Almost every CEO I meet for the first time tells me the same thing: “I need to structure HR, but I don’t have budget for an entire department.”
It’s the wrong framing. You don’t need a department. You need a minimum functional system.
I have built and reorganized HR functions in dozens of Italian companies over the last 27 years. The minimum that works is always the same combination.
3 tools.
2 processes.
1 dedicated person.
🟥 The 3 tools without which there is no HR function: A standard job description system; for each role there must be a document that describes responsibilities, expected KPIs and required skills. Without this, you select in a vacuum and evaluate by feel. A written onboarding protocol; the first 30-90 days of a new resource must be planned, not improvised. 20% of voluntary resignations occur in this window. An HR dashboard with 4 minimum KPIs; turnover by department, time-to-hire, absenteeism, cost per hire. If you don’t measure, you don’t manage.
🟥 The 2 processes that keep everything else going: Structured selection; not the free conversation, but a process with defined phases, explicit evaluation criteria and traceability of decisions. It costs the same time and reduces hiring errors significantly. Performance evaluation; at least two/three structured moments a year in which manager and collaborator discuss objectives, feedback and development. An informal conversation in the corridor is not enough.
🟥 The dedicated person: Does not have to be a full-time senior figure, at least at the beginning and must have one fundamental thing: protected time to do HR. Not half an hour between one emergency and another. Not when it advances. HR done like this does not exist; only emergencies disguised as personnel management exist. This is the minimum. It doesn’t solve everything but it creates the conditions for people to be managed methodically and not by sensation.
And this alone, in an average company, is worth between 10 and 20% less turnover in the space of 12-18 months.
Write me privately if you want to understand where to start in your specific situation.