Questions we answerTeam structure and leadership
Do I need an HR person?
Usually not as an employed role at this size. What gets called HR is three different jobs, and only one of them is a person you hire.
Free · a few minutes · starts from “I'm not sure how to structure the team”
The short answer
Usually not as an employed role while the team is small. What founders call HR is three separate things: administration, which is better systemised than staffed; employment-law risk, which is better bought when you need it than carried permanently; and developing people, which belongs to whoever manages them and does not transfer. An employed generalist starts to make sense when headcount and continuous hiring together keep somebody genuinely busy. Work out which of the three is eating your week before you advertise.
Almost every page that ranks for this question is published by somebody who sells HR — a consultancy with a retainer, a software product, or a recruiter who would place the hire. The conclusion is therefore written before the article is, and it is always yes.
The more useful move is to stop treating HR as one thing. Contract admin, holiday tracking and payroll coordination is administration. Knowing what to do when somebody raises a grievance is specialist risk. Telling somebody their work is not good enough is management, and it does not become easier by being handed to a department.
Is it really this?
Worth checking before you spend anything. These are the signals that tend to tell the two apart.
Signs it is
- You are hiring more or less continuously, and coordinating it is a job in itself.
- The admin is genuinely high-volume rather than merely annoying, and it has resisted being systemised.
- Managers exist and are managing, and the gap is the infrastructure around them rather than the managing itself.
Signs it's something else
- What you actually want is somebody else to have the difficult conversations. That does not transfer, and attempting it tends to make the conversation land worse.
- The trigger was one specific situation. That is an advice purchase, not a headcount decision.
- Most of what is eating the time is scheduling, chasing forms and tracking holiday, which software and a clear owner usually absorb.
What's usually behind it
- A founder spending a surprising share of the week on people admin and assuming that means a role exists.
- A worry that not having HR is itself a problem, or even a requirement.
- One difficult situation with one person, which feels like it needs a function and usually needs advice.
What people usually get wrong
- Hiring an HR generalist to solve three unrelated problems, and finding they were good at one of them.
- Assuming an internal HR person reduces employment-law risk. Specialist risk is usually bought, not employed, at this size.
- Delaying a conversation with somebody for months while waiting for an HR function to exist to have it for you.
The options, and when each one fits
In no particular order. Which of these fits depends on your situation, not on the question you typed.
Systemise the administration
The load is repetitive and rule-following: holiday, contracts, onboarding paperwork, records.
Buy specialist employment support
The need is occasional, serious, and legal in nature. Advice on demand costs less than carrying the capability.
Develop the managers you have
The gap is people being managed badly or not at all, which is a management problem rather than an HR one.
Employ an HR person
Hiring is continuous and the administration around a growing team genuinely fills a role.
When doing nothing is the right call
If you cannot say which of the three jobs is the problem, that is the finding, and a fortnight of noting where the time actually goes will settle it more cheaply than any hire.
What here comes from somewhere else
The reasoning above is ours and does not go out of date. These do: they are other people's facts, and they are linked rather than restated so you can see the current version rather than our copy of it. Last checked 16 September 2026.
- Advice for employers — Acas (opens in a new tab)Where to go for employment questions this page deliberately does not answer. Nothing here is legal advice, and there is no general requirement for a business of any size to have an HR department — but that is a question for Acas or a solicitor rather than for us.
What the diagnostic asks
- How the team is arranged today and who currently handles people questions.
- Whether the pressure is volume of administration, a capability nobody has, or unclear ownership.
- How long it has been like this, and whether it is growing.
- Whether a permanent role is fundable and how soon this needs to be sorted.
“I don't know” is always an answer. Nothing is assumed on your behalf.
The routes it weighs
Every diagnostic weighs all ten routes. These are the ones that tend to matter for this question — a description of the rules, not a promise about your answer.
Process improvement
Change how the work flows — remove steps, name an owner, fix the hand-offs.
Specialist support
Bring in a freelancer, consultant or specialist for a defined piece of work.
Outsource
Hand a defined, ongoing scope of work to an external provider.
Develop
Build the capability in someone already in the team, with time and support.
Recruit
Recruit a new person for a durable, sizeable need that is central to the team.
Do nothing yet
Record the issue, set a revisit date, and decide what would change your mind.
Redistribute
Move ownership of the work to where it fits, and make that explicit.
What changes the answer
- Continuous hiring volume is the strongest argument for somebody internal — recruitment is the part of HR that genuinely scales with headcount.
- Occasional, serious risk points at buying specialist advice rather than employing it.
- Administration that is repetitive and rule-following is usually a systems answer rather than a staffing one.
Get your own read
A handful of short questions, then the strongest route for your situation, what's also credible, what we still don't know and what would change our view. No account, no setup.
Related questions
- Repetitive admin is eating the weekWork out how much of it should exist at all before automating any of it. Some repetitive admin is a process nobody has simplified, some is a good candidate for software, and a little of it genuinely needs a person.
- Do I need another manager?Only if the problem is span of attention rather than unclear ownership. A manager helps when there are more people than one person can support properly; added to fuzzy roles, a manager adds a layer to the confusion.
- Should I outsource or hire?Outsource when the work is a definable outcome that does not need to live in your team. Hire when it is core, durable and needs to be owned by your own people.
- How should I structure my small team?Most structure problems in small teams are ownership problems. Decide who owns what before you draw a chart or add a layer.
- Is my team too small?Team size only means something against the work. The useful question is whether what is being asked of the team is achievable by the people in it, arranged the way they are.
- When should a startup hire a COO?When operational load is genuinely holding the business back and there is a defined remit to own — not when a founder wants to stop doing the parts of the job they dislike.