# When should you hire Your First HR Person?

> Learn the clear signs it’s time to hire your first HR pro and protect your company’s growth.

- **Author:** Robin Keyen
- **Category:** tmgXwfBTmoDvzx4s5EcX
- **Published:** 2026-03-30
- **Language:** en

## If you're spending your weekends doing payroll, your company has outgrown you doing payroll.
That's not a criticism. It's a sign that something is working.
You built something real. People want to work for you. You're hiring, onboarding, managing contracts, processing leave requests, handling a performance issue, trying to remember whether you filed the Dimona declaration on time, and somehow still supposed to be steering the company.
At some point — and that point comes earlier than most founders think — the cost of not having someone dedicated to people operations is higher than the cost of hiring them. The problem is that crossing that line is gradual. You don't notice it until you're already well past it, losing hours every week to admin that someone else should own.
This article is about finding that line before it finds you.
## The maths that expose the problem
Here is the clearest way to see this.
Take your rough hourly value as a founder — what your time is worth to the business in terms of revenue, decisions, and strategic output. Now count the hours you spend each week on HR-related admin: payroll, contracts, onboarding paperwork, leave requests, compliance filings, responding to employee questions about their benefits.
For most founders who are past 15 people, that number is between 10 and 20 hours per week. Many are higher.
First Round Capital's research found that 70% of a typical CEO's time is sub-optimal — spent on things that don't require the CEO specifically, that drain energy from the decisions only they can make. HR admin is a reliable contributor to that waste. Harvard Business School's CEO time study tracked 27 CEOs over 13 weeks and found consistent patterns of operational and administrative tasks consuming time that should be strategic.
You are paying a CEO to do an HR coordinator's job. The maths never work.
 ⚠️ Warning: The cost of not having HR doesn't show up in a single line item. It shows up in the hours you're not spending on product, sales, or strategy. It shows up in the compliance mistakes you make because you're handling things you weren't trained for. And it shows up in the people you lose because nobody is actively managing their experience at work.
## The real signals that you've waited too long
Headcount is the trigger most people think about. The research says the average startup makes its first dedicated HR hire at employee number 39 — employee 36 for seed-stage companies, employee 44 for Series A. By 100 employees, almost all companies have at least one dedicated HR person.
But headcount is a lagging indicator. The actual signals are behavioural — and they show up well before you hit those numbers.
### You're hiring three or more people per quarter. 
Onboarding, contracts, and compliance multiply with every new hire. Three hires per quarter without an HR function means you're running a part-time recruitment operation on top of everything else.
### You've expanded beyond one legal entity or region. 
Belgian employment law is already complex. The moment you have employees in multiple regions, or contractors across different legal frameworks, the compliance burden compounds fast.
### A people problem has sat unresolved for more than two weeks. 
When there's no one whose job it is to handle people issues, they get pushed down the list. They don't go away. They grow — into performance issues, team friction, or eventual attrition.
### You've had a compliance near-miss. 
A late Dimona. A contract you weren't sure about. An onboarding where something was handled inconsistently. Near-misses are the clearest signal that the system is already stretched.
 💡 Quick tip: Do a simple audit right now. Write down every HR-related task you or your team handled last week — not just formal ones, but every question you answered, form you touched, or decision you made about people. Add up the hours. If the number surprises you, you have your answer.
## The Belgian compliance time bomb
This is where the stakes get specific for Belgian companies — and they are high.
Belgian employment law is detailed, enforced, and unforgiving of honest mistakes. The obligations start the moment you hire someone, not when you grow large enough to need an HR team.
Dimona: Every employee must be declared to the NSSO (Rijksdienst voor Sociale Zekerheid / RSZ) before their first day of work. Not on their first day. Before it. Missing or late Dimona declarations trigger fines and potential audits. This is not discretionary.
DmfA declarations: Every quarter, employers must submit a multifunctional declaration to the RSZ covering every employee's hours and salary data. Errors, omissions, or late submissions lead to penalties.
Minimum wage obligations: Belgium has both national and sector-level minimum wages (determined by Joint Committees — Paritaire Comités). Paying below the applicable sectoral minimum is not just an HR error — it is a violation of the Wet betreffende de arbeidsovereenkomsten with financial and legal consequences.
Most founders handling their own HR don't intend to break these rules. They break them because they didn't know the rules existed, or they knew in theory but had no system to apply them consistently. That's what an HR function is for.
 ⚠️ Warning: Worker misclassification — treating an employee as a freelance contractor to avoid social contributions — is one of the most aggressively investigated issues in Belgium. The consequences are not just back-payment of contributions. They include fines up to 100% of unpaid amounts and, in serious cases, criminal liability for company directors personally. "I didn't realise they should have been an employee" is not a successful defence.
## What actually breaks when there's no HR
The legal risk is the sharpest edge of the problem. But it isn't the only cost.
### Onboarding becomes a lottery. 
Without a defined process, every new hire gets a slightly different experience. Some get everything they need on day one. Others are still waiting for a laptop two weeks in. That inconsistency is noticed — and it forms the first impression of what it's like to work at your company.
### Performance issues fester. 
Managers — especially first-time managers — don't always have the skills or the confidence to handle difficult conversations. Without HR support, hard situations get avoided. Avoidance turns into resentment. Resentment turns into a resignation, or worse, a legal dispute after a dismissal that wasn't handled correctly.
### Policies exist nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. 
Most early-stage companies have informal norms about holiday, remote work, expenses, and sick leave. They work until they don't. The first time someone pushes back on an informal policy, you need something written and consistent. If you don't have it, you're making ad-hoc decisions that set unpredictable precedents.
### Good people leave for reasons you don't hear about. 
When there's no HR, there's no one to spot the signs before they escalate, no one to run an exit interview with enough safety for honest answers, and no system to understand why people leave. The talent walks out and you get a LinkedIn update two weeks later.
## What "first HR hire" actually means
The title matters here because it shapes who you look for.
Your first HR hire is not a Head of HR. They don't need to be an organisational design expert or a culture transformation specialist. What you need at this stage is a generalist — someone who can handle the full breadth of people operations at a basic to intermediate level.
That means: payroll and social compliance, contracts and onboarding, leave and absence management, basic recruitment coordination, and being the first point of contact for employee questions. Policy drafting is a nice-to-have. Prior experience in a Belgian context is non-negotiable.
 ✅ Best practice: When writing the job description for your first HR hire, start by listing every HR-related task you've handled in the past month. That is the actual job description. If you write it as a "Head of People and Culture" role with grand transformation language, you'll attract people who want to design frameworks, not run payroll. The two things are not the same person.
The seniority level depends on what you actually need. A 40-person company typically needs someone at the HR coordinator or HR generalist level — maybe 3–5 years of experience, solid Belgian social law knowledge, and the ability to work autonomously without a team around them.
 💡 Quick tip: Ask every candidate in the interview: "What would you do in your first 30 days?" The answer should be operational — audit the current state, map what's missing, get compliant on the basics. If their answer is mostly about culture and engagement programmes, keep looking.
## The fractional option: when a full hire isn't right yet
Not every company at 20–30 people needs a full-time HR hire. If the volume of work doesn't justify it yet, a fractional HR professional — someone who works across multiple companies on a part-time basis — is a legitimate option.
This works well when: your compliance basics are already in order, your hiring pace is moderate, and your people issues are manageable but not daily. A fractional HR person gives you professional oversight, someone to call when something sensitive comes up, and the legal protection of having a qualified person reviewing your processes.
It stops working when: you're hiring fast, you have ongoing employee relations issues, or you're expanding the business in ways that need constant HR support. At that point, you need someone in-house.
The transition from fractional to full-time is a decision most founders delay too long. The signal that it's time: your fractional HR person is consistently at capacity and you're still handling things yourself.
 ✅ Best practice: If you go the fractional route, make sure the arrangement is formal — a written agreement, defined scope, clear escalation paths for urgent issues. An informal "I'll call you when something comes up" arrangement with an HR contact gives you the illusion of coverage without the substance.
## How to hire the right first HR person
The practical process matters here. Getting it wrong is expensive — both the cost of replacing a bad HR hire and the legal exposure you accumulate in the meantime.
### Prioritise Belgian social law knowledge above everything else. 
An HR professional from another European country can be excellent and still be dangerous if they don't know the Dimona system, the Joint Committee structure, the NSSO obligations, or the specifics of Belgian dismissal law. These are not things you can learn on the job quickly enough.
### Test for autonomy, not just knowledge. 
Your first HR hire will not have a team or a manager who understands HR. They need to self-direct, prioritise independently, and escalate appropriately. Ask situational questions: "What would you do if you discovered the company had been filing NSSO declarations incorrectly for two years?"
### Check references specifically on this. 
Ask references: "Did they manage an HR function independently?" and "Were there any compliance issues during their tenure, and how did they handle them?" The answers matter more than the CV.
As the market for specialist HR talent grows more accessible — with platforms like Joobs making it easier to find professionals with specific legal and sector experience — the pool of strong first HR hires in Belgium is easier to reach than it was five years ago. The bottleneck is usually the brief, not the availability.
## Belgian and EU specifics for your first hire
A few things worth knowing specifically for Belgium once you have someone in the role.
Joint Committees (Paritaire Comités): Every Belgian employer falls under a specific Joint Committee that determines sector-specific wages, working conditions, and benefits above the national baseline. Your HR person needs to know which one applies to your business and what it requires. Getting this wrong is a common mistake in fast-growing companies — it only comes to light during a social inspection.
Time registration obligations: Under Belgian law, specific rules govern how working time is tracked and recorded, especially for employees working variable hours. Non-compliance is a level-3 violation under the reformed Social Penal Code.
Collective dismissal notifications: If you ever need to make more than 10% of your workforce redundant, Belgian law requires formal notification to the NSSO, the workers' representatives, and the relevant regional employment office (VDAB, Actiris, or FOREM depending on the region). Missing this process triggers legal nullity of the dismissal.
GDPR for employee data: Employee data — contracts, payroll records, performance reviews, leave history — is personal data under GDPR. Your HR function needs basic data governance practices from day one: defined retention periods, access controls, and a privacy notice for employees. The Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit (Belgian DPA) enforces this in employment contexts.
 💡 Quick tip: When your new HR hire starts, their first task should be a compliance audit — not a culture project. Where are you exposed? What declarations are missing? What contracts need reviewing? This is not glamorous work, but it is the work that protects the business while the rest follows.
## The return on the investment
The conversation about hiring HR is almost always framed as a cost question. It is more accurately an investment question.
Consider what a competent HR function returns:
- A founder who gets back 15–20 hours per week of strategic time

- A legal compliance posture that doesn't accumulate risk with every new hire

- An onboarding experience that sets new employees up to be productive faster

- A system that spots retention risks before they become resignations

- The ability to scale hiring without bottlenecking on the founder


The ROI on your first HR hire is not just about compliance or admin reduction. It is about what you are able to do with the time and attention you get back — and about whether the people you've hired stay long enough to build the company you're trying to build.
## FAQ
Is there a legal minimum employee count before HR is required in Belgium? No — there is no specific headcount threshold at which a dedicated HR function becomes legally mandatory. But Belgian employer obligations begin with your very first employee: Dimona, DmfA, Joint Committee compliance, written employment contracts. A lack of HR capacity doesn't reduce those obligations — it just increases the chance of getting them wrong.
Can we use an external payroll provider instead of hiring HR?Yes, and most Belgian companies do use a social secretariat (like Securex, Partena, SD Worx, or Group S) for payroll processing. That handles the technical filings but it doesn't handle contracts, onboarding, employee relations, performance management, or compliance beyond payroll. A social secretariat is not a substitute for an HR function — it is a tool within one.
What should we pay our first HR hire in Belgium?For an experienced HR generalist in Belgium (3–5 years, solid social law knowledge), a realistic gross salary range is €3,500–€5,000/month depending on experience and region. Senior generalists or those with specialist compliance knowledge can command more. This is before employer social contributions, which add approximately 27–30% on top of gross.
How do we handle HR until we can afford to hire? The short-term answer is to get the compliance basics outsourced to a social secretariat, document your processes as simply as possible, and be honest about the risk you're carrying. The medium-term answer is to hire earlier than feels comfortable. The long-term cost of delay — in compliance exposure, founder time, and attrition — almost always exceeds the salary you were trying to avoid.
What's the difference between an HR generalist and a Head of People?A Head of People typically implies strategic ownership — culture design, organisational development, senior talent strategy. A generalist runs the operational function: contracts, compliance, onboarding, employee questions, basic recruitment. Your first hire should almost always be the latter. The former comes once you have 80–100 people and a generalist already running the basics.

---
*Source: [Joobs.be](https://joobs.be/en/blog/when-should-you-hire-your-first-hr-person)*