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I literally own and operate a business in that headcount and it operated exceptionally well for the last decade with zero hr staff. We are considering hiring an

I literally own and operate a business in that headcount and it operated exceptionally well for the last decade with zero hr staff. We are considering hiring an hr person now and that isn't driven by business need, it's driven by increasing risk from bad government liability policy basically forcing us to develop policy documents we can point at if two or more employees get into a beef unrelated to work on premise or if one or more employees do something stupid that leads to their or others injury, among other government mandated risk vectors. In a sense government bullshit jobs are creating private sector bullshit jobs.

travisjungroth 3y ago
I wouldn’t hire someone for that now. The cost of lightly customized documents is taking a hard turn towards zero.
nicbou 3y ago
Who is handling on and offboarding of employees? Contracts? To be honest I don't recall working without HR above a dozen employees.
- throwaway675309 3y ago
  Anecdotal but I worked for a smallish company of about 40 people in total for several years , and we had a single person handling HR.
- kazen44 3y ago
  also, in some countries having HR above a very small size (25 people or so) is a requirement because of the addition of work councils. workers have legal representation with the company above a certain size, and HR is required as a counter party for a lot of the stuff worker councils co-decide on.
- crtified 3y ago
  In a small business with low staff turnover - which amply describes any number of small city outlets - most of that stuff is ad-hocable. It's not efficient, but it's such a small part of the work involved that few cares are given.
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  We use a lawyer to update the base contract if it's been more than six months since we last had the lawyer look at the contract, otherwise our back office manager updates the pertinent info and handles signing said contract. Onboarding and offboarding is handled by the same person, who then loops in others if needed (i.e our IT guy to turn off/cold store email, nas access, revoke any certificates, etc). Offboarding may also involve the external legal counsel, depending on what sort of release is needed/obligations are relevant from the employment contract on both sides. It probably averages 10 or 20 hours of work a year total (although it is increasing linearly as we add employees). it's honestly very efficient to not have HR at these employment levels as far as these direct business cases go. It's the increasing government regulation and potential liability that seems to require many more hours of HR time to ensure we are properly protected through drafting compliant policy, ensuring all employees are aware of policy in a legally binding way, etc. If things were regulated less insanely (i.e if the liability of someone saying something spicy in a work group chat lands only on the person speaking by default rather than being shiftable to me as the employer) then I wouldn't need obvious things crystallized in company policy with HR ensuring each employee can be shown to know said policy in a court of law while also adjudicating the whole process if someone complains. You may be working in Europe rather than North America. Europe is far ahead of us in terms of bullshit job creation due to government regulation, but we are catching up.
  - dopidopHN 3y ago
    > Europe is far ahead of us in terms of bullshit job creation due to government regulation, but we are catching up. To each it’s own. The lack of government regulations also creates job with discutable outcome in the US. Adminstrative medical staff to deal with the insurance quagmire and wallmart greeters comes to mind. I would also evaluate the number of waiter to be 1.5 times higher for the same quality of service ( and more icy glass refill )
    - snapplebobapple 3y ago
      Medicine is a bad example because it seems to create bullshit jobs through regulation whether it is private or public payor/provider. I am personally in canada and the amount of bullshit jobs just moves from insurance yo a mix of insurance and public administration. Wallmart greeter and waiter isn't a bullshit job in the context of this article's definition because it is obvious both those jobs have purpose, even if it is purpose you may not value.
robocat 3y ago
Repeatable work: why are you not outsourcing or finding a startup in the space?

travisjungroth 3y ago

I wouldn’t hire someone for that now. The cost of lightly customized documents is taking a hard turn towards zero.

nicbou 3y ago

Who is handling on and offboarding of employees? Contracts? To be honest I don't recall working without HR above a dozen employees.

throwaway675309 3y ago
Anecdotal but I worked for a smallish company of about 40 people in total for several years , and we had a single person handling HR.
kazen44 3y ago
also, in some countries having HR above a very small size (25 people or so) is a requirement because of the addition of work councils. workers have legal representation with the company above a certain size, and HR is required as a counter party for a lot of the stuff worker councils co-decide on.
crtified 3y ago
In a small business with low staff turnover - which amply describes any number of small city outlets - most of that stuff is ad-hocable. It's not efficient, but it's such a small part of the work involved that few cares are given.
snapplebobapple 3y ago
We use a lawyer to update the base contract if it's been more than six months since we last had the lawyer look at the contract, otherwise our back office manager updates the pertinent info and handles signing said contract. Onboarding and offboarding is handled by the same person, who then loops in others if needed (i.e our IT guy to turn off/cold store email, nas access, revoke any certificates, etc). Offboarding may also involve the external legal counsel, depending on what sort of release is needed/obligations are relevant from the employment contract on both sides. It probably averages 10 or 20 hours of work a year total (although it is increasing linearly as we add employees). it's honestly very efficient to not have HR at these employment levels as far as these direct business cases go. It's the increasing government regulation and potential liability that seems to require many more hours of HR time to ensure we are properly protected through drafting compliant policy, ensuring all employees are aware of policy in a legally binding way, etc. If things were regulated less insanely (i.e if the liability of someone saying something spicy in a work group chat lands only on the person speaking by default rather than being shiftable to me as the employer) then I wouldn't need obvious things crystallized in company policy with HR ensuring each employee can be shown to know said policy in a court of law while also adjudicating the whole process if someone complains. You may be working in Europe rather than North America. Europe is far ahead of us in terms of bullshit job creation due to government regulation, but we are catching up.
- dopidopHN 3y ago
  > Europe is far ahead of us in terms of bullshit job creation due to government regulation, but we are catching up. To each it’s own. The lack of government regulations also creates job with discutable outcome in the US. Adminstrative medical staff to deal with the insurance quagmire and wallmart greeters comes to mind. I would also evaluate the number of waiter to be 1.5 times higher for the same quality of service ( and more icy glass refill )
  - snapplebobapple 3y ago
    Medicine is a bad example because it seems to create bullshit jobs through regulation whether it is private or public payor/provider. I am personally in canada and the amount of bullshit jobs just moves from insurance yo a mix of insurance and public administration. Wallmart greeter and waiter isn't a bullshit job in the context of this article's definition because it is obvious both those jobs have purpose, even if it is purpose you may not value.

robocat 3y ago

Repeatable work: why are you not outsourcing or finding a startup in the space?