It is very common practice nowadays for a PE backed growth business in the mid or lower mid-market to think that the answer to all their prayers on the people front is to hire a Head of People to develop and deliver their people strategy. So many of these individuals are in essence being set up to fail though. Why? because the scope of what is required to get these organisations to a place where they are, as a minimum, getting the fundamentals right let alone being strategic in their approach to people, is far bigger than one individual can possibly cope with.
Often these businesses have no real people infrastructure or established processes to build upon as HR has been an administrative function usually done off the side of a finance or ops desk. They also do not have the budget to invest in a fully-fledged HR team and then wait for the business to grow into it. There often isn’t the experience in the existing executive team to know what good looks like, so there is a vast amount of education and stakeholder management that has to occur before any progress can be made. Finally, it is quite rare or very time consuming to find the ‘unicorn’ that is the superstar individual HR generalist who knows what good looks like in this space, can work at the pace required AND who is willing and able to engage at and deliver at multiple levels, from Board down to the grass roots of the business.
So, is there another way?
There absolutely is and it works really well for SMEs who recognise that they want and need good strategic, operational and commercial HR support to help them deliver on their overall growth objectives.
So, what’s the answer?
Well – instead of hiring in house, why not partner with a specialist business that can provide you with a whole HR team with skills at multiple levels and across multiple disciplines on a fractional basis? You get access to capabilities that can engage and influence at the top tier becoming an integral part of your management team whilst also having resource to manage your day to day people processes whilst dealing with people issues and developing the capability of your managers. You would be working with a team who know what good looks like in growth SME organisations, will support you in making practical and commercial decisions and can also bring instant infrastructure and process to the business at speed ultimately having a visible impact on your organisation at every level. One person just cannot do all of this in the same way or in the same timeframe.
Sounds too good to be true and must be pricey I hear you say.
In reality, not really considering the upside:
- Access to skill and experience at multiple levels
- Strategic, commercial operational support
- Deep understanding of growth business needs
- Access to infrastructure and best practice at pace
- Market insight and innovation
- A flexible approach – on and offsite support when required
- Driving value creation through people engagement and talent management
- Tangible synergies on exit ( particularly to trade)
Hiring a Head of People can cost the business 100k or more all in. Imagine spreading that investment across all areas of HR/Talent and L&D and having the benefit of accessing a whole team of experts – all for roughly the same price or for smaller businesses, materially less.
As one of our PE backed business services clients said at their Board meeting the other day when asked by their investor if the model works – ‘Well! If you have any other businesses in the portfolio with similar needs to ours (i.e. all of the above), why wouldn’t you?’
There is more than one way to put the people agenda on the map. Interested to know more – feel free to drop us a line on team@strattonhr.co.uk or contact me directly on anna.cornwallis@strattonhr.co.uk