HRM textbook

CHAPTER 18 MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES IN SMALL AND ENTREPRENEURIAL FIRMS 623
5 Describe how you would
create a start-up human
resource system for a new
small business.
MANAGING HR SYSTEMS, PROCEDURES,
AND PAPERWORK
Introduction
Consider the paperwork required to run a five-person retail shop. Just to start with,
recruiting and hiring an employee might require a help wanted advertising listing, an
employment application, an interviewing checklist, various verifications of education
and immigration status, for instance and a telephone reference checklist. You then
might need an employment agreement, confidentiality and noncompetition agreements,
and an employer indemnity agreement. To process the new employee you might
need a background verification, a new employee checklist, and forms for withholding
tax and to obtain new employee data. And to keep track of the employee once on board,
you d need just to start a personnel data sheet, daily and weekly time records, an
hourly employee s weekly time sheet, and an expense report. Then come all the
performance appraisal forms, a disciplinary notice, an employee orientation record,
separation notice, and employment reference response.
In fact, the preceding list barely scratches the surface of the policies, procedures,
and paperwork you ll need to run the human resource management part of your
business. Perhaps with just one or two employees you could keep track of everything
in your head, or just write a separate memo for each HR action, and place it in a folder
for each worker. But with more employees, you ll need to create a human resource
system comprised of standardized forms. As the company grows, you ll then have
to computerize various parts of the HR system payroll, or appraising, for instance.
Basic Components of Manual HR Systems
Very small employers (say, with 10 employees or less) will probably start with a
manual human resource management system. From a practical point of view, this
generally means obtaining and organizing a set of standardized personnel forms
covering each important aspect of the HR recruitment, selection, training,
appraisal, compensation, safety process, as well as some means for organizing all
this information for each of your employees.
BASIC FORMS The number of forms you would conceivably need even for a
small firm is quite large, as the illustrative list in Table 18-3 shows. 76 One simple
way to obtain the basic component forms of a manual HR system is to start with
one of the books or CDs that provide compilations of HR forms. The forms you
TABLE 18-3 Some Important Employment Forms
New Employee Forms Current Employee Forms Employee Separation Forms
Application
New Employee Checklist
Employee Status
Change Request
Retirement Checklist
Termination Checklist
Employment Interview Employee Record COBRA Acknowledgment
Reference Check Performance Evaluation Unemployment Claim
Telephone Reference Report Warning Notice Employee Exit Interview
Employee Manual
Acknowledgment
Vacation Request
Probation Notice
Employment Agreement Job Description
Employment Application Probationary Evaluation
Disclaimer
Employee Secrecy Agreement
Direct Deposit Acknowledgment
Absence Report
Disciplinary Notice
Grievance Form
Expense Report
401(k) Choices
Acknowledgment
Injury Report