Navigating HR Like A Pro: What Every Small Business & New HR Person Should Know, Do and Avoid

The Essential HR Guide teaches the nuts and bolts of HR for small businesses and startups and is the perfect reference for any organization that may not have the financial resources to invest in a fully-staffed HR department. Our session provides a concise but comprehensive guide to HR issues for small businesses and startups.

• Developing policies and organizational best practices
• Managing and measuring performance
• Driving engagement and cultivating a culture
• Understanding legal obligations, assessing, risk
• Guidance for developing leaders

Those with limited experience in HR have few resources and are looking to understand how to navigate the basic processes and requirements to successfully support HR in a new or growing business and how to lay a foundation to avoid HR-related legal complications.

• Small Business Owner
• Entrepreneur
• Startup founder
• Operations Manager
• Manager for Finance, Operations, and Human Resources
• One-Person HR Department
• Office Manager
• Anyone with HR responsibility for their company

William J. Rothwell, Ph.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP, CPLP Fellow is President of Rothwell & Associates, Inc. He has worked in HR for more than 40 years and has also worked as a consultant for more than 50 multinational corporations--including Motorola China, General Motors, Ford, and many others. In 2012 he earned ASTD’s prestigious Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance Award, and in 2013 ASTD honored him by naming him as a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) Fellow. (ASTD is now called ATD.) In 2014 he was given the Asia-Pacific International Personality Brandlaureate Award.

He has authored, coauthored, edited or coedited 115 books since 1987. His recent books since 2017 include Virtual Coaching to Improve Group Relationships: Process Consultation Reimagined (Routledge, 2021), The Essential Human Resource Guide for Small Business and Start Ups (Society for Human Resource Management, 2020); Increasing Learning and Development’s Impact Through Accreditation (Palgrave, 2020); Workforce Development: Guidelines for Community College Professionals, 2nd ed. (Rowman-Littlefield, 2020); Human Performance Improvement: Building Practitioner Performance, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2018);  Innovation Leadership (Routledge, 2018), Evaluating Organization Development: How to Ensure and Sustain the Successful Transformation (CRC Press, 2017), Marketing Organization Development Consulting: A How-To Guide for OD Consultants (CRC Press, 2017), Assessment and Diagnosis for Organization Development: Powerful Tools and Perspectives for the OD practitioner (CRC Press, 2017). He also authored such books as The Leader’s Daily Role in Talent Management (2015), Effective Succession Planning, 5th ed. (2015), and Becoming an Effective Mentoring Leader (2013).