HR for Small Business
Luke Finlay
Wholegrain Milling Co
Situation Before
Being a small business we didn’t have the resources to dedicate to the area of human resource management. We already had our plates fully loaded – we were wearing many hats and we found that we were spending a lot of time trying to manage this area without being equipped to do so.
Before we began working with Norgay HR there was no consistency in our approach to HR Management. There was no one template for employment contracts, our policies were not up to date, and we had no guidance for dealing with the inevitable issues that can arise. We were also faced with a number of risky people issues to deal with, and despite our best efforts we felt that we weren’t handling those situations in a way that minimised risk to the business.
Process
Norgay HR took us through a comprehensive HR Audit process, identifying gaps in our current practices and processes. Recommendations were made which we are in the process of working through with their support. One of those recommendations was the implementation of a cost effective HR technology platform to replace our ad hoc approach to documentation management, and to provide us access to any template or process we may need to manage the day to day HR administration tasks.
Our working partnership means that we can call up the Norgay HR team when we need direction or advice on any aspect of HR management within the business.
Situation Today
We’ve put on quite a few people in the last 12 months. With Norgay HR now managing the onboarding of new staff, the process has been seamless. We’ve yet to have a complaint about how the process has been handled and from our perspective it’s saved management a lot of time. It used to take us weeks chasing up new staff to sign their contracts, or to provide us with their information. Now we don’t do that legwork anymore. With Norgay HR managing this process, we know that everything is in place.
Today we have access to consistent templates, as well as professional HR experience to tap into when we need it. We have the confidence that any interaction we have with an employee is being handled correctly, and any documentation we hand over has been generated by professionals.
It was the expertise that we really needed, but that we didn’t have. Our business is located in rural NSW and that geographic limitation meant we were fishing from a relatively small pond for that expertise.
The working partnership with the team at Norgay HR means that those limitations no longer exist for us.
“It was the best thing we ever did to get Norgay HR on board. HR needs management level attention, and it’s good to have a partner in that area that I can rely on.”
“Throughout our collaboration, you’ve not just been a service provider but a valuable partner. Your expertise in navigating complex situations and providing tailored solutions has been a critical factor in our journey. The professionalism and dedication exhibited by your team have been exemplary, always going above and beyond to assist us.”
“We have been using Norgay HR since early 2021 and they have transformed that aspect of our business. We now have 20 staff across four locations and we very quickly came to rely on Norgay HR’s professionalism, availability, knowledge, and service to ensure very smooth HR systems and management. Now when it comes to – onboarding new staff, renewing contracts, dispute resolution, bulk communications, and legislation updates – Norgay has made it easy and thorough and their advice is considered and comprehensive. I recommend them wholeheartedly.”
“The team at Norgay HR is always on hand to provide us with the HR support needed for any business, big or small. One of the things that I really like about Norgay HR is that not only are they are experts in advising on HR, they also have a strong appreciation for maintaining our culture of informality and innovation. We have recently completed our largest acquisition yet, and the team at Norgay HR did a fantastic job supporting us on the people side of the whole process.”
“Like many businesses in the SME sector, the impact of COVID-19 was felt early on, well before JobKeeper and other government support schemes were announced. With information changing constantly, we came to rely on our new partnership with Norgay HR to steer us through that difficult period when it came to looking after our team.”
