“To deliver more value, the human resources function needs to spend more time accelerating operational improvement and less time on its traditional administrative and compliance activities,” writes Brad Power in an article entitled “Focus HR on Process Improvement,” in the Harvard Business Review. While HR has always been the face of benefits, compensation, compliance and other administrative tasks, today its role comprises much more. If your business is currently lacking the time and resources it needs to scale, turn to HR.

Today, organizations must focus on building a unified leadership team if they want to maintain a successful, sustainable business. By recruiting HR as a part of that leadership team, HR can take a prominent role in empowering employees, locating the right talent to deliver on customer satisfaction and optimizing existing processes to achieve operational excellence.

The role of HR in your hiring process

Put simply, HR needs a prominent role in your organization’s’ hiring process, not just in creating job descriptions and reviewing resumes. In order to identify vacancies and evaluate the needs of your business, you need someone who understands the nature of recruiting and hiring quality professionals.

It’s no secret that small-business owners often wear many hats. While they’re occupied with the multifaceted functions of running a venture, HR can spend time locating the right talent for the business and sharing the most qualified applicants with management. From there, HR can conduct primary screenings to ensure the potential applicants have the skills, credentials and other requirements needed in order to perform in their roles effectively.

While locating, recruiting and hiring talent is essential, they’re not the only factors to consider—especially in a competitive business environment. Recruiting and hiring is much more than building each department with talented employees. It’s about aligning the skill sets of potential candidates with the organization’s initiatives, goals, and overall business model. As the business scales, HR can take this one step further by aligning employee skill sets to each individual department. This strategic method will fill each department with the right talent to deliver on customer satisfaction and contribute to long-term company growth.

Devising a strategic offer

Upon completion of locating, recruiting and hiring the right talent, it’s time to negotiate an offer. As the economy continues to stabilize, candidates are much less likely to jump on any offer they receive. The candidate will have questions on compensation, additional incentives, work-life balance, etc.

While questions should always be well-received by management, HR can better prepare for this by communicating through and offer letter. Offer letters can also minimize miscommunication or arguments down the road. “Skipping the written offer can lead to confusion later on,” writes the staff at Inc. “Interviews are stressful and emotionally charged occasions, and, even if you’ve mentioned job details throughout the process, it’s easy for either party to misunderstand or forget what has been discussed. Having an offer letter protects both employee and employer by making expectations clear. Documenting exactly what the job’s title, salary, tasks, and benefits are from the start can avoid arguments—or even losing that employee who you spent so much energy and time recruiting—later on.”

Streamline processes from top to bottom

In a small-business environment, there’s bound to be a time when managers have to take on various responsibilities, sometimes outside of their roles. This is especially true for HR, which has a number of different layers to account for. If that’s the case—and talent management, acquisition and other consuming tasks are suffering—employers may need to seek other resources such as a talent-acquistion and management model. Organizations will benefit from support in careful planning and preparation, focused integration and detailed execution.

Want to learn more about how HR can contribute to business success and sustainability? Check out our blog, for more resources.