By Nick Hutchinson
Recently my wife and I went to the shop to purchase a printer for our home. We do very little printing and only need it a few times a year. Because of this, we aimed for one of the cheapest products available and initially felt very happy with our purchase as it appeared to be great value and suit our needs.
Once we got the device out of the box and started the setup process, then things started to get difficult. We had issues connecting the device to the internet, issues printing anything but a test page and suddenly our ‘great value purchase’ was beginning to seem like more trouble than what it was worth.
Finally, after more time than I’d like to admit, the printer was functional. That’s when the quality of the printer became really evident. Printed text and pictures were not so clear, the ink seemed to make the page a little wet and somehow the printer stops halfway through the second page each time and you need to press a button to encourage continuation as it has limited internal memory.
Overall, what seemed easy and cheap ended up costing more in time and stress than what we bargained for. We were reminded of the old sayings like ‘the poor man pays twice’ and ‘you get what you pay for’.
What’s the point of sharing this story? There is a lot to learn from it that applies to managing HR.
There is a plethora of free HR resources on the internet. Templates for contracts, policies and procedures, guidelines for how to manage performance, documented processes for learning, and managing OHS. All of these things are free and can be applied to your business, if you have the time. Some businesses even pay money for these sorts of templates but still don’t receive the kind of tailored advice they really need.
Many social media users boast about using free AI software to develop these sort of documents and processes, that you can then apply to your business. Inevitably though, business owners and managers who attempt this and other free and cheap methods usually end up with the same kind of headache we did when we purchased our cheap printer. Its easy to think you have the right HR tools in the toolkit without actually being effective.
Managing HR is something that can be done seemingly cheaply. You can do it yourself or perhaps put an admin person in a pseudo-HR admin role, but in the long run it may be more costly. Perhaps you have interpreted a pay rate incorrectly and been required to pay back bulk wages? Perhaps you have poorly managed an underperforming employee and it has cost the business both money, stress and a damage to morale? Maybe you don’t identify the right training and development opportunities and good staff leave?
Cheap HR is like my cheap printer, it will cost more in the long run and in the meantime reward you with stress and sleepless nights. Sourcing good HR experts to help manage the people and processes in your business provides a great return on investment. It’s no secret, successful companies invest in HR experts, rather than trying to delegate HR to their best administrative employees. They know that good administration skills don’t equal expert knowledge.
Here at Hutchinson Resources, we are HR experts. We are experienced, and we are not afraid to say that we are good at managing HR. We care about people and how they work in, and for, businesses. We look to partner with businesses who want to manage their people and culture well. Businesses who are keen to grow their businesses by investing in their people.
Are you still choosing cheap HR? Call us and we can show you the value of a HR expert.
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