Become an insider!
Get our latest payroll and small business articles sent straight to your inbox.
In this Article:
Whether you’re just starting your small business and looking ahead to your future needs or you’re at the cusp of growth where you’re considering a human resources (HR) solution, you probably have questions. HR gets a bad rap, but realistically, it’s people management, and something you’ll want to consider as you grow your team.
So, let’s get down to dispelling and demystifying some small business HR myths that might be holding you up in your journey. Director of People by Wagepoint, Melissa Benzo, recently went over these myths and busted them wide open. You can catch all the juicy details in the recording above or get the breakdown below.
Myth 1: We’re too small for HR.
Fact: No business is too small for HR. Although there’s no rule that says you need to have an HR department, when you have employees, labour laws and regulations come into effect.
Melissa points out how a lot of the work you’re already doing with daily employee management likely falls under the HR umbrella anyway.
You might find yourself organizing new hire paperwork, ensuring everyone’s compensation and personal info is up to date and conducting things like performance reviews. All the while fielding questions about time off, and where to go to log into things like payroll and benefits portals.
— Melissa Benzo, Director, People by Wagepoint
It can be helpful to have all of that information stored in one place, like People by Wagepoint, our human resources information system. That way, it’s easily accessible for you and your employees, and it can also optimize workflows (who doesn’t love a good workflow optimization?)!
Myth 2: I can just use spreadsheets.
Fact: Okay, so we can’t literally stop you from using spreadsheets, but here are a few reasons you should consider upgrading from them to a software.
Spreadsheets may get lost in the digital melee, be forgotten or don’t get updated as often as they ought to be because of the time it takes to manually fill them out. Speaking of the manual work, that also means they’re error prone, and the way you interpret a spreadsheet could be different from how a colleague that also works on it does. That’s not even touching on privacy concerns with employee information.
It’s really just not a scalable solution if you’re planning on growing your team. Tracking time off in a spreadsheet can come with its own headaches, generally producing a lot of discrepancies and data errors. Plus there’s a lot of manual work needed to reconcile information.
— Melissa Benzo, Director, People by Wagepoint
Myth 3: I don’t need to track time off.
Fact: Apart from the issue of not knowing who’s using their time off if you don’t track it, Melissa outlines a few ways skipping this HR task can impact your small business.
Productivity and financial impacts
The first impact is a double whammy: productivity and financial.
Employees who use their time off are more productive, motivated, healthier, have a better work, life, balance, and so many other benefits there. This translates directly into employees that stay with your company longer, reducing your time and money spent onboarding and training and recruiting new hires.
— Melissa Benzo, Director, People by Wagepoint
Workplace culture impacts
The second impact is your workplace culture. The culture and overall vibes of your workplace go far beyond time off, but there are some pretty key messages you’re conveying to your employees when you pay attention to time off.
Leaders who understand the importance of time off, and actively encourage employees to use it, are seen as trusted and caring, once again helping employees understand that they’re not just a cog in a machine.”
— Melissa Benzo, Director, People by Wagepoint
Legal impacts
The third impact is legal. For instance, if someone leaves your company, there may be rules around paying out their unused time off. If you haven’t been tracking time off along the way, it can lead to disagreements and discrepancies about how much time is actually owed.
Myth 4: We don’t need goals.
Fact: Goals and objectives help your team stay on track, understand what they’re contributing to the business and help keep your small business on track, too.
There’s a saying that says if it’s not written down, it won’t happen. So, using that, it’s really easy to stray off course from what you’re trying to accomplish as a company when there’s so much going on, both in work and outside of work.
— Melissa Benzo, Director, People by Wagepoint
Having goals and objectives also mitigates burnout. If there aren’t clear-cut markers an employee (or even you as the employer!) should be working toward, it can lead to taking on too much and burning out as a result. Nobody wants that.
Setting, recording and tracking goals is also a useful tool for employee reviews so that everyone is on the same page with expectations. People by Wagepoint gives you the opportunity to do all of these and in a way that you can work collaboratively with your employees. Win-win!
Myth 5: We only need annual reviews.
Fact: Annual reviews are a great way to look back on the year and gauge the accomplishments, but the reality is that more frequent reviews are beneficial for everyone.
Having quarterly or even briefer monthly reviews gives you and your employees the chance to effectively share feedback, discuss challenges and take actionable steps to improve now, not a year down the line, when it might not even be relevant anymore.
The solution here is smaller scale reviews on a more frequent basis. You can conduct informal check-ins, monthly formal and documented quarterly reviews to update things like objectives and deliver feedback. And then one big annual review to discuss things like future objectives, salary increases and overall performance.
— Melissa Benzo, Director, People by Wagepoint
Managing small business HR with simple software.
Luckily, People by Wagepoint can handle the reality side of each of these myths. Taking care of everything in one place is a huge plus in terms of keeping organized and keeping your budget happy.
Not to mention that it’s a super simple HR solution for small business owners, so you can feel confident it won’t leave you stressed, overwhelmed and wishing for those spreadsheets.
Schedule a free People by Wagepoint demo to see how it can help your small business.
Additional links.
- Get in the know of all Wagepoint webinars and events
- Join the Wagepoint email club
- Combat Quiet Quitting And Quiet Firing With A Solid Performance Management Process
