An East Flemish production company grew from forty to almost ninety employees in six years. The order books were full, the machines were running, but HR had been involved all this time by the manager and the office manager. Contracts were drawn up on an ad hoc basis, there were hardly any employment regulations, and there was no onboarding or remuneration policy.
The consequences were felt. New employees dropped out too quickly, managers did not really know where they stood, and there were legal risks lurking in the way everything was arranged. The company did not need a thick HR report, but someone who could effectively set up HR.
Step 1: Sofie builds the HR function from the ground up
Human Minds introduced Sofie through HR as a Service. With fifteen years of HR experience in growing SMEs, she had already built an HR function from scratch several times. She knew the production world, spoke the language of the floor and the management, and knew which foundations had to be laid first. Sofie started two days a week, with concrete building blocks in the correct order.
Step 2: get the legal house in order
First the foundation. Sofie mapped out the existing HR agreements, contract templates and payroll-related processes. She made it clear where there was uncertainty and which documents or agreements needed to be adjusted. What had been fragmented for years became one clear and correct framework.
Step 3: Attract and maintain
Then the progression. Sofie set up a simple but effective onboarding, so that newcomers felt welcome and guided from day one. She developed a transparent job classification and remuneration policy, so that wages became fair and explainable. The guesswork disappeared, and with it some of the frustration.
Step 4: managers on board
HR cannot succeed without managers. Sofie guided the team leaders in their role: how to have a good conversation, how to handle absences, how to give feedback. In this way, HR did not become an island, but a support system that continued to work on the floor every day.
Why HR as a Service works
A growing company needs professional HR, but not always a full-time HR manager. HR as a Service gives access to someone like Sofie: an experienced HR professional at the pace that suits, who lays the foundations and prepares the company to continue to build itself in the long term.
No expensive overhead, no half solution. Well, HR is rock solid.
Remark : these cases are based on real projects. Because these are strategic assignments, we have anonymized the information or worked with aliases. This way, the discretion of our customers is always guaranteed.
