A Look at the HR Responsibilities of Medium-Sized Businesses

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As a medium-sized business owner, you are likely trying to compete with companies that are both bigger and smaller than yours. Your business sits in that middle lane which presents its own set of benefits and challenges that will need to be overcome. With that said, it’s quite normal that you can feel pulled in multiple directions at once. There is always something pressing that needs your attention, and you never want to overlook any key aspects of operating the business.

One area that is extremely important but not always discussed is the HR responsibilities of a business. What exactly are they? What do you need to ensure is happening regularly, and why? Let’s dive in and take a deeper look at what the HR responsibilities are of a medium-sized business.

Consider Taking Things Out-of-House

Before unrolling the many HR responsibilities of medium-sized businesses, it’s important to discuss who will be in this role. Do you want a dedicated full-time HR representative and potentially an HR department? In a large-sized company, this makes sense, as the demand is there and having in-house HR representatives is likely necessary. In a medium-sized business, however, it may be wise to look into outsourcing your HR needs.

What are the benefits of outsourcing HR? Here are just some of them:

• Cost-effectiveness, since you’re not paying a full-time staff member to conduct the job
• You can hire a company with the right level of experience and the right tools
• You don’t have to invest in the necessary HR hardware
• Your employees will have access to professional and high-level tools and information
• You may be able to offer better benefits to your employees, which can help you to attract top talent
• It allows you to focus on other, equally important aspects of the business

G&A Partners explains a bit more about outsourcing HR, and services like theirs make it possible for you to save the company money and time. Those two factors alone – money and time saving – are typically enough to get the attention of any medium-sized business owner.

Payroll Is Among the Most Important Responsibilities

In terms of the responsibilities of HR in a medium-sized business, payroll administration is probably among the most important. Employees need to know they are being paid on time, seamlessly and accurately each pay period. This process can get even more involved if you have multiple shifts, overtime workers at an overtime rate, and so forth.

Also included under the category of payroll administration is such responsibilities as payroll tax filing, printing and filing of W-4 and W-2 slips, keeping track of employee sick days and vacation time, payroll reporting, setting up the standard deductions on payroll and much more. As you can see, this one task of payroll administration can be quite time-consuming all on its own.

Making Sure the Company Stays Compliant

Here’s another very important responsibility that falls under the HR department. Making sure the company stays compliant in a few different areas is important and necessary under United States regulatory laws.

In terms of workplace health and safety, the HR department will need to focus on:

• Workplace safety
• Risk management in the workplace
• Making sure company procedures and policies are in place and followed
• Giving out safety training and handbooks
• Ensuring safety inspections take place
• Creating an accident prevention plan and putting it into action
• Dealing with OSHA

Each of these contributes to creating a safe workplace for all employees, making sure any potential areas of risk are identified and reduced or eliminated, all while following labor laws.

Then there are the broader compliance laws at the local, state and federal level. These can be quite confusing to stay on top of, and they can change from time to time. It’s up to the HR department to always be on top of the employment labor laws and ensure the company is compliant at all times.

Recruiting and Hiring Top Talent

The list of responsibilities continues to grow as the HR department is also the one that is responsible for recruiting and hiring top talent. The employees you hire will play a pivotal role in how successful the business is, so this is a responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Recruiting alone can be a time-intensive process as it’s not always easy to find the ideal employee for the job. This will involve creating a job posting, knowing where to post the job, resume screening, connecting with head hunters, recruiting from within the company, conducting background checks and more.

Then there is the decision-making process, where you will be narrowing down the field to pick the perfect employee. There will then be an onboarding process wherein a new employee is hired and brought into the company. This will require paperwork and training, much of which HR will be responsible for – certainly where the paperwork is concerned and setting up the employee.

Handling the Company Benefits Program

If you are a company that offers a benefits program, someone needs to look after the administration aspect and, again, this falls on the shoulders of HR. Employees will need to be briefed on the benefits program, given literature or a handbook discussing the coverage, and then HR needs to be prepared to handle any questions and claims that come in.

The paperwork part of the benefits program can be very involved and confusing to those without experience, as you will be dealing with official documents that track everything to do with the benefits. This includes paid time-off tracking, 401 (k) administration, unemployment claims administration and plenty more.

A Very Involved and Important Job

The role and responsibilities of HR in a medium-sized business are typically a lot bigger than you may assume. The larger the company, the more employees they have, and the longer the list of responsibilities can get. This is exactly why so many companies end up creating an entire HR department or looking at outsourcing the duties as a way to streamline and save time.

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The purpose of Human Resources (HR) is to ensure our organization achieves success through our people. Without the right people in place—at all levels of the organization—we will never be able to execute our Strategy effectively.

This begs the question: Does your organization view HR as a support function or a strategic one? Research shows leading organizations leverage HR as a strategic function, one that both supports and drives the organization's Strategy. In fact, having strong HRM capabilities is a source of Competitive Advantage.

This has never been more true than right now in the Digital Age, as organizations must compete for specialized talent to drive forward their Digital Transformation Strategies. Beyond just hiring and selection, HR also plays the critical role in retaining talent—by keeping people engaged, motivated, and happy.

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