The Benefits of Hiring an HR Consultant for Your Bookkeeping Firm (Plus Our Recommended HR Experts)
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When I started my very first bookkeeping and tax firm, I didn’t even WANT to hire a team.
I quickly learned that team members are the key to scaling to new heights, and learned how to find team members, hire them, and easily delegate work.
It wasn’t until I started growing my team at Workflow Queen that I realized I needed the help of an HR consultant to make sure I was staying compliant with fair labor laws and all the fun stuff that comes with being an employer!
In this blog, I wanted to share my experience with things like:
Deciding I was ready to get HR support
All the amazing benefits of hiring an HR company
Exactly which HR company we work with and why we LOVE them
If you’ve been curious about reaching out to an HR company, but you’re not sure if your bookkeeping firm needs that kind of support just yet, read this blog to help you decide!
The Benefits of Hiring an HR Consultant for Your Bookkeeping Firm
Before we get into this, I just want you to know that you don’t HAVE to hire an HR company if you have a team. But when we were in a process of shifting the roles of our current employees and hiring another, it was the best way to ensure we were doing everything right.
There’s sooo many rules and regulations about employing someone, it was worth it to us to make sure we correctly structured our pay rates, scope of the role, and more!
An HR company or consultant is super helpful when you want to assess your current firm’s compliance, or set yourself up for hiring in the future.
They can even help you with things like:
Creating an Offer Letter
An HR consultant can help you create an offer letter that includes all the important stuff you’ll need to protect both your firm, and your new employee.
Once you’ve selected a candidate, you’ll need to put together an offer letter and officially extend the job to them!
Not sure what to include? At a minimum, you’ll want to include things like:
Job title
Type of employee (exempt or non-exempt)
Work schedule/hours
Rate of pay
But working with an HR company (like our favorite) will help you take your offer letter wayyy beyond the basics. They’ll help you include important clauses that protect you AND your new employee, depending on where your business is located.
Create a Job Description
If you haven’t had to write a job description before, you might underestimate how much really goes into it! But the reality is that it’s SUPER important to include certain things, and use language that’ll attract your dream candidate.
When you create a job description, make sure you have:
A list of required skills. You might be tempted to make this list super long - but keeping the required skills list short will actually HELP you attract more people to your post.
A list of preferred skills. Here’s where you can get creative with it and list out everything you’d like someone to bring to the table!
A description of the work environment. Will they be remote? Staring at a computer screen for extended periods? Lifting heavy objects?
An equal employment opportunity statement (which an HR consultant or lawyer can provide)
When an HR team is helping you create the job description, you’ll have experts in your corner to help make that task a little less scary. Plus, they can even help you decide on a minimum salary based on fair labor laws!
Supporting the Hiring and Onboarding Process
Once you make a verbal offer to your unicorn candidate, you can officially start the onboarding process!
Submit your offer letter and let them know to sign and return it within a specific deadline (about 3 days).
Your HR company can support you with getting your new team member’s tax documents organized and ordering background checks.
It sounds like a lot of steps and information to remember…
But that’s because it IS a lot of information, and we don’t know what we don’t know!
So our solution to making sure we were staying super compliant and following fair labor laws was to hire Why HR.
Why We Chose to Work With Why HR
Like I said at the beginning of this blog, we knew when it was the right time for us to bring on Why HR, but it might not be the same for everyone.
Once we met Matt Tipton, CEO of the company, he absolutely blew our minds with information about how to legally employ people and do all the things that come with it.
Now, we’re obsessed with Why HR (we even had Matt do a guest spot in Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants 🤩) and we still have them supporting us on a regular basis.
What is Why HR?
According to their website: “At WhyHR, we focus on helping business owners grow strategically through compliance, policies, and people strategy.”
And that’s just scratching the surface of how they help companies build and manage their teams! They’re really there to fill in the gaps for business owners who aren’t 100% sure how to stay compliant with labor laws and standards.
They really focus on three categories:
Compliance
We’ve covered how important it is to be compliant, but it’s super important, so let’s recap! Why HR can help you stay in compliance with regulations set in place by the IRS, Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. There’s so much to know! That’s why we love the peace of mind we get by working with Why HR!
Policy & People
We’ve already mentioned how Why HR can help you with offer letters and job descriptions, but policy includes SO much more than that! They’ll even write your employee handbook! Most importantly, when you have policies in place, it’s sooo much easier to stay consistent when conflicts come up!
Training
Why HR offers in-person and online training for business owners who just want to learn more about HR policies and best practices. You can even request a custom session if the pre-planned topics aren’t the right fit!
The biggest benefit of working with them is simply knowing that we’re protected because they help us follow the regulations of the Department of Labor. Sure, it’s not the most exciting part of running a business, but it’s TOTALLY worth doing it right!
What Can’t Why HR Do?
So even though Why HR is the best and we LOVE them, they don’t offer certain services.
Which, by the way, is a good thing because they stick with their zone of genius (aka HR and people stuff!).
Why HR doesn’t offer:
Staffing - They won’t go out and recruit candidates for you, interview them, or pick who gets the job.
Payroll - They CAN help you get a team member set up in something like Gusto for payroll, but they don’t actually manage the payroll for your company.
Insurance - They’ll advise on which policies you might need, but they won’t be able to create a policy for you.
Does Your Bookkeeping Firm Need HR Support?
Whether you already have a team, or you’re looking to make your first hire, Why HR is there to support you!
Since we’ve been using their services, we’ve gained sooo much confidence in how we build and manage our team. Matt is the expert we trust to stay up to date on HR policies, so we HIGHLY recommend him and Why HR to everyone!
If you want to learn more about Matt’s HR skills and how Why HR can support you, head over to their website, set up a call, and tell them Workflow Queen sent you!
