Managing HR in an accountancy firm

Margaret Kilner is the Practice Director at Lishmans LLP, based in Sheffield, who provide accounting, taxation, and business consultancy.

Lishmans, like a lot of small businesses, were growing rapidly and needed a HR service that could easily help manage holidays. This, alongside an increased awareness that contracts and policies needed to be really robust and some other specific issues that needed solving,  wanted the advice and information at their fingertips.

Margaret says, “At first there were specific problems we wanted to solve making sure we were complying with HR and wellbeing obligations and that we could easily access information such as holiday and sickness records. But our thinking evolved as we understood the wider citrus HR offer.

“citrus HR is now thoroughly embedded in our accounting business. Staff can access their own records and it makes it easy to be really transparent. This really fits in with our company values and I get feedback from staff all the time about this being important to them.”

A cost-effective solution

“The telephone advice is absolutely invaluable. The generic topic guides are a great place to start if you’re dealing with challenging issues such as an investigation or potential redundancy. I always recommend that managers start by reading these, then I contact the citrus HR consultants for advice that’s specific to our situation. They are so good at listening and identifying the key information that matters to us as an employer and giving practical advice.”

Margaret also explains how the HR support available with our expert consultants is a great cost-saving strategy for small businesses,

“In terms of cost value – when we’re facing a complex problem, it’s much more affordable than buying in ad-hoc support, and much more efficient as we can shortcut straight into what matters because the relationship is already there.”

Trusted partnership

“We definitely feel like it’s a partnership, rather than a transactional relationship. It’s as close to having your own in-house HR consultant on hand whenever you need them as you can get. I remember during one really difficult situation, one of our consultants phoned me quite late on a Friday afternoon, just to check in to make sure that I could off load if needed before the weekend. It’s hard to put a value on that.”

Find out more about Lishmans LLP here.

Read more customer stories:

• A bespoke service with a friendly approach for Construction Site Services
• Creating a central source of information for Birmingham Education Partnership
• Tailored advice for small businesses with Cross Keys Estates

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help your business with friendly HR support and easy to use HR software, give us a call on 0333 014 3888 or send us an email at info@citrushr.com.

We’d love to find out more about your business.