How Do You Know if You Need HR Consulting?

In this day and age, in order to be successful and competitive in your industry you need to be flexible and have the ability to adjust and move quickly.  The need to be lean yet adaptable applies to all facets of your business including your sales efforts, your marketing efforts and even your recruitment efforts.  In fact, all areas of your business can have a direct impact on human resource requirements.

So how do you know if you need HR consulting?  Or perhaps a better question is, is when do you determine that you need some assistance with your HR strategy and need to work with an HR consultant?

Five Scenarios to Consider in Using an HR Consultant

Depending on the size of your business, there are different occasions as to when you may require some HR consulting.  Here are five scenarios when you may want to consider HR consulting services.

Staffing and Overall Employee Productivity – this is the most obvious scenario.  You simply need some HR assistance in recruiting and hiring of staff.  The need for qualified resources and team members can be a result of various changes that your company is going through.  For example:

  • Your organization is dealing with high employee turnover
  • Your organization is dealing with high rates of absenteeism
  • You have changes in management
  • Your company is experiencing lower sales due to poor quality in the delivery of your products or services (resulting in rework or an increase in customer complaints)
  • Interdepartmental and employee conflict
  • Complacency / poor performance that is not being addressed

Change in Business Direction – has there been a major shift in your company’s business strategic direction?  If so you may need some HR consulting to help you build the team you need in order to reach your new goals and company objectives.  Perhaps there was a merger and you need help sorting all of the human resources plans and onboarding material?

Lack of Organizational Processes and Policies – perhaps you are a new business or a small business that has seen tremendous growth and you have not had time to put the proper HR policies and procedures in place. This is a perfect time to engage with an HR consultant to help you plan out your resourcing plan.  Some items to look for:

  • Lack of direction/accountability with too many people doing the same thing (overlapping duties)
  • Poor workflow or too many bottlenecks in your existing process
  • People are not performing their role specific tasks for example excessive management time solving internal issues and problems
  • Lack of empowerment of employees with too much micro-management of tasks or levels of red-tape and bureaucracy
  • Uneven workloads, you have some resources that are overworked while there are others who may be underachieving in their roles

A Change in Economic Performance – perhaps your company has seen a dramatic decline in sales and productivity or on the flip side your organization has recently seen explosive growth.  The economic performance of your company has a direct impact on your human resourcing needs.  You may need some additional HR consulting in these types of scenarios:

  • Loss of key customers/clients resulting in company layoffs or closing of certain business units
  • Major changes to the industry resulting in the need to acquire or retrain staff
  • Increased labour costs
  • An increased need for temporary employees
  • Increased recruitment needs

Change in Work Environment – and finally you may require some HR consulting based on major changes to your work environment.  This may include things such as:

  • A Company “Re-org” where there is a redefinition of work and roles assigned
  • A need to improve the organizations’ culture
  • Employee satisfaction where there is an increase in
    • Low morale
    • Burnout
    • Stressful work environments / projects
  • Initiation in the use of new technologies. In order to remain competitive your organization may be required to invest in new technologies as well as the skilled resources to operate and maintain the technology.

HR Consulting is something that business owners should consider if they want to continue to grow their business.  Whether you are a small business or a larger business with multiple locations, leveraging a recruiting agency that provides HR consulting may be just what you need to take your business to the next level.

If your organization is going through one (or more) of  the scenarios listed above, then it may be time to consider some HR Consulting to help you map out a strategic Human Resources plan for your company.  You can visit our HR Consulting page for more information or if you feel that your company is in need of HR Consulting, contact us today for assistance with your human resource management needs!

Aspire Recruitment Solutions provides HR Consulting solutions to small, medium and large sized businesses in Kelowna, the Okanagan and beyond.