No Business is Too Small for HR!

“We like to put the human back in human resources”.

This week on Business Over Breakfast we were joined by Natalie Delmage from Insperity. The mission of Insperity is to help small to medium-sized businesses succeed so that communities can prospect! How do they do this you may ask? By being advisors in the community, reaching out to their networks, and starting conversations about the Human Resources (HR) function of a business. 

“I’m really tasked to go out and start conversations about HR so that people are thinking about it because once it's something that’s top of mind, it becomes much easier and that much more feasible to start making changes.” - Natalie.

In most small businesses the business owner is taking over HR functions which can take them away from the function of the business. That’s where Insperity jumps in, they work alongside you to help relieve the burden of trying to build the culture while taking care of employees. 

“What I love is when we’re able to relieve that burden and you focus more on the strategic part of HR, which is what makes people want to come to work every day”, Natalie shares.

Insperity wants to talk to you about how your business is taking care of its employees, not just how you employ them. They want to understand your strategy and culture because they are a strategic partner when it comes to having employees. You may be thinking, what else falls under HR other than hiring? HR is everything related to your people that can be in compliance with federal and state regulations. HR is a thankless job and that’s because a lot of HR is behind the scenes and protecting the business and taking care of compliance. 

Insperity offers an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) which provides extra assistance to employees. They are able to reach out to therapists if that’s something your business is looking for, as well as seek assistance in the financial side of life. Nowadays most employers are trying to find that great balance so people feel like they can serve their employer, get work done and enjoy doing that work but also have life balance which is crucial.

Due to the pandemic, the overtime that people are working right now is substantially more than what it used to be because mostly everyone is working from home. “If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that you can trust your people to get their job done in a remote working situation” Natalie shared. Over the last year and a half, productivity has been high but Natalie made a great point by saying we need to remember when working from home, that even individuals need to go ‘home,’ meaning turning off the computer and being present.

This week we learned that everyone needs HR - whether you have five employees or 50! When your company has 5 employees, this is typically when it starts to make sense to come into this kind of relationship with Insperity. You want to prepare because you might be exposing your business to risk that you don’t even know about because nothing has happened YET. No business is too small to be exploring how they do HR within their business.

Insperity offers a lot of educational content regularly. You can go to Natalie’s LinkedIn page or the Insperity website to learn more!

Each week on Business Over Breakfast, marketing experts Lori and Ben are joined by Rhode Island entrepreneurs who are living their dream of owning and running a business. If you’re a Rhode Island business owner and want to share your story please contact danielle@visualthrive.com and visit ShopLocalRhodeIsland to learn about other small businesses.