Starting an HR Department in Financial Services: What Should Be Your First Steps?

Dear Seniors, I will be joining a company that is in the financial services industry (stock market). I need guidelines on how to start with the formation of the HR department. What are the things that should be initiated, as well as what are the things that should be done on a priority basis?

To start anything from scratch, you need to focus on preparing the framework (a flowchart will be helpful), understand the urgency (how much time you have to start the department, and accordingly fill the positions as per requirements), as well as consider your budget. I emphasize budget because it determines the size and structure of your hierarchy. For instance, with a small budget, you can manage with a few employees, but for a larger department, roles and responsibilities need to be divided based on the hierarchy.

You should prepare the hierarchy, define bands (levels for categorizing employees to be hired).

Since your firm is already in the finance-related business, they may have some HR documents related to formats. Therefore, you need to identify the types of positions required frequently and others (discuss with other members) and create proper job descriptions for each vacancy to outline roles, responsibilities, pay scale, and more. This preparation will showcase your readiness before hiring new candidates.

Subsequently, you will need to create an induction kit to provide necessary information. Prepare a PowerPoint presentation for the induction round, covering details about your organization's history, present status, achievements, office norms, lunch hours, etc.

Next, plan an orientation session to familiarize new members with their tasks, reporting structure (introduce the reporting officer), workspace, and other essentials. This will ensure a smooth start for everyone.

I hope this guidance proves useful to you.

Best wishes,

Regards,
Arvi

Firstly, congratulations on getting such a challenging and great opportunity to set up the HR function in a company! This truly is a golden opportunity for you. My suggestions to you would be as follows:

1. Have a detailed meeting with the top management and understand what they expect from the HR function. Note down their expectations in your handbook.

2. Let the management introduce you to the entire team as the person who would head the HR function. This introduction should be done with the motive of breaking the ice.

3. Have a one-on-one discussion with each and every employee. Let them be brief discussions, but ensure they happen with all. Assure confidentiality in these discussions. Understand their background, seniority in the company, where they fit in the org chart, their roles/responsibilities (communicated to them), expectations from HR, etc. You need to make a note of these discussions as well. This will definitely help you in understanding the team and might help in building basic trust. You can divide this activity over a week.

Dedicate one day to go through all of these inputs and chalk out your plan. All the above activities will prove to be good groundwork for you to form your HR policies. It's always better to have strong groundwork before you plunge into the formation of policies and the HR team.

4. Ensure that all your policies are communicated properly to the team and encourage their feedback. The more you involve them by asking for their feedback and opinions, the better the bonding will be.

This will be your foundational work, following which you can start building the HR team as needed.