HR Admin: Key Tasks & Responsibilities

August 3, 2022 | posted by Abacus Payroll

Human Resources plays a large role in the well-being of your business. Throughout the employee life cycle, there are many specific tasks and responsibilities that an HR Admin must be in control of. Those tasks tend to require a full-time employee’s attention, which is not always feasible for someone with other job-related duties OR a small business with a tight budget. HR assignments are time-consuming, quickly add up, and can be costly in event of a mistake.

As a small business owner, your business and your workforce culture are on the line. It is important to be aware of all of the required responsibilities to best make the decision if additional HR support is needed, whether it be a part- or full-time employee, a consultant, or an outsourced solution. A lot of times this may depend on the number of employees at your company, but whether it’s 5 or 50 or 500, you’re going to have HR tasks that need to be accomplished.

HR Tasks & Responsibilities

Company Policies

The best way to keep your business organized and honest is with formal company policies in an Employee Handbook. It can be challenging to keep up-to-date with all of the rules and regulations that you must follow as a business owner. As the world is continuously changing, it is important that your company policies reflect the current state of our world.

The HR Support Center can provide assorted templates and a labor law library to help you build your own Employee Handbook. There are also higher levels of services that can customize the creation process for your specific company and conduct regular check-ins for future updates. Knowing you have HR support with current law information and e-mail alerts on law changes can give you peace of mind that your business policies will be updated when necessary, and not get stale and ignored. It is also a key role of the organization’s HR Admin to communicate any Handbook or policy changes.

Compensation, Benefits, and Payroll

When welcoming a new employee, there are different factors that contribute to their entire compensation package. Staying on top of competitors’ rates and perks, industry trends, and reviewing employees’ resumes can require a lot of time that takes away from other important tasks. In addition, managing and communicating company health care plans and enrollment, and comparing package rates each year, is an entire part-time job in itself. Outsourcing HR services in this area can save you time, energy, and sanity. HR specialists are already tasked with being up-to-date with current compensation trends and employee benefits that can make your life easier as an employer.

For some small businesses, it might even be the same employee that’s responsible for HR tasks that submits payroll data each pay period, ensuring employees are getting paid each pay day. This HR Admin is probably also tasked with setting up a new employee with payroll, managing deductions based on benefits, tracking PTO and leave, alerting payroll about raises and bonuses, terminating an employee from payroll, and distributing year-end forms such as W2s. Another key administrative responsibility is proper employee record retention for both HR and payroll matters.

Recruiting

Finding the right employees for your business can be a time-consuming and strenuous task. However, it is a vital task that a good business owner will prioritize for the benefit of their growing business. When done correctly, the right candidates can be attracted and recruited in hopes of having long-term employees that are productive and positively contribute to the company culture.

Having a trusted HR professional who properly understands you and your business’s goals will help save you time and energy while recruiting the best fit for your business. They are also tasked with writing compliant job descriptions, circulating those descriptions online, organizing applicants, scheduling and conducting interviews, making reference calls, following up with candidates, and coordinating the necessary paperwork when offers are accepted. The online HR Support Center can provide sample job descriptions, interview questions, interview do’s and don’ts, recruiting checklist, and more. Some states have Ban the Box and salary transparency laws that come with hefty penalties if they are ignored in the job description or interview process.

Onboarding and Training

Finding the right employees to work for your business is one thing, but getting them up to speed and immersing them properly in your work environment without feeling too overwhelmed is a whole other complex situation. From company policies to benefits enrollment to daily tasks and responsibilities, there are many aspects of a business that a new employee must be introduced to. Interrupting your daily activities to help get a new employee caught up can be very distracting and have an overall negative effect on your business. First impressions count, and you don’t want this employee to start off on the wrong foot.

Instead, opt for proper onboarding. A dedicated HR specialist can create a set procedure and checklist for new employees to follow that can help get them acclimated to the new work environment. This process will also help new recruits along the way with clear instructions and answer any questions that they may have. This will alleviate the added stress and energy of direct interaction and communication with new staff while trying to execute their daily tasks. The HR Support Center has many tools and resources to aid your in-house employee with addressing everything that needs to be covered in an onboarding checklist.

The learning process never truly ends when it comes to recruiting a new member to the team. Although they are now aware of their required tasks and role in the company, that does not mean that these assignments are not subject to change. As time goes on and your business evolves, employees must be required to learn and grow to keep up with the developing world.

While HR professionals guide new employees through the onboarding process, they also stay nearby and perform regular check-ins to ensure the continuation of development through the business and new employee. Human Resource managers typically assist in the ongoing training so that employees can evolve through their time working at your business. While professional growth benefits the employees, it also benefits you as an employer: employees that seek out new information and tools will assist in the advancement and profitableness of your business.

Workforce Communication

The HR Admin usually fosters employer-employee relations, typically being a point of contact for workplace problems, feedback, worker conflict, discrimination reports, disciplinary issues, manager complaints, managing extended leave, performance reviews, evaluations, continuing education, and more. If your current HR Admin has to juggle this, along with their normal job duties and administering everything else on this list — it’s going to get overwhelming and lead to burnout, oversight, and is just not ideal.

Labor Laws

There are a multitude of laws regarding employment and worker protection that are crucial for any business owner to be aware of. Once you think you have an understanding of the federal laws, there’s a whole new realm of state laws that have to be understood and applied as well. And now add in remote workers in many different states, and labor and employment laws can get confusing very quickly.

From discrimination laws to keeping your employees out of physical harm, there are many rules that must be followed to keep your business a safe place of employment. Attorneys devote an entire specialty of law to labor and employment, so this is not an area where you want to play a guessing game.

Just a few of the key ones include: FLSA. ADA, OSHA, NLRA, FMLA, wage & hour laws, misclassification, record retention, and discrimination based on age, gender, pregnancy, immigration, disability, and others.

A set HR team will be tasked with keeping up-to-date on the laws while also holding your business accountable. This awareness allows you to function in your daily responsibilities without the concern of violating any laws because you know that your HR team has your back.

Outsourcing Small Business HR

There are many tasks to be aware of when it comes to Human Resources. Prioritizing these tasks can not only be time-consuming, but also take you away from the aspects of your business that are required to make a profit. There are different levels of outsourcing the HR business function at your small business, ranging from an affordable $11/month fee for a self-serve library, to a couple hundred dollars per month for a dedicated consultant that provides customized services unique to your business. Either way, it is more cost effective than hiring a full-time HR professional.

Outsource your business’s HR through Abacus Payroll to ensure you are running an efficient business while getting the most bang for your buck.

If you have any further questions about the roles and responsibilities of HR professionals, contact an Abacus Payroll advisor today!

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About the Author: Abacus Payroll

Abacus Payroll, Inc. is a leading provider of payroll solutions for businesses of all sizes. Whether yours is a family-owned small business or a national corporation, we provide payroll, tax and other financial services on time and at an affordable price. Unlike other payroll providers, Abacus Payroll will assign your very own payroll specialist who will understand your payroll needs inside and out. So no more speaking to a different person each time, no more sitting on hold for hours and most importantly no more missed deadlines! Contact us today to see how we can help your business. You can count on us.