What are the top challenges for Small business when it comes to HR?

Running a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) is no small feat. From managing day-to-day operations to planning for growth, SME managers and owners can often wear multiple hats. I know all too well!

Among these responsibilities, HR often becomes a pain point — a crucial area that can make or break your business but is sometimes sidelined due to lack of time, expertise, or resources. Here’s my take on some of the top challenges you might face, and what you can do to tackle them:

Navigating Employment Law

Frequent changes and complexities make keeping up with employment laws feel like a full-time job. From drafting contracts to ensuring compliance with the Equality Act and GDPR, SMEs can easily feel overwhelmed.

It can be easy to become complacent with contracts and policies too. You’ve done them once, but laws keep changing and the risk of facing a tribunal becomes higher. Did you know? Typically employment law updates happen twice per year.

Finding an HR consultant who understands small business can make a huge difference. Look for one that provides employment law updates, annual reviews of policies and contracts, and keeps things simple. You don’t need a bundle of generic lengthy policies, that are written in a way nobody can follow.

Top Tip - Look for a consultant with experience running a small business. Ask them what their package looks like and what they think is essential.

Think about what time you really have to be involved and decide if you will keep the HR hat, or pass it on. It shouldn’t be as costly as you might think.

We support organisations from only £195 per month (+ VAT, sorry).

Recruitment and Retention

Limited budgets and competition from larger companies make attracting top talent challenging. Even when the right people are hired, retaining them can be difficult without structured career progression plans or effective onboarding.

Start with good communication. A contract of employment is a day one right. We always get it to them before they start. It shows you are serious and they can hand in their resignation with confidence.

Ensure time is invested in new staff. Yes it means balancing your time, but if onboarding is designed well, it provides massive savings in the long run.

You can always work with a consultant to design your onboarding experience - and digitise it as much as possible. But the human element should remain. Finding an HR consultant who looks to simplify your onboarding, balancing human interaction with methods that allow independent learning can also save heaps of time!

Keeping hold of good staff means you make more money right? But losing staff means costs in replacement recruitment and training.

It’s also equally important to address poor performance early on - but make sure poor performance isn’t down to a lack of communication or training!

Top Tip - be clear on your job advert. Don’t oversell yourself, and please include the salary. It really does save time from both sides. There is no point getting excited about an applicant you simply can’t afford.

Managing Employee Performance

Without clear expectations or constructive feedback, performance issues can snowball into decreased productivity and low morale. This means good employees move on because they become frustrated or there are a lack of promotion opportunities.

Create clear structures so people know what they need to do to reach the next step, ensure two way feedback and give employees a means of providing feedback.

Resolving workplace conflicts

Conflicts in smaller teams can disrupt operations and harm morale. Whether it’s disputes between employees or tensions with management, unresolved issues can escalate quickly. A skilled consultant offers mediation and preventative strategies to create a harmonious work environment.

Ensuring Health & Safety Compliance

Neglecting health and safety can lead to accidents, fines, or reputational damage. It is usually more complex than you realise, BUT, it should not be complicated.

Finding consultants that integrate safety into everyday operations, offering practical solutions that protect staff and enhance workplace culture is essential.

You don’t need 200 lengthy risk assessments. You need simplicity and a strong culture that ensures everyone understands they need to do their bit.

Training in safety is also of great importance.

Telling people is one thing. Documentation provides evidence should you have a nasty situation arise.

But they have to work in combination. Having tons of documents means nothing if you can’t prove anyone has followed them, or if you haven’t considered certain risks.

We offer a range of training courses, and we can track and monitor your training needs for you too. Giving you the audit trail you need.

Incorporating Sustainability

It’s highly significant in a modern business to ensure operations are sustainable. Our Government are mandating it, our employees care deeply about it, and the future of our business is heavily reliant on it.

Sustainable supply chains are becoming critical. 🥬

Customers and employees increasingly value businesses committed to ethical and environmental practices. However, many SMEs struggle to incorporate sustainability due to limited resources - but actually, in many cases, not only is it less complex than is often thought, it’s often a means of saving money too.

You might think we are really trying to sell ourselves here, but we operate in a way that considers sustainability too, and we can work with your organisation to provide training, and practical, low cost solutions that mean you save money long term.

Adapting to Hybrid and Remote Working

Employees have a legal right to request flexible working. Our Government are pushing forward with legislation that could make it difficult to say no.

The shift towards flexible work introduces new complexities. Balancing flexibility with productivity and team cohesion can be challenging.

However you see it, consider the time saved and the boosted employee productivity for someone who didn’t have to rush off the kids, dash to the train and spend 2 hours commuting each way.

Hybrid working is still working, and it is not an excuse to have a day off. Don’t mistake flexibility as a means to take it easy, and manage your employees expectations.

If you’re not sure where to begin with a flexible working request, or employees that you feel are really not delivering from home, then talk to us about your options.

Flexibility is designed to boost productivity, not slow it down.

Time! The ultimate challenge for business owners and leaders

SME owners often juggle HR responsibilities alongside daily operations, leading to burnout and missed opportunities.

You don’t need to be dealing with employee disputes, recruitment, contracts or even operational challenges if it means you lose a sale.

We work with you to identify which hats you could, and possibly should lose, and what your budgets are to do so.

We work on the basis that our support gives you back time to make more money - therefore you don’t even notice our costs, because we work to give you back time. That time means you focus on what matters.

Our combined expertise across HR, Safety, Business Operations, Growth Strategy and Sustainability makes us a great partner to support your business grow.

You do what you love, and we make sure you can.

Whether you want to go all in and have a complete directional shift, or create a more budget friendly plan over a period of time, we work out what suits you. Please do get in touch.