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How to set up an HR function: The essential guide and checklist

A step-by-step essential guide with everything you need to know to set up a HR team, including tips, tricks and potential pitfalls.

We all know that HR is more than just ‘fire and hire’. It’s responsible for one of the company’s biggest assets: its people.

If you’re a business owner who is in the process of getting your business off the ground, or perhaps the head of finance or operations tasked with creating an HR function from scratch, this step-by-step guide will take you through everything you need to know.

This guide is also useful for anyone who may be a company’s first HR hire and is thinking about the task ahead and what needs to be done to create an established HR practice in a company.

We’ve spoken to experts who have gone through the process themselves to find out: what are the need-to-know pitfalls, and what advice they’d share with others.

This is split into four phases to setting up an HR function:

  • Phase one: how to understand your business and define your objectives.
  • Phase two: what you need to do to build your HR function.
  • Phrase three: ready, set, go - how to deliver against your HR plan.
  • Phase four: get set up to grow and future-proof.

This guide will explore the steps to take for each of these phases.

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