HR support for small businesses: hire or software?

Most small businesses get HR wrong, not because they don’t care, but because nobody owns it. Contracts go out late, onboarding is all over the place and one day something slips through the cracks that costs real money or lands you in a legal mess.

The good news is, sorting out HR support for small businesses doesn’t have to mean hiring someone at £50k a year. There are better ways to do it now. In this article, we’ll walk you through all of them so you can pick what actually fits your business.

What does HR support actually mean for a small business?

When small business owners think about HR support, they usually mean one of these things.

• Someone to handle the day-to-day stuff like contracts, leave, onboarding new starters, keeping records.
• Someone to make sure they’re not breaking the law, right to work checks, employment contracts, disciplinary processes done right.
• And sometimes, someone to handle the harder conversations like performance issues and grievances.

But if you take a deep look, you don’t necessarily need all three at the same time. HR needs of a business with 15 people can be different from a business with 50 people. But most small businesses need at least the first two covered properly.

The 3 types of HR support for small businesses

There’s basically three ways you can get HR support. Obviously, they’re very different in terms of cost, effort and what you actually get. Let me share them with you:

Option 1: Hiring a dedicated HR person

This is what most people picture when they think “we need HR.” You bring someone in full time, they own it all, problem solved. Except, a decent HR manager is going to cost you £35,000 to £55,000 a year minimum. On top of that you’ve got employer National Insurance, pension contributions, holiday pay, and the time it takes to actually recruit someone good. You’re looking at well over £50k all in before they’ve done a single thing.
Does that make sense for a 15-person business? Honestly, probably not. For a 50+ person business with real people complexity? Maybe yes. But for most small businesses, it’s just too much too soon.

Option 2: Outsourcing to an HR consultant or retainer service

This one’s popular. Different companies will give you a monthly retainer, usually somewhere between £200 and £800 a month, and in return you get a phone line to call when something goes wrong and some template documents.
It’s better than nothing. And if you’re mainly worried about staying on the right side of employment law, it does the job.
But here’s the thing. It’s mostly reactive. You still have to do all the day-to-day admin yourself. You’re still chasing someone on the phone every time you need to check something. And you’re still probably running your employee records on a spreadsheet.

Option 3: HR software built for small businesses

This is the option that most small businesses don’t think about first, but probably should. Good HR software handles the stuff that takes up most of your time: onboarding new starters, storing contracts and documents, tracking leave, connecting with payroll. With user-friendly dashboards and their dedicated support team you can do all things in one place without getting any errors.
A tool like Zelt is a good example here. Built for exactly this kind of business, where you need HR done properly, but you’re not ready or willing to spend £50k on a hire.

See how Zelt brings payroll, HR, and people management together in one connected platform.

Which type of HR support is right for your business?

Here’s a rough guide, not perfect, but close enough for most businesses.

• 1 to 15 people: HR software is almost certainly enough. Your needs are manageable, the cost is low, and you’ll spend more time setting up a consultant retainer than actually using it.
• 15 to 50 people: HR software plus an occasional consultant for the tricky stuff, like a settlement agreement or a complex disciplinary, is a solid setup. You get the structure without the overhead.
• 50+ people: You’re probably getting close to needing a proper HR person, especially if you’re hiring fast or dealing with a lot of people complexity. But even then, the right software makes their job a lot easier.

What good HR support looks like in practice

Let me give you a real example. A new person joins your business on Monday. Without proper HR support, here’s what usually happens. You send them a contract from an old Word template, hope it’s up to date, chase them for their right to work documents over email, add them to payroll manually, and forget half the onboarding steps because nobody wrote them down.

Three months later, you realise their contract had the wrong notice period in it. Or they never got added to the pension. Or you never actually verified their right to work properly.
Now picture that same new starter with a proper HR system. Contract goes out automatically. Right to work gets flagged. Payroll gets updated. Their manager gets a reminder of what needs to happen in week one. All in one place, nothing falls through the cracks.That’s the difference. Not magic, just organised.

How Zelt delivers proper HR support for small businesses

How Zelt delivers proper HR support for small businesses
Zelt is an all-in-one HR platform used by 400+ businesses, built to manage everything people-related without needing a dedicated HR hire.
Here’s what you get:

• Onboarding: new starters set up properly from day one, nothing missed
• Payroll: HMRC recognised, connects directly with your people data
• Time off, documents and benefits: all in one place, no chasing over email
• App and device management: control software access and hardware from the same dashboard
• Dedicated support: a customer success manager responds in minutes, not days

Rated 4.7 on G2 and Trustpilot. ISO 27001 certified and GDPR compliant.

No hiring process. No £50k salary. Just HR that works, from day one.