The received wisdom is that small business owners are too busy running their business to worry about HR issues. However, according to the latest Small Business and Human Resources Outlook Survey, 79% of small businesses hired new employees last year (an increase of 17% from the year before), 65% plan for merit-based pay increases in the coming year and 63% plan to implement a bonus or incentive pay program.1 The truth is that human resources are crucial to small businesses success and expansion, but they don’t have the luxury of an HR department to deal with them.

The majority of Business Leaders believe that investments in digital technologies have created value for their business, with around 80% saying that mobile technologies and data analytics are key strands of their business strategy.2 Ensuring that technology and expansion plans work together will be a matter of urgency in the next two years. The rapid pace of technological change – cited as a challenge by 58% of General Managers – is highlighting a shortage of key skills. In fact, skills and innovation is identified by 46% of EU SMEs as a major small business challenge.³

Make sure you address the 3 most important international HR challenges.

• 1. The Small Business and Human Resources Outlook Survey (2015), Insight Performance
• 2. 18th Annual Global CEO Survey (2015), PwC
• 3. Annual Report on European SMEs – A Partial and Fragile Recovery (2014), European Commission, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry