“Sorry, this might be a stupid question, but …”
When a message starts like that, we usually already know one thing: the question almost certainly isn’t stupid.

Maybe it’s about remaining holiday entitlement, calling in sick or parental leave. Maybe there’s an employment contract on the table and someone isn’t quite sure about the wording. Maybe there’s a conversation coming up and they’re unsure about the best way to handle it. Or maybe someone genuinely just wants to know where to find a particular document.

For us, many of these things are part of everyday work. For the person messaging us, they might not be. And that’s exactly why we believe an HR contact should be someone you can simply ask. Without spending ten minutes wondering whether your question is important enough, complicated enough or even “HR enough”.

There may even be questions that make us smile for a moment. Of course. But you’re still allowed to ask them.
Because nobody needs to know everything about HR. Not employees. Not founders. And not managing directors either.

Otherwise, we’d be out of a job.

The most common opening line for perfectly normal questions

“I’m not sure if you’re the right people to ask about this …”

Another classic. Closely followed by “This might not actually be an HR issue” and, of course, our personal favourite: “Can I just ask you a really quick question?”

The “really quick” part is open to interpretation. Sometimes something genuinely is sorted in two minutes. Other times, by the second sentence, we realise that the five minutes originally planned might have been a little optimistic.

Both are absolutely fine.

What we find much more interesting is this: Why do people feel the need to apologise for asking a question in the first place?

If you don’t deal with people-related topics every day, you can’t be expected to know how to handle every situation. Something that is routine for us might be completely new to a founder. And an employee applying for parental leave for the first time shouldn’t have to study every relevant rule before they’re allowed to contact HR.

That’s why, for us, a good HR contact isn’t only there for the complicated cases. They’re also there for the questions that genuinely take just two minutes to answer.

In startups and SMEs, there’s always a first time

That’s one of the things we find particularly interesting about working with startups and SMEs: companies evolve – and their questions evolve with them.

At some point, the first employee is hired. Then the tenth. Maybe eventually the fiftieth. And with every step, new situations arise that nobody had any reason to think about before.

For the first time, someone goes on parental leave. For the first time, someone wants to work from abroad for an extended period. For the first time, a role is completely rethought. For the first time, there’s a long-term illness, a difficult termination or a question that makes everyone in the room pause and think:

“Okay. We haven’t had this one before.”

That doesn’t mean HR is badly organised. It simply means the company is dealing with a situation that’s new.

Founders and managing directors in particular are used to finding solutions. It’s part of the job, after all. But that doesn’t mean they need to know every employment law rule or immediately know the right way forward whenever a people-related question comes up.

Sometimes, “No idea, we’ve never had this before” is a perfectly reasonable first response.

The second can quite happily be:

“Let’s ask our HR contact.”

Nobody needs to become an HR expert on the side

We regularly see people spend a surprising amount of time looking for an answer themselves before asking an HR question.

By that point, they’ve already opened five Google results, read three different opinions and possibly asked someone they know who “does something in HR too”.

Usually, things aren’t any clearer afterwards. Quite the opposite.

Of course, there’s no need to involve your HR contact over every tiny issue. But equally, we don’t expect management teams to become experts in every conceivable people-related situation alongside strategy, finance, customers and their team.

The same applies to employees. If you have a question about your own employment, you shouldn’t first have to work out which law, process or internal policy might be relevant.

That’s exactly what an HR contact is there for: a consistent point of contact for people-related questions who can assess the situation, ask the right follow-up questions and take a closer look when needed.

Sounds pretty simple, really.

We think so too.

Sometimes, by the way, our answer is: “It depends.”

We know. It’s not necessarily the answer you were hoping for. But in HR, it’s surprisingly often the right one.

“Can I do it this way?”

“What exactly are you planning to do?”

“Do we need to put this in writing?”

“What exactly do you want to document?”

“Is this okay from an employment law perspective?”

There’s a very good chance at least one follow-up question is coming your way.

Of course, there are topics where we can give a clear answer straight away. With others, the right solution depends on the specific circumstances. In those cases, we want to understand what happened, who is involved and what the company is actually trying to achieve.

And sometimes we’ll simply say: “We need to look into that.”

We believe that’s just as much a part of being a good HR contact as providing quick answers. Nobody benefits if we come up with something highly convincing within ten seconds that ultimately doesn’t fit the situation.

For us, professionalism doesn’t mean always knowing everything immediately. It means knowing when you need to take a closer look.

Some questions take two minutes. Others, surprisingly, take 45.

That’s part of our everyday work too. There are questions we answer quickly and that’s that. Tick. Done. Moving on.

And then there are the others.

A seemingly small question about a contract suddenly turns into a conversation about how a role should develop. A question about working hours turns out to be about something else entirely. Or someone “just quickly” wants our view on a particular situation – and half an hour later, we’re three topics further down the road.

You can’t always tell in advance. That’s exactly why we don’t think every HR question should be treated like a ticket that needs to be closed as quickly as possible. Sometimes all that’s needed is an answer, sometimes a follow-up question helps, and sometimes it’s only during the conversation that you realise what the real issue is.

In our view, there’s one thing an HR contact needs to be particularly good at: listening before offering a solution.

Sounds simple too. But it’s surprisingly important.

We ask quite a lot of questions ourselves, by the way

Anyone who works with us quickly realises that an HR contact doesn’t just answer questions. We ask quite a few of them too.

How do you handle this at the moment? Why do you do it that way? What matters to you here? Does it actually work in practice? What do you want to change?

And sometimes we ask very directly:

“Do you actually need this?”

That last question is particularly important to us. Because just because you can introduce a process, form or policy in HR doesn’t mean a company actually needs it.

We work with startups and SMEs. HR needs to fit the company – not the other way around, with the company trying to fit some theoretically perfect HR world.

If a proper process makes sense, we’ll set one up. If a template is enough, great. And if a conversation is the better solution, there’s no need to turn it into three forms, seven approval stages and a 28-page handbook.

We don’t make HR more complicated just to make it look like HR.

That’s probably one of the simplest ways to describe how we work at allaboutHRLaw: professionally sound, but pragmatic. For us, a dedicated HR contact isn’t someone who simply pulls standard answers out of a drawer. It’s someone who thinks things through with you and, at the right moment, is also willing to say: “We can make this simpler.”

Managing directors don’t need to have all the answers either

Not having to answer every question yourself is quite nice in itself. But that’s not all it’s about.

An HR contact can also be the person founders and managing directors go to with their own questions. Because just because you ultimately have to make a decision doesn’t mean you need to know exactly what the right decision is from the outset.

“How would you handle this?”

“Are we overlooking something?”

“Is this a good idea, or are we creating a problem somewhere else?”

Those questions are just as much a part of everyday HR work for us.

Especially in startups and SMEs, there isn’t a process for every situation that has been tried and tested for ten years. A lot of things happen for the first time. And sometimes it makes an enormous difference simply to have someone who has seen similar situations before, asks the right questions and helps you work out what actually makes sense.

Not every decision can be handed over to someone else. But you don’t always have to think it through alone either.

What we want from our clients

Not much, really:

Ask us.

You don’t need to formulate the perfect HR question first, and you certainly don’t need to have three possible solutions prepared. An honest “We’re not sure how to handle this” is more than enough.

And if you’re not sure whether something is even an HR issue? Ask us anyway.

Worst case, we’ll say:

“No, we’re actually not the right people for this one.”

At least then we’ve both learned something.

We’d much rather someone get in touch a little too early than leave an uncertainty unresolved because nobody was sure whether it was “really something you could go to HR about”.

So, are there really no stupid HR questions?

We stand by it: not really.
There are questions we hear every day and others that surprise even us. There are questions with two-minute answers and others that require us to take a closer look. And, of course, there are a surprising number that start with “Sorry, this might be a stupid question …” and turn out to be completely reasonable.

For us, being a good HR contact isn’t about making every answer as complicated as possible or using every opportunity to demonstrate how much HR knowledge you have. What matters far more is that employees, founders and managing directors know: if I have a question, I can ask it.

That’s exactly how we want to work at allaboutHRLaw: pragmatic when pragmatic is enough. Thorough when thorough is needed. And available for the big issues just as much as the small questions that come up along the way.

So if you’re currently wondering whether your question really is an HR issue: just ask us.

Maybe the answer is “Yes”. Maybe it’s “No”. Maybe it’s “It depends”.

We’re pretty familiar with that last one. 😉

Putting people first.