Working from Home as HR Consultants

A Human Resource (HR) consultant provides expertise around employment practice and people management. Today it’s possible for an individual with communication and networking skills to start her own home-based HR consultancy services. The HR consultancy profession offers convenience of independence and flexibility in working hours. However it is imperative that the person considering work from home HR consultancy services must have requisite qualifications and mandatory expertise in the field. You must have excellent communication skills for networking with people. Also try to supplement your educational degrees by acquiring necessary degrees or certifications to work as a consultant.

Different Categories of HR Consultants

1.  Employment Consultants:

Employment Consultants deal with the hiring, recruiting, placement and separation of potential and current employees. They may also oversee a network of employment, recruitment, and placement specialists. Such consultants may need to travel for on-campus interviews, job fairs and other avenues to recruit potential employees. They conduct interviews, verify documents, conduct tests whenever specified, and extend job offers. They also have to check references if any. Employment consultants also matches employees with job openings of the employers

2.  Employment Relations Consultants:

They promote working relations with employers and employees, and carry out various welfare services, public employment programmes and other services.

3.  Compensation, Benefits, and Job Analysis Consultants:

These consultants implement compensation packages/programmes and pension programmes for the employees. They chart out job duties and set job descriptions, and delineate qualifications, skills required and training for hiring new recruits. Their duties include reviewing existing jobs and defining and introducing a new job, in consultation with the organisation they are working with.

4.  Occupational Analysis Consultants:

Such consultants research effects of the industry and occupational trends on work environment, and liaise between various departments, companies, labour unions and the Government.

5.  Employee Benefits Consultants:

These consultants implement organizations’ employee-benefits programmes, retirement plans and health benefits schemes. They assess employees’ salaries and keep it abreast with changing rules and regulations. They also keep assessing the company’s pay scales with peer groups. They design reward systems as per performance and merits, and set incentive and bonus criteria.

6.  Training and Development Consultants:

These consultants create and conduct training programmes as per requirement of new employees or existing employees. These may include a boot camp for new employees, and designing training programmes to develop skills, enhance productivity and quality of work.

7.  Labour Relations Consultant:

The LR consultant tracks all labour issues and labour related cases, including arbitrations, grievances, appeals, mediation, and violations.                   

How to Start Off:

• Firstly name your consultancy with a good dynamic name which represents your values.
• Build up a good website for yourself, giving a good representation of the services you are offering.
• Open and maintain a separate bank account for your business to facilitate future monetary transactions.
• Open an account with a good employment site, like Monster or Naukri, to advertise for clients and to give details of employable work force.
• Take a stock of the resources you are going to need to get your consultation running. The basics equipments will be a phone connection, a computer and a good Internet service.
• Draw up a schedule and plan out the number of work hours you intend to put into the job and also the necessary backup, in case of emergencies and out of town travel.
• Check out the sources where you can network with other HR professionals and try to attend relevant conferences and seminars.

How to get Clients:

Now, get down to the brass tacks! There is no business without clients, so it’s a prerogative to build up a client base. Prioritise and work out a good plan for achieving your target. It is important to set reliable and achievable goals.

1.      Word of Mouth:

Use the grapevine! Spread the word especially through former colleagues, business contacts and family and friends that your services are available.

2.      Telemarketing:

Identify potential clients and search out their contacts numbers and call them personally .Identify the concerned person and pitch in your sales. Use your communication skills to get them interested in what you have to offer.

Advertise:

Use the various methods available (the sky is the limit actually), send fliers in business papers; offers classifieds in reputed papers and business magazines; and arm your website with optimised keywords highlighting your services so it shows up in a search engine.

Any business takes time to take off, so brace up to face all hurdles successfully and enjoy the ride!