Survey-Size of your Human Resource Department

melba

We are trying to justify hiring another person in HR department and would like to know the size of other HR departments within similar-sized agencies. We have almost 300 employees, and our HR handles most all normal HR functions except, payroll, which is handled in finance. If you respond, please tell me what type of positions you have in HR too, ie profession, degreed person or a clerk type. Any information would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

ray a

We are an electronics manufacturer and have just over 400 ee's locally.

As with you, we do all the normal HR functions except payroll which is done at corporate.

There are 3 of us in the HR dept, two of us are degreed, the third performs lower level tasks and scheduling. The receptionist reports to me and does some clerical work for HR, but isn't really part of the dept.

HRinGA

I am in the publishing industry and have about 415 employees. We do everything except process payroll, although we handle all data entry into the system. There's me (director) and two staff assistants. Both are hourly, neither degreed, but they have both been here over 10 years (were here when I got here) and I couldn't do without them. Having said that, I wish one was more on a professional level, who could step up while I am out. One handles minor ee issues, all recruiting, testing, screening interviews, etc.
The other deals w/more technical issues, reports, insurance, A/P, etc

pork1

MELBA: 2 personnel in HR with Payroll in accounting for 211 employees located over 16 different work sites. Before getting the accounting position I personally handled all employee actions outside of payroll. Over the years I have taught the payroll clerk to become the HR assistant. She handles all of the administrative details of all benefits, entitlements, W/C, FMLA,Sick and Vacation time adjustments. Completely handles from start to finish the garnishments. Payroll is her most important and priority tasking, she gets it handled in 1 1/2 days. The rest of her 40 hour work week is spent on all of the other issues.

Well what do I do: supervise and enjoy life as an HR? Recruiting, placement, posting on Hrhero, investigations, signing corporate checks of all sorts, enrollments of anyone, safety, risk management, and whatever the GM wants me to do!

Richard

Open1

We have 210 employees and growing - adding about 5 or 6 positions per month. We do payroll and everything else HR. There are 2 of us, both degreed.

Paul in Cannon Beach

We have 60 full time employees and 90 seasonal. There is currently one full time HR person (me) and one half-time assistant who handles most of the administrative functions.

HR is responsible for the recruitment and hiring of staff, development, and sometimes (like today) termination. We leave payroll to number people.

The majority of our staff live on-grounds so I also assign housing and deal with tenant issues.

I have a degree and PHR certification.

HRCalico

Before me, there was one person (no degree) handling HR, payroll, and A/P for about 50 employees. When they hired me, she kept the other 2 and picked up a lot of responsibility with our MRP system (manufacturing software).

I have a BA, came on at 25 hours per week but cut back to 20 recently, we have about 80 employees. In addition to recruiting, interviewing, orientations, benefits, evaluations, discipline, termination, etc., I also wrote and administer our AAP in house. And, we didn't do it this year, but I conducted a morale survey twice, including compiling the data and creating the report. (So what I'm saying is that I get lots of fun special projects)

I have heard a general equation of 1 full time HR person per 100 employees, but I think there is so much more that goes into it for each company.

HRCalico

Melba, please excuse the threadjack, but hey, Richard! You're back! Hope everything went well. It's good to hear from you again.

Rockie

General rule of thumb is one person per 300 employees for an HR Department. We have 2 1/2 people. Myself, degreed and certified; my assistant (about 3 years of experience). She handles all employee paperwork, inputing into the HRIS system, etc.; I also share an employee with Finance...they are responsible for the payroll part and this person also does benefits which I supervise. Neither of these two are degreed individuals.

Hope this helps!

SMace

I've always bristled at the thought of HR/#'s. Do you go to the PTB and say, "well the co. down the street has 6 pple, so should we"?

IMHO it doesn't matter how many people others have. Understand your objectives and figure out if you are meeting them. If you are not, figure out why. If it's 'cause of people, hire another one.

melba

This was my thought too. I've already gone to my CEO and asked him for another person, and he asked me to find out what other HR departments have. Based on the numbers that I'm getting, it looks like we don't need another person, but I still think we do. Especially since I'm Chief Personnel Office but have a dual role of General Counsel for the Agency as well. Doesn't leave a lot of time for me to handle HR issues.

Sue2

We have 243 full time employees and have 2 fulltime HR employees. Both are degreed. We handled everything expect payroll although we do the data entry. We are a water & sewer utility.

Leo

We are a beer wholesaler that is family owned and operated. We have 160 full-time employees, approximately 24 part-time employees, and a handful of seasonal employees. I am the HR department. Accounting does our payroll. I assist in recruiting but the Operations VP and the Training/Development Manager conduct most of the interviews and make the hiring decisions. I do not have a degree.

Gadget

We are a heavy manufacturing plant with 420 employees at our site. There is another plant and corp. hq in the same city. We have an HR Director, an HR Generalist and an HR Assistant on site. (We also have 4 unions which means a lot of paperwork.) We have all HR except actual payroll processing with is part of accounting.

Gadget

Sorry - I am degreed as is my Generalist. The HR Assistant is not.

lee2

My approach, with 40 yrs. in HR, is to identify the functions that HR is expected to perform and explain what it takes in hours per week, and qualifications to do it. I also make suggestions about what ought or ought not to be done by HR. If I,m limited in staff I suggest priorities for what will be done. I offer to train managers in those areas that I do not have the staff to do. Generally, I try to train the management to handle most of their people issues and I serve as an advisor.
Oh yes, we have 200+ ees and 1.25 staff in HR.

pork1

MELBA: Maybe you should tell us more about your agency. General Counsel and HR activities is a match for me, but I do not have a shield to hang, just a lot of experience which helps me to get the HR arena through the days activities without getting us into legal difficulty. It would be impossible for me to have all the things that I have given to my assistant and do the legal bits also. It is amazing that your General Counsel hat will allow you to get anything done as the HR.

You must be in an Attorney-at-Law firm. Then I understand why the 2nd hat combination. I would still think the company would be better off having an HR that you could supervise.

Richard, "Ole PORK" is back and feeling much better, it is 1/2 days until the physician gives me his blessing to go back to full time. Thanks to everyone for your concerns and prayers. May we all have a Blessed day.

NancyJ

We have close to 900 employees in 2 separate companies in 70+ offices in three counties. We use an employee-leasing company, but everything has to run through our HR department to get to the leasing co.

Payroll comes in on timesheets from the satellite offices and it it reviewed before being forwarded to the leasing co for processing.

We have 2 401(k) plans and 5 other benefit plans. We handle all of the HR and benefit issues directly - the leasing is really for reduced benefit costs. We are healthcare and our insurance rates are sky-high by ourselves.

And we do this all with 4 employees. One Director (degreed), 1 benefits coordinator, 1 HR coordinator and 1 clerk.

Needless to say, the Director has been screaming for more staff for a while now.

melba

Thanks for your reply. I actually work directly for the agency and the title of the position is Chief Personnel Officer/General Counsel. I truly love getting to do both. My legal background is in employment law, but as General Counsel for the Agency, I am getting to try my hand at some other types of law too. I don't do much in the HR part of my job other than discipline issues, and investigations into allegations of abuse.(we are an agency that handles mental, medical, educational needs of children in MS) We offer a whole range of services to kids. Because we're in the medical field, we have to follow JCAHO standards which require a lot more HR involvement. Different types of background checks and stringent HR assessments and competencies etc. One of my staff, in particular is very overloaded, and there's no one to hand off any work to. That's what started this whole thing, but it looks like we're not going to be able to use the ratios to justify hiring someone new. We'll have to find a new argument. Thanks for your help.

Melba

HRVolley

I am the only HR Employee at a location of 75, and I am trying to figure out how to delegate tasks/issues since most of my work is confidential in nature. (salaries, discipline, etc.)
Any suggestions?

HRVolley

HRCalico

HRVolley, can I ask why you're trying to delegate? Not enough time to get things done, are you going to be gone, etc? The first people I might look to are the payroll person and/or her backup in our company, because they understand the confidentiality of payroll, so it should translate pretty easily into HR confidentiality.

System

Welcome back, Pork!

Melba, you should Login to the Subscribers Area and look at our HR Hero Survey from last year on Your HR Department. More than 3,000 people told how many HR people in their organization. The overall responses:

0 ... 2%
1 ... 31%
2-3 ... 33%
4-6 ... 15%
7-10 ... 6%
11-20 ... 4%
20-plus ... 5%

You can filter the results by company size, public-private sector, etc.

Hope this helps.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

E Wart

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-27-06 AT 07:42AM (CST)[/font][br][br]We are in manufacturing with about 215 employees in 8 locations throughout the US.
I am it as far as HR is concerned. I do have one person at each location that I call my "deputy" who is responsible for getting paperwork and sending it to me (new hires, salary changes, payroll info, etc.)
We do payroll. I do have help with someone in our Accounting/bookkeeper who helps with this. I "feed her all the info" and she types it in. I do it when she is out.
I do about everything with the exception of recruiting and interviewing (since I am not on location.) However, I do run ads for them and at time do phone screens and do background checks.)
I forgot to add, I do have a college degree (accounting/finance) and have my SHRM (what that is worth) and have about 25+ years experience.
E Wart

KathyHR

We are a non-profit in the public sector and have 140 employees. There is me, degree & PHR, and I share a clerk with Finance. I do everything except payroll. No problem with confidentiality since the clerk sees everything in payroll anyway.

HRVolley

HRCalico, I just have no time for paperwork! I do all interviewing, hiring, most firings, discipline, benefit coordination, you name it. I know that most of us are in the same boat, and I was just wondering who we can delegate to. I don't have enough work to warrant a new employee, but I have been given additional projects that I am supposed to find time for, and I just can't find it!

mercury

I work for a city and we have over 270 employees. Payroll and benefits is a part of Human Resources. I am the Director, there is one HR Assistant, and a Payroll/Benefits Coordinator.

Good luck!

Wildsporty

I am in the Health Food industry. I have 56 U.S. Employees, 11 South African Employees, 12 Australian Employees, 2 New Zealand Employees, 2 UK employees and 6 Canadian employees. We also have 25,0000 independent contractors (outside sales) in all 50 states on commissions.

I am HR Manager, I do all HR functions including payroll. I manage to get it all done so we do not need another person.

I have my CPP in payroll, my PHR in Human Resources and also a CPA in Canada.

I suppose if we had as many employees as some of you I may need a helper. My Accounts Payable Specialist has been trained to run basic payroll so a payroll can be run while I am gone. it is fairly simple as the foreigns are done by either Ceridian or ADP depending on the the country and in U.S. only do we do inhouse.

Shirley

Peggy UH in LA

Me, myself, and I (degree, but not HR); I do everything but payroll, which is in Accounting. I also do Office Management. The Receptionist helps with a FEW administrative tasks, such as making folders/labels. We have 60 employees and I have way too many different things to take care of!

Wildsporty

Calico, you than come in at 6, work until 6 and if you are still not done you get to work on the weekends...that is how it goes. I have been doing that for about 25 years now in this profession. It never gets easier.

It is easier since my computer at home got set up so I can work at home in the evenings and on weekends if I need.

Tax time is the worst. I work a lot of hours during tax time.

Shirley

HRCalico

One thing that I've looked into (it's never come to fruition, though) is getting an intern from a local college/university. You can have them sign a confidentiality agreement, and if they're only there a few hours a day (or several hours a week), they won't have much time to rub elbows with your employees and chat about confidential stuff. In theory. :>) They get experience, you can offload some things, and everybody wins. Plus, much of the time internships are unpaid, or at a minimum paid but no benefits, so it helps save $.

HRQ

NancyJ, I think yours is about as close to my situation as I'm gonna find.

I have one assistant and thank GOD she's one smart cookie and hardworking, to boot. We support two companies, total of 650 employees at 29 locations. HR processes payroll inhouse, and we rely on the supervisors to send us hours, new hire paperwork, a bunch of regulatory documentation, (we are state licensed) etc.

Separate handbooks, benefits plans, vacation plans, etc., for each company.

Someone from the operations team handles recruiting. We work closely together on that and Orientation.

I've been working on a plan to either reorganize our tasks with just the two of us (surely there are things we are doing that aren't as crucial as maybe they once were) or "spread the wealth" to some of the other departments.