HR Team of One: Survival Guide for Solo HR Managers

You're the head of HR. You're also the HR generalist, the recruiter, the benefits administrator, the compliance officer, the employee relations specialist, the onboarding coordinator, and the person who answers questions about the snack policy.

You're an HR team of one. And it's a lot.

This guide is for you — the solo HR person at a 50-200 person company who's trying to do everything and slowly losing their mind. Let's talk about how to survive (and maybe even thrive).

The Reality of Being an HR Team of One

Let's validate your experience for a moment. When you're the only HR person:

• There's no backup. You're sick? HR is closed.
• Everything is urgent. Benefits question? Urgent. Recruiting? Urgent. Compliance? Very urgent.
• You're expected to know everything. Even things you've never done before.
• Strategic work gets squeezed out by operational fires.
• You can never really log off. The Slack notifications follow you home.

If this sounds like your life, you're not alone. This is the reality for thousands of HR professionals at growing companies.

The Four Laws of Solo HR Survival

Law 1: Ruthless Prioritization

You cannot do everything. Accept this now. The question isn't "how do I do it all" — it's "what do I not do?"

Priority framework for solo HR:

1. Legal/Compliance requirements — Non-negotiable. Do these first.
2. Immediate employee needs — New hire starting Monday, employee in crisis, etc.
3. Business-critical operations — Payroll, benefits, open roles you need to fill
4. Strategic initiatives — Culture, engagement, process improvement
5. Nice-to-haves — That thing you saw on LinkedIn that looked cool

Most solo HR people spend 80% of their time on categories 2-3 and almost none on category 4. This is unsustainable but also reality.

Law 2: Automate or Die

Anything that's repetitive and doesn't require human judgment should be automated. Period.

High-value automation opportunities:

• PTO requests and approvals — Stop being the middleman
• Benefits questions — AI can answer 90% of these
• Onboarding paperwork — Automated reminders and collection
• Policy questions — Self-serve knowledge base or AI
• Time tracking and payroll prep — Direct integrations

Every hour you spend on automatable tasks is an hour you're not spending on things that actually need you.

Law 3: Documentation is Your Best Friend

When you're the only one who knows how things work, you're a single point of failure. Document everything.

• Processes and how to run them
• Vendor contacts and login information
• Policies and their exceptions
• Annual calendar (compliance deadlines, enrollment periods, etc.)
• Decision history (why did we do it this way?)

Documentation isn't just for your successor. It's for you when you inevitably forget how you did that thing last year.

Law 4: Build Your Support System

Solo doesn't have to mean alone. Build a network:

• External HR community — Other solo HR people who get it
• Employment lawyer — For the questions you can't answer yourself
• Benefits broker — They should be doing a lot of this work for you
• Internal allies — Finance, ops, managers who can help
• Technology partners — HRIS support, automation tools

The Solo HR Tech Stack

Your tools matter more when you're a team of one. Here's what you actually need:

Non-Negotiable

• HRIS — Rippling, Gusto, BambooHR, Justworks
• Applicant Tracking — Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby
• Payroll — Often bundled with HRIS

Highly Recommended

• AI HR assistant — For fielding questions (👋 that's us)
• Document management — Notion, Confluence, or similar
• Survey tool — For engagement and feedback

Nice to Have

• Performance management platform
• Learning management system
• Advanced analytics

What to Do When You're Drowning

Real talk: there will be times when you're underwater. Here's the emergency protocol:

1. Triage ruthlessly. What absolutely has to happen today? This week? Do only that.
2. Ask for help. Can a manager handle their own onboarding? Can an exec give you coverage? Ask.
3. Communicate capacity. Tell leadership what you're not able to do. They can't help if they don't know.
4. Let some things break. Not everything. But that nice-to-have initiative? It can wait.
5. Make the case for help. Document what you're doing and what you can't get to. Build the business case for additional headcount.

When to Advocate for Help

General rule: You need more HR help when:

• You're past 100 employees and still solo
• You're hiring more than 3-4 people per month
• Compliance requirements are getting complex (multiple states, international)
• Strategic work is consistently getting pushed indefinitely
• You're burning out and it's affecting your work

Make the case with data: how many hours are you spending on what? What's not getting done? What's the business risk?

The Silver Lining

Being an HR team of one is hard. But it's also a unique opportunity:

• You touch everything and learn fast
• You have outsized impact on the company
• You build processes from scratch
• You develop breadth that specialists don't get
• You're genuinely indispensable

The skills you build as a solo HR person are valuable. The experience is worth something. Just make sure you're taking care of yourself in the process.

Final Thoughts

To every solo HR person reading this: you're doing more than any single person should reasonably be expected to do. It's okay to not be perfect. It's okay to not do everything.

Focus on what matters most. Automate what you can. Build your support system. And remember: the goal isn't to do everything — it's to do the most important things well while keeping yourself intact.

Want to take one thing off your plate? Check out Deb — she handles the endless stream of employee questions so you can breathe.