How Can Small Businesses Overcome Their Top 6 HR Challenges?

When it comes to the workplace environment, managing people has always been complex. The digital era has added even more complexity to the role of human resource management. Small businesses are spending time, effort, and money to overcome these complex hr challenges, and its resources are well spent because your greatest assets are your employees.

I’ve narrowed down the top 6 human resources challenges faced by small businesses and how to approach them.

Recruiting Skilled and Talented Employees

Attracting the right talent for your small business needs takes time, effort, and money. Most small businesses and startups don’t have big budgets to offer employees perks such as insurance, retirement plans, and other benefits like large companies do.

It’s impossible to really know whether a candidate will be a good fit for your small business unless they’ve started the job already, but some factors can help you identify “good fit” candidates. You first need to have a clear understanding of the job role you want to be filled, and how that role will contribute to the success of your business. Second, you should know where to post and market your vacancies, which should be the platforms most frequented by your candidates. Along with meeting the job requirements, by also looking for evidence that they enjoy learning, like solving challenges, are good with people socially and enjoy working both alone and in a team, are tech-savvy, and can take both positive and negative feedback well, the changes they would end up being a successful employee are high.

Retaining Talented Employees

Competition for retaining skilled employees as a small business owner is fierce. To increase your chances of retaining top employees, you should have a structured onboarding and training and development plan, as well as a structured job description and bonus incentives that motivate them such as working for time off, bonus compensation, employee activities, and workshops, etc. Lastly, if employees are unhappy with anything, do they know where to go to give their feedback or speak to management without fear of losing their job? this is key to a successful working environment.

Compliance with Laws and Regulations

Keeping on the right side of the law and complying with regulations will help you stay out of trouble. Avoiding or not complying with things like employment laws, thinking they don’t apply to your business, could mean unnecessary lawsuits and audits, which could signal the end of your small business. By keeping up to date on things such as hiring, compensation, and employee safety practices, you’ll be in a better position to run your business effectively.

Training and Development

Businesses invest in their workforce so they can have a productive, skilled, and hardworking team. If face-to-face training and development is not ideal due to the high costs, then consider online training courses. If your employees are on the front lines of your business and serving customers directly, consider training for them first. By training existing employees who already know and understand how your business operates, you can cut costs of bringing in new hires and training them from scratch, which will be additional time and money.

Health and Safety

Understanding and enforcing the correct HR health and safety standards have always been one of the most important challenges faced by small businesses. Followed correctly, they can have a positive impact on overall employee wellbeing. Don’t just focus on physical health and safety procedures, but also psychological to avoid burnout and high-stress levels. Having an open-door policy where employees both junior and senior can discuss any work-related issues is critical to their overall health. If health and safety are not followed correctly or not implemented, performance declines, morale drops, absenteeism increases, and employee retention decreases, which can all lead to a toxic work environment.

Managing Diversity

Workplace diversity comes with a few HR challenges, such as managing different cultures and teams that have to work together and collaborate on different projects or tasks. Diversity in the workplace should always have the goal to foster an environment that is comfortable for all employees. For a successful outcome, implementing cultural training and awareness workshops can be helpful, focusing on the strengths and innovation a diverse team can yield. Second, team-building activities are also very effective for building trust and strengthening bonds between employees.

Why Effective HR Management is Necessary

If you already know and understand that your greatest assets are your employees, then you should also understand that HR systems and procedures ultimately define their creative output, performance, job satisfaction, and wellbeing. Many small businesses struggle with human resource challenges, but FIC Consulting can help you navigate the HR landscape with ease, from point A all the way to point Z, so you can move ahead past your competition and meet your business goals, year on year.

If you’re ready to take your business HR systems to where it needs to be, you’re welcome to schedule a call with me directly by clicking here.

If there is something I want you to know about me right away, it’s that I have a passion for supporting business owners. I believe in the future of South Africa and that there are so many opportunities out there to be successful and to make a change to our economy.

I want to be part of that change by providing businesses with core HR and Labour Solutions that will not only result in legislative compliance but actually positively impact their bottom line.

Over the years I have gained specialist HR experience working in various sectors within the Small, Medium, and Micro Enterprise sector. As a business owner myself, I can relate well to businesses and what their needs are.