Is there such a thing as a typical career path for someone wanting to become an HR director in a small-to-medium enterprise – or even a typical HR director profile in this space?
HR professionals generally seem to fall into three categories: those who spend their careers in corporate, blue chip environments; those who prefer to work in smaller companies and people who are adaptable enough to be equally at home in both.
SMEs tend to attract flexible personality types who have an entrepreneurial streak, which mirrors that of the business owners. Such individuals consciously seek more accountability, more opportunities to be self-reliant and the chance to work more closely with the business.
Equally happy to roll their sleeves up and buy refreshments for delegates on a training course one minute, they can act as part of the management team exploring how to restructure the company the next. These HR professionals thrive on taking an active part in a business.
But without recourse to specialist HR support in areas such as talent management, employee engagement, complex employee relations issues, organisational effectiveness or development, heads of HR in this sector must be self-sufficient and rely on their own HR networks, research and legal support.
They also have to ensure that they keep up-to-date with the latest HR initiatives and recognise those that will benefit their own business and those that will not.
In the past, the SME option may not have been an attractive one to some in the HR profession. Broadly-speaking, HR tended to be viewed as a ‘necessary evil’ here – a policing kind of function to ensure that employment law was not broken.
Flexibility and autonomy
But encouragingly, SMEs now appear to be more aware of the value that HR can bring. Indeed, the managing director of a small company, which employs some 130 people and has ambitious growth and acquisition plans, recently said that he considered the head of HR to his right-hand person and to be as important as the finance and operations director.
One of his concerns was how it, as a small company, could attract, retain and develop the best people, especially when it was in growth phase – and this is a key area in which a head of HR can add real value.
But this move towards treating HR directors with greater respect makes working in the SME sector more attractive to ambitious professionals.
As a result, some are choosing to gain broad experience in larger, blue chip organisations at the start of their career, before consciously moving to an HRD role in a smaller company in order to gain autonomy more quickly than they otherwise would.
These individuals are, of course, attractive to SMEs because of their experience. But due to the limited career opportunities on offer in this context, their tenure is often relatively short-lived and their next career move will usually see them heading back to a larger company in order to head up a division perhaps.
Having a mix of this kind of experience on one’s CV can help to demonstrate flexibility, an entrepreneurial streak and good leadership know-how, however.
Another route to becoming a head of HR in this area, meanwhile, is to start off in an administrative role such as a personal assistant or office manager – either with or without a degree – and subsequently take on more and more HR responsibility as the company grows.
These professionals tend to fall into HR and find that they enjoy it. At some stage, they may be sponsored by their employer to undertake a CIPD qualification in order to instil some professionalism into the HR function.
Moving sideways
Such individuals tend to grow professionally with their organisation and may move on to become HRD in another SME – where they tend to be just as attractive as those with blue chip backgrounds because they have already proved that they understand and can thrive in an SME environment.
But HR professionals who have grown through the ranks in this way may be less attractive to larger blue chip companies as their HR experience will often have been more limited.
For example, they may not have been involved in multiple, complex employee relations issues, run large recruitment campaigns, devised talent management programmes and so forth.
Additionally, international experience is becoming increasingly important for candidates to demonstrate in order to make it to the top of a big company, but the opportunities to gain this in an SME context may be limited or non-existent.
This means that people who have a predominantly SME background may find it more difficult to move into a larger blue chip organisation in order to progress their career and may have to make a sideways move in order to do so.
Financial rewards for HRDs in smaller firms are not dissimilar to those offered to heads of HR in the divisions of larger companies. But it goes without saying that there is a ceiling in terms of earnings potential and salaries will never reach those of the much bigger HRD roles with international responsibility.
In conclusion, there is no typical career path for people to become heads of HR in the SME space. While working in this sector will not suit everyone, one individual who worked for a big blue chip company for 30 years and took semi-retirement to become head of HR for a small construction firm, said it was the best thing she had ever done.
Dee Townend is a managing consultant at specialist HR recruitment consultancy, Digby Morgan.
3 Responses
Operations and HR in SMEs
I think Dee and Jeremy’s comments are spot on. My last employed role was for an SME (Approx £7m t/o and 80 staff) where I was Chief Operating Officer. A few weeks after starting the role I was ‘gifted’ the personnel files as I foolishly mentioned that I had worked closely with HR in a previous role. After purchasing one of our competitors then opening a privately run NHS walk in centre I had accumulated enough knowledge and experience to obtain Membership of the CIPD through the Professional Assessment of Competence route.
During my time as an operations manager/director I had also obtained a Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance – which sounds a mouthful, but essentially it is an excellent grounding in financial analysis, management accounting, business analysis etc for middle to senior management. The ability to back up any recommendation to peers with financials puts you in a strong position. Not only has it stood me in good stead whilst employed, it has also been advantageous for running my own business. Getting the FD of any potential client on side at the outset of a new client relationship is hugely advantageous.
— Sarah Matthews SFM Consulting http://www.sfmconsulting.co.uk
HR in SMEs
I thought that both Dee and Jeremy’s articles were good and welcome.
I am an HR Manager in a SME which is a stand alone role, as I suspect many HR roles withn SMEs are. I have worked in SMEs predominantly during my HR career but I did gain a lot of experience when I worked for 2 years at a larger organisation as part of a HR team. However SMEs do give so much more variety and autonomy even though most of the admin etc is done by yours truly!
The one thing that I do find in an SME, especially as I am now in a sector (retail) that was previously unknown to me, is not having anyone to ‘bounce’ ideas off. I thought that I might find similar people through social media sites but have been unable to connect with anyone. A mentor/colleague in a similar situation would be great.
I shall continue to read HR Zone (and others) for any help, but it would be well received, by me definately, if a certain professional body recognised the fact that we are not all employed in large ‘blue chip’ corporations and we do contribute to decisions throughout the business regardless of whether those decisions are HR related or not.
Head of HR in SMEs
I thought Dee’s note was spot on.
The problem I see for HR professionals is that ‘HR’ divides into so many very different elements and skill-sets; from tactical ‘pay & rations’ to strategic organisational development; from management learning and leadership development to recruitment, talent management and succession planning; from broad employee relations and comms to industrial relations and disciplinary matters; and all the rest including H&S, HR policies, Pensions, and Employment Law tracking….
So if you want to see the whole picture, you will almost certainly get that breadth of experience much earlier on in your career with a smaller organisation than a larger one. You will also, almost certainly, have much greater visibility within your organisation at a senior level, and wider oppportunities to move into other functions such as operations or even general management if you want them. (And, if you have a talent for either tactical management control or a strategic bent and some commercial nous, an HR back-ground can make a really great spring board into other functions.)
I have three points of caution however. I need to say I am not an HR specialist – I just sit on a lot of boards as a Non-Exec Director or advise them. But I do have a passion for helping both organisations and their people to fulfill their fuill potential.
First, because ‘HR’ is such a big field, when you work for an SME you will be expected to be a Jack/Jill of *all* HR trades. A wise board will understand this and support you with funding specialist external advice as needed, but you had better be smart to know when to ask for this! And it will certainly be helpful to have at least one major area of proven expertise personally, whether it is in Employment Law, Recruitment, Training or whatever.
Secondly, SMEs often really appreciate the worth of HR professionals (and many others!) who have blue-chip organisational backgrounds, as long as they are culturally attuned to working a smaller organisation. But I don’t find this applies in reverse very often. It is usually really hard to move from a small organisation to a very large one, unless you have exceptional talent and proven skills in short supply. (This can happen. For example, in working with a specialist IT company, or an engineering contractor perhaps, where it is understood that working with very bright PhD software engineers, or self-employed sub-contractors, is not like working anywhere else!)
Thirdly, if you want to be a ‘proper’ Director (with all its fiduciary duties, personally and jointly liable, etc, etc), rather than Head of HR, there are still very few SMEs who have such posts available unless you have much more to offer. That can also be true of much larger organisations as well, but do be warned?
I hope this may be helpful?
Jeremy@JeremyThorn.co.uk