When it comes to managing HR, what do small and midsize businesses care about? How are they handling it today? What challenges do they think they have? How is outsourcing HR to a PEO or ASO perceived? These were all questions we sought to answer in a set of research projects. Now we’re making that data available to you.
This report is useful for any customer-facing members of your team – or those that create customer-facing content. It will provide a better understanding of what SMBs think is working well and what they could use help with. It also looks at the barriers SMBs perceive when making a change to how they handle HR.
Key Themes Emerged
When it comes to HR, most SMBs believe that the way they handle HR is good enough and that the problems that exist aren’t worth spending the time or dollars to address. They recognize that they could be more efficient if they used more technology, outsourced some activities, etc. However, few seriously consider outsourcing or adopting new HR technology. Many also feel that they are too busy to research options — improving HR is always on the back burner.
The report dives much deeper into these topics, but a key challenge for HR service providers is to create a sense of urgency for SMBs. Educate them on the opportunities missed by operating under the status quo. Most SMBs cannot fully imagine how life/business would be better with a trusted partner — they don’t know what they don’t know. HR service providers must take prospects on a crafted journey that highlights the gaps in what they’re doing today.
In the report we take a look at 6 themes that emerged across surveys and interviews:
- Managing mundane tasks is the most apparent HR challenge for SMBs
- Inertia (the perceived effort to value gained) maintains the status quo, even though SMBs recognize their inefficiencies
- SMBs want to offer quality healthcare but feel powerless to control costs. Attract SMB attention by making them feel more empowered
- Helping SMBs understand how much time they actually spend on HR activities may motivate them to consider outsourcing some HR activities
- The value of incremental improvements (vs. wholesale change) is more likely to resonate with SMBs
- Convey the value your services provide (beyond technology)
A Note About COVID-19 Impact
Both the surveys and interviews were conducted prior to businesses being impacted by shutdowns and stay at home orders. This means the report provides a view of business owners during a strong ‘normal’ economy. Over the next few months we expect business owners to return to the viewpoints expressed in the report, but some priorities may have changed over the last few months. Please keep this in mind as you implement some of the learnings from the report.