At the beginning of any venture, new businesses consist of a small number of employees and most founders don’t consider Human Resources to be an urgent matter. Many underestimate the functions of HR and the challenges and pitfalls for start-ups. They rely on the internet to find solutions to eventual problems – such as harassment claims, wage and working hour issues, and employee complaints. To ensure company growth, start-ups typically focus on investing in product development, marketing, and research, often at the expense of a proper HR department. They may end up hiring people with no significant HR experience at all. While this may be sufficient, there will be cases that require handling by experienced professionals instead of general online solicitation. Listing out five common HR pitfalls for start-ups, this article provides solutions to help you mitigate these risks.
1. Recruiting the Right Candidate for the Right Role
One of the biggest HR challenges for any start-up is hiring. This includes everything from building an employer brand and marketing specific job openings to sourcing candidates. Hiring takes a lot of skill. If you don’t hire the right candidate for the right position, you may disrupt and reduce business efficiency. You can choose to work with professional recruitment firms like Techlinker Asia to do the process right.
2. Drawing up Employee Contracts
When it comes to employee contracts, you can’t simply copy and paste from online templates or other generic resources because it concerns individuals’ jobs and livelihoods. Without specific and clearly-stated agreements, there is space for friction and misunderstanding. This could eventually lead to conflicts or even legal action. Employee contracts are not optional. These contracts can protect your intellectual property as they help prevent employees from disclosing confidential information to direct competitors. They also provide a clearer and unambiguous information to employees about salaries, benefits, and conditions of employment. Specifying these terms with employee contracts gives everyone peace of mind. For the sake of your company, your employees, and your legal commitments and exposure, always seek experienced and professional help when framing contracts.
3. Creating the Employee Handbook
Specifying the expectations for employees is always a smart move. This ensures a mutual understanding between you and the people you hire on the dos and don’ts of the workplace. Prepare an employee handbook and have everyone sign an agreement on workplace policies in order to avoid potential conflicts.
4. Managing Compliance with Payroll Services
The complexities of tax filings are a nightmare to many company owners because many lack the knowledge to make proper submissions. Companies may pay more taxes than necessary because they are unaware of certain exemptions, deductions, or other subtleties of the prevailing tax code. Filing taxes late or incorrectly may result in significant penalties from the IRAS (Singapore) or IRD (Hong Kong). Common mistakes include misclassifying employees, failing to keep complete tax-related records, failing to accurately calculate pay, and so forth. Read more about tax filing in Hong Kong and Singapore. Working with firms like Techlinker Asia that provide tax filing services will definitely be beneficial.
5. Onboarding and Engaging new hires
For a small start-up without a standalone HR department, onboarding can be a nightmare. Due to lack of personnel, it’s usually up to the founder or other ‘senior executive’ to take the new hire under his wing for the first few days. Proper start-up onboarding typically fails for a number of reasons. As the CEO may see it as a burden rather than an opportunity to bond with a colleague, he might not have the time and passion to guide the new hire through his new role. As a result, the new employee may not feel adequately prepared to take on his responsibilities, or an equally valued member of the team from Day 1. Take the time to empower and excite your new co-workers. You’ll thank yourself for it in the long run.
By investing in a Human Resources team, you can establish an official onboarding and training process in your company to make sure that new hires will be able to work effectively and productively right away.
Hiring a Human Resources professional is always a win-win solution but many businesses fail to realize the importance of this. Be aware of the HR pitfalls for start-ups, and mitigate your risk by seeking out professional advice. HR is much more than just administrative tasks and paperwork. As your business grows, specifically tailored strategies are needed to develop and manage your company’s important resource: your employees.
To mitigate your risk, work with an HR Consultancy Firm that provides HR professional services. Techlinker Asia offers HR outsourcing Services, you just pay a monthly fee and we will have our dedicated HR expert to provide HR advisory or even support your HR administrative work. Talk to us and we’d be happy to help.
