For over ten years, we've worked with companies of all sizes that run without an HR team. Again and again, we've heard the same question: "Is now the time to hire an HR person?" In our experience, it takes about 22 months, on average, to reach an answer. And in the meantime, the HR work, and the need to do it well, doesn't go away.
Through all of that, one thing has become clear: with the right setup, you can run HR well without an HR team. Whether you're getting ready to hire and need cover through the transition, or you're happy to go another three years without one, there's a way to do it well, and all our clients eventually get there.
So in this article, we're going to talk about how you can get there too. We're assuming you're reading this as a CEO whose team is growing, the finance person currently doubling as HR, or the company admin who handles all the HR-related work. If this is you, grab a drink, settle in and read on.
By the end of this, you should know exactly how to navigate this HR limbo without sacrificing your other priorities.
To kick us off, let's paint a picture of what we've seen HR look like at companies in a situation like yours. And if none of these resonate, honestly, go and grab a great dinner. You're doing really, really well.
What we've seen
First, the reason behind most of it. Having no HR person makes HR part of someone's job, not the whole of it. The finance person focuses on finance, rightfully so. The admin person focuses on admin, rightfully so. And the CEO focuses on CEO things… again, rightfully so. But the result is that HR gets whatever time is left. This doesn't mean you're wrong or failing. It's simply how the work gets shared, given everything that needs to get done. And we find this alone drives everything below.
1. You set up good things, but adoption fails
You write the policies. You set up the leave process. The surveys get built, the employee files exist. But they're not getting used. Some people follow them, some forget, some carry on the old way. And if you're approachable, most people will simply come to your desk to ask for things that already exist. Most of our clients over the years have done the same thing: announce the policy, the request form or the process again, reshare the link again, set a rule… again, skip a day or two of reminders, and within a couple of weeks they're right back where they started.
Honestly, this can be quite frustrating… and it almost always leads us to number 2.
2. Chasing people becomes a job of its own
When the process isn't used and the form isn't filled in, the gaps land on you. You go to file NSSF and some people's NSSF numbers are missing. You go to pay tax and you don't have everyone's TIN. You decide today is the day you update all the files… then realise every employee is missing some document you asked for weeks ago. So you email everyone… again, call a few people, explain how to get an NSSF number for the 100th time, and come Friday, well, some of it still isn't done. I once met an admin who knew a driving licence guy and shared his number with every new hire who answered no to the driving permit question. She still had to follow up.
Just like her, our other clients had their own workarounds: WhatsApp groups for reminders, because everyone checks WhatsApp; a spreadsheet of who still owes what; one person quietly becoming "the chaser". Or, like me once upon a time, an elaborate, over-explained welcome email.
3. No paper trail, until the day you need one
Let's be honest, nobody skips the paperwork on purpose. Nobody wants to do it either, especially in a digital age where documenting things by hand can feel like pulling teeth. So when the priorities pile up, good intentions fly out of the window. Recording things properly takes time. Paychex research found that HR administrators spend between 7 and 12 hours a week on administrative tasks alone: filing the contract, noting the third late arrival, updating the leave balance, saving the warning letter. Now take those hours and add them to a CEO's week, a finance person's week or an admin's week…
Now fast forward to audit time… nothing can be found, or you have to dig through piles of emails to find it. Our more successful clients set up a shared folder that everyone agrees to file into, but when some people don't, you're back to a scavenger hunt at audit time.
4. Performance management takes a hit
This one looks different in every business, which is exactly why it's easy to miss. We've seen companies get so bogged down that reviews keep getting moved to next time. In others, a review does happen, but it doesn't quite fit. And in some, goals are set, and by June no one remembers who owns what. None of this comes from a lack of care. Performance management takes a lot of thought and customisation to get right for your company, and when that time isn't there, things like this are bound to happen. It just carries a bigger impact than most, because employee growth and pay ride on it.
5. Irregular payroll that makes your staff hate you once a month
One of the biggest knock-on effects of not having HR is payroll. Most of our clients in this situation rarely had payroll errors, yet their employees hated them come the end of each month, because payroll simply never had a schedule. The finance person got frustrated when things never quite lined up, especially for statutory filing. Honestly, most had resigned themselves to annoying their employees every month, because it felt like there was nothing they could do.
So if this feels like the situation you're living in, we see you, and I promise there's a way out without needing to hire an HR person right away… or ever. I'll list the solutions below so I don't leave you on a cliffhanger, and every week we'll share tips, tricks and tools to help you get to that no-HR promised land. If you'd like these delivered to your inbox, sign up to our newsletter here.
So let's jump into those solutions.
What you can do
1. Make adoption the easy option
Simplicity and automation. I have a mantra I share with my clients: "Forms under four clicks, and everything kept in a place people simply cannot miss." Preferably where they already work. For example, one client kept sharing the leave form in the WhatsApp group, and each time someone asked for leave, she shared it again. That trained her team to ask, and as you can imagine, she was frustrated. I told her to pin the form to the chat, and each time someone asked, to simply reply, "It's pinned to the chat." Within two days, her teammates were the ones replying "It's pinned to the chat", and by the end of week two, nobody asked for the leave form any more.
If you need a simple, automated, web-based leave form and tracker to get started, .
2. Collect everything once, at the start
When you have new hires, be demanding while psychology is still on your side. When people are starting out, they want to get it right. It's a new job and they want to do well, so their willingness to comply is incredibly high. Use it. Have one form, as long as it needs to be, that collects everything and saves it to a folder. The moment they send back their offer acceptance, send them a welcome email where their only task is "fill in this form". Modern HR calls this pre-boarding.
3. Default to digital records and, yes, use AI
Default to digital records, kept in a shared place that everyone, or a controlled group of people, can access. And yes, this is a tale as old as time at this point, but please, use AI. It could be one of the best ways you ever use it. Connect your communication tools, like email, Slack or Teams, to Claude or ChatGPT, , and set up a schedule. Your AI will watch your communications for any documents that need filing, and with the schedule on, every day like clockwork, it does your filing for you.
4. Spend time building the review
This is the one place you'll want to invest time, and possibly hire an expert for a short period. Your goal is to get the foundations and setup right, then run a very, very simple review on top of them. One of our clients spent six weeks building their performance management framework. Now their appraisals take a week to complete. The forms are so simple, but the engine underneath is so robust and tailored that promotions are purely results-based, drawn from the review data, and rewards are just an approve button.
5. Protect pay day like rent
Just like performance reviews, put payroll on autopilot with a payroll calendar. Define what goes into payroll, give each item a deadline, and ask the teams who own those items to meet it. Then simply say: we process payroll on this day, everything goes in here, and if it isn't in by this date, it gets paid next month. Hold that line, and pay staff on the same day every month. In a 2025 HiBob survey of 2,000 employees, 28% said a delayed pay cheque would cause them serious financial stress, and 45% said financial stress affects how they perform at work. A predictable pay day takes that stress off the table. Let that work for you.
6. Get an HR system that takes work away
A good HR system takes work away from you; it doesn't add to it. Systems like JaliHR are set up for you, then quietly carry the work your team doesn't have time for: leave requests that route and update themselves, employee files collected and kept in one place, payroll on the same day every month with the PAYE and NSSF figures ready, reviews that send their own reminders, and an AI Connector so you can simply ask your AI to do the HR task for you. Your finance person, your admin, or you as CEO can run it without any HR training. And if you'd rather not run it at all, we can run it for you.
And so…
You'll never know exactly when you'll hire an HR person, and honestly, that "with or without" limbo can't put HR on hold, because the work still needs doing. Put the steps above in place, and your HR should run comfortably up to around 70 employees without needing to hire one.
If you'd like a head start, JaliHR Core gives you a starter HR system for free, with plenty of setup support. And JaliHR Essentials gives you the full system, managed for you, at $4 per employee per month.
Until then
Pick one thing from the list above and do it this week. Next week, pick another. That's how good HR gets built in a business without an HR person: one habit at a time.
If you'd rather these things ran on their own, that's what we built JaliHR for. You, your finance person, your AI, or our team can run it.
Claire
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