach’s pros and cons in more detail.
👟 Help your human resources manager hit the ground running!
Leapsome’s all-in-one people enablement solution can support your HR team by reducing manual processes and bridging the gap between employees and leadership teams.
👉 Request a demo
Use this playbook when your company is thinking about hiring its first dedicated HR professional.
There’s no one-size-fits-all rule for knowing the best time to bring a new managerial hire on board. But there are some clear indicators, like when your business is:
Hiring the perfect HR manager makes teams collaborate more efficiently, encourages growth, and makes your company a better place to work.
Your new HR employee won’t know how to do everything right off the bat. That’s what onboarding and training are there for. Rather than looking for a potential candidate who ticks every single box, allow for people’s improvement and growth as you’re narrowing down applicants. Sometimes a culture fit is more important than years of extensive experience.
Finding your dream candidate takes time. The best human resources manager won’t just have an impressive CV — they’ll also be an excellent communicator, kind, empathetic, and organized. They’ll have to understand your business, and industry, and must be comfortable making hard decisions. But when you do find them, the whole recruitment process will be so worth it.
Before you do anything else, narrow down exactly what you need your HR specialist to do and what specific qualities you’re looking for.
Getting clear on your company’s current status is one way to determine your needs. Ask yourself:
The list goes on, but it’s essential to outline these requirements from the get-go so they can guide you throughout your recruitment process.
Next, it’s time to work on your HR manager’s job description. A clear job description attracts the right type of applicant and helps manage expectations. Here are some key items to include in your description:
In addition to increasing your job posting’s visibility, this step is about attracting the right type of candidates. For example, asking for referrals and tapping into your social networks, like LinkedIn or Slack communities for HR/People Ops, might yield better results than posting your job description on sites like Glassdoor or Indeed.
Your candidate will be gauging your company just as much as the reverse. So run-of-the-mill “what are your strengths and weaknesses” questions will tell applicants you’re not putting as much effort into recruitment as they are.
Instead, try asking more interesting and relevant questions during interviews, like:
If this is your company’s first HR hire, communicate to current employees why you’re setting up human resources management and what it’ll bring to the company.
Some of your employees might have reservations and questions about your new HR hire and the direction the company’s taking, so take your time to answer their concerns candidly.
“Not hiring an HR manager is something I see a lot in startups that have hit their stride and are starting to grow. They think: ‘Why have an HR manager? We’ve never needed one before, and that feels too corporate…’
Once [your company grows] though, an HR manager becomes indispensable not just to help manage hiring and mediate disputes, but as someone who can begin to shape culture for new hires.” — Dragos Badea, CEO of Yarooms
You’re not only welcoming a new employee — if this is your first HR hire, you’re also creating a new structure within your company! Make sure you have a productive and efficient onboarding process planned, so the transition is smooth for everybody.
Leapsome is the only platform that closes the loop between performance management, employee engagement, and learning.
Once you’ve hired and onboarded your new HR person, set them up for success by ensuring they’re not overburdened with manual processes.
Leapsome accomplishes this by providing an all-in-one solution for people enablement, including everything from onboarding surveys to engagement surveys, learning paths, and career progression frameworks.
💪 Reduce manual processes and attract the best talent
Leapsome supports your HR team by offering engagement, motivation, and compensation tools that help build a healthy work culture and increase employee satisfaction.
👉 Request a demo
To find the perfect human resources professional for your business:
You should consider hiring an HR professional if you’re:
Having a dedicated human resources department isn’t always necessary for very small businesses; you should consider hiring an HR manager as your company grows and if:
Once you’ve narrowed down your needs and expectations for your HR role, post a clear job description to the right channels like LinkedIn and HR Slack communities. Don’t forget to ask your network for referrals and recommendations, as the best HR professionals have wide networks.
Learn how Leapsome can automate, connect, and simplify your HR processes.
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