Make HR Run When the Person Running It Is on a Pitch or on Leave
In most agencies, HR is one person's side responsibility, fitted around client work. It runs well until that person is busy or away, and the tasks with no client deadline are the ones that slip. We help you write down what HR does each month, who owns each step, how quickly joiners, exits and queries should be handled, and how leadership checks that it all happened. You decide the standards; we build a function that does not rest in one head.
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Share your requirementsThe starting point
Would HR Carry On Next Month Without the Person Who Runs It?
Agency HR is typically done by a founder, an operations lead or an office manager, who knows how everything works because they did it each time. The knowledge is real but unwritten, and it stops the moment that person is absorbed by a pitch, a client crisis or a holiday.
We help you turn individual knowledge into a routine that other people can run.
You may be experiencing:
- Payroll inputs, leave updates and joiner paperwork that depend on one person remembering them.
- Recurring obligations with no calendar, noticed only when someone else asks.
- No agreed time for answering a joiner's, leaver's or employee's query.
- Steps in the hiring or exit process that vary depending on who handles them.
- Approvals for people decisions with no stated limits, so the person asked is whoever is nearest.
- HR work abandoned during pitch season because there is no cover.
- Little sense of whether HR is working, except when something breaks.
What we can help with
Our HR Operations and Governance Services for Agencies
HR Process Inventory
List what HR actually does in your agency, from hiring and joining to payroll inputs, reviews and exits, and who does each task today, so the real workload is visible.
SOPs and Checklists
Write short standard procedures for the routines that matter most, in plain steps with owners and formats, so that someone else could do the task from the page.
HR Calendar and Annual Plan
Build a monthly and yearly calendar of recurring tasks: payroll cut-offs, increment cycles, review windows, policy reviews and compliance dates you have confirmed, each with an owner.
Service Levels and Turnaround
Set realistic turnaround for common requests, such as letters, joiner set-up, leave queries and settlement, and a way to see which are overdue.
People Decision Approval Matrix
Define who may approve each type of people decision, such as hires, increments, exits and freelancer engagement, up to what limit and with what backup.
Cover and Continuity Arrangements
Name a deputy for each HR task and make sure they have access, instructions and authority, so that payroll and joiner work continue through leave and busy periods.
Monthly Management Review
Set a short monthly meeting where leaders look at what ran, what slipped and what needs a decision, using a simple tracker.
Audit and Improvement Routine
Check a sample of files, approvals and records at regular intervals, record what was found and agree changes, so the function improves without a crisis forcing it.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the agreed scope, deliverables can include:
- An inventory of HR tasks with owners.
- SOPs and checklists for the main routines.
- A monthly and yearly HR calendar.
- Service level definitions for common requests.
- A people decision approval matrix.
- A deputy and cover arrangement for each task.
- A monthly review format and tracker.
- An audit sample method and an improvement log.
Step by step
How We Work
Sit with Whoever Runs HR
We spend time with the person who carries HR now, to learn what they do each month and what they do from memory.
Write It Down
We turn the routines into short procedures and a calendar, and ask a colleague to follow them without help to see where the page is unclear.
Set the Standards
With leadership we agree turnaround targets, approval limits and the cover arrangement, and record each decision.
Install the Rhythm
We set up the calendar, tracker and monthly review in your tools or on the GullyHR platform, so that reminders go to named owners.
Check It Held
Before work starts we note how many routines depend on one person. After a couple of months, including a busy one, we test whether the function ran without them.
The difference
A People Function That Does Not Depend on One Person
A defined HR operating routine helps your agency to:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering the routines that depend on a single person, requests answered within the target time and tasks missed in a month, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Run payroll inputs and joiner work through pitch season.
- Know what falls due each month and whose it is.
- Respond to common requests within a stated time.
- Share people decisions across named approvers.
- Hold a short monthly review that catches slippage.
- Make a deliberate choice about what to outsource.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
Agencies Where HR Is a Side Role
Give the person carrying it a routine that can be shared and covered.
Founders Still Handling People Matters
Hand routine work to a process and keep the decisions that need you.
Agencies Hiring a First HR Person
Leave the new hire with written routines instead of a blank page.
Growing Agencies with More Than One Office
Make HR work the same way in each location.
How it usually shows up in marketing, advertising and creative
HR in an agency is usually handled by a founder, an operations head or an office manager alongside other duties. The work is done well when time is available and slips when a pitch, a launch or a client crisis takes over. Recurring tasks, such as payroll inputs, probation reviews, appraisals, contract renewals, increment letters and policy reviews, have no calendar, so they are remembered or missed. There is one person who knows how things are done, with no written steps, and when that person is away the process stalls. Service levels for joiners, exits and queries are unstated. Freelancer administration is a separate pile. Outside help is called in during a crisis. Monthly review of HR is rare, and improvements come after a problem.
Common challenges
Where it goes wrong in marketing, advertising and creative
Deadline-free work slips
Reviews, renewals and letters have no client deadline, so they are the first to be dropped.
One person holds the process
Steps are known to one person and stop when that person is away.
Service levels are unstated
Staff do not know how long a joiner, a letter or a query should take.
Improvements follow problems
Fixes are made after something goes wrong, rarely before.
A better process
What a working version looks like
- 01
Write an HR calendar
Recurring tasks with dates and named owners across the year, from payroll cut-off to appraisals. The HR process consulting approach builds the first version.
- 02
Document the main steps
Short checklists for joining, exit, leave, payroll input and letters, so they can be run by someone else.
- 03
Name an owner and a cover
Each task has an owner and a named cover who has done it once.
- 04
State service levels
Times for common requests, shared with staff and measured.
- 05
Hold a short monthly review
A review of what ran, what slipped and what needs to change, with outside help brought in for specific needs.
What to check this week
- Ask whether a written calendar of HR tasks exists.
- Find who can run payroll inputs if the usual owner is away.
- List the tasks that slipped during the last pitch.
- Check how long a joiner takes from offer to a working laptop.
- Look at when HR was last discussed in a leadership meeting.
What this looks like in marketing, advertising and creative
The parts of hr operations and governance that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
HR Operations in a Small Function
Where HR is one person alongside everything else.
What this coversHide
HR Operations in a Small Function
Where HR is one person alongside everything else.
What this coversHideMost agencies run HR as part of another role. That is workable, and it fails in a specific way: the recurring obligations that have no client deadline are the ones that slip.
- A written calendar of recurring obligations with dates
- Named ownership even where HR is part of another role
- Payroll input process that survives the owner being on leave
- Freelancer and contractor administration handled distinctly
- Employee records maintained rather than assembled when needed
- Policy ownership and review dates stated
- Service levels for joiners, exits and queries
- External support used for what genuinely needs it
The test for a small function is whether it runs when the person running it is away. Where it does not, the risk is concentrated in one individual and nobody has decided that deliberately.
Questions on this, in marketing, advertising and creative
No. What matters is that the routines are written, owned and covered, whether one person or several carry them. We design the function to match your size and keep the paperwork proportionate to the work.
Recurring dates for payroll inputs, review and increment windows, policy reviews, filings you have confirmed with a professional and any renewals, each with an owner and a deputy. The point is that nothing important relies on remembering.
Ask a colleague to carry out a routine from the procedure while the usual person is unavailable, and note where they get stuck. We build that test into the review so that gaps are found in a safe moment.
When the task needs specialist knowledge, or the volume exceeds what a part-time role can manage. We help you decide which work to buy in, such as payroll processing or legal review, and how to brief and check it.
Our focus is designing and setting up the function and helping you run it. Where you want ongoing support for part of it, we can agree that scope separately. Legal and statutory matters remain with a qualified professional, since GullyHR does not give legal advice.
Use a calendar, short checklists and named cover. Keep the work small and regular instead of leaving it for crises.
Payroll cut-offs, probation and appraisal dates, contract and licence renewals, policy reviews and statutory dates, each with an owner.
For specialist or occasional work, such as a policy rewrite, a system rollout or a sensitive investigation. Daily tasks should stay with a named person.
By tracking whether tasks ran on their dates, how long common requests took and whether complaints or errors fall over time.
Make HR a Routine, Not a Rescue
If HR in your agency lives in one person's memory, start by writing down what happens each month and who covers it.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
Book an HR Operations Consultation
Tell us about your agency and who looks after HR today.
The general method — what hr operations and governance covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the hr process consulting and implementation page. What is above is the part that differs for marketing, advertising and creative.
Other HR topics for marketing, advertising and creative
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for marketing, advertising and creative, or another industry.