“HR” is an overloaded term ?? If you look under the hood, there’s more than meets the eye.
I like to think of the function as a hierarchy of needs - Maslow’s Hierarchy of HR Needs, if you will.
??Starting at the bottom layer, you might be surprised to learn there are 5700 software vendors that create payroll, benefits, and HRIS products. All of them are self-service and each have their own shortcomings.
??Moving up to the middle layer - HR and Compliance. These are activities that keep you compliant with regulation. This includes federal, state, and local labor laws, health benefits, retirement plans, workers compensation, payroll, taxes, and much more.
?? And finally the top layer is Strategic HR. This refers to those things that are innately human - mission, values, performance management processes, workplace investigations and more. This is largely up to you as a founder or a strategic leader to decide - how you want to operate your company.
In my experience, most early stage companies need help with the bottom two layers - what I call Technical HR. The sheer amount of self-service software coupled with government regulation means that founders spend nearly 10+ hours a week on this.
Founders and HR folks, does this align with how you think about your work?