First published on Friday, December 5, 2025
Last updated on Friday, December 5, 2025
With an estimated 1 in 3 small firms expected to reduce in size or shut down completely in the next 12 months, uncertainty is affecting industries like hospitality, retail, and the personal care sector.
SMEs are pushed to their limits
There’s no doubt that this is a challenging time for small businesses. In a slowing economy, SMEs are facing rising employment costs and red tape. It’s more important than ever for businesses to find more efficient ways to stay competitive.
Your HR software might provide you with automated processes, but does it really integrate with your other systems, and does your provider offer support with tricky legal issues? Or are you still taking up time with manual processes and admin, and paying through the nose for it at the same time?
Your job title doesn’t contain the word ‘admin’, but it feels like that’s all you do
According to a 2025 survey from Perk, 76% of UK workers spend one day of their working week on admin tasks. Not only that, but the survey identified admin tasks as one of the largest causes of burnout amongst workers. All of which ultimately impacts job satisfaction, employee performance and retention.
Throw in compliance and red tape surrounding employment laws, SMEs often struggle to keep a handle on HR. Getting HR wrong runs the risk of hefty fines, employment tribunals and reputational damage. With fines reaching upwards of £60,700 for the most serious cases of discrimination, for example, some small businesses may even face closure.
Facing the biggest shake up of employment laws in a generation
With the new laws from the Employment Rights Bill set to come into effect over the next two years, business owners will have even more to contend with.
Those who choose to pay a HR consultant to tackle the red tape face eye-watering costs of £100+ per hour. In this economy, these fees are out of the question!
Freeing yourself from the burden of HR admin
Whether it’s the cost to pay a HR manager an average salary of around £50k, a consultant’s fees or the hidden cost of lost time, at BrightHR we are asking the question:
Why spend all this time and money on HR when you can automate these processes with a simple digital solution?
According to our payback calculator, UK businesses with 6-10 employees typically spend:
£240 a year on employee timekeeping
£1,000 a year on conducting a single risk assessment
£590 a year to draft a single HR policy
A whopping £7,500 a year handling workplace accidents
But with BrightHR, a business of this size could save £24,512.00 per year!
That’s £9.51 back for every £1 you spend.
Meanwhile, with employment law experts available 24/7, anxiety around staying compliant becomes a thing of the past.
Ready to see why BrightHR is trusted by over 120,000 SMEs?
Switching to BrightHR couldn’t be easier. Our switch guarantee gives you free, secure, live data migration, and no double payments while you switch.
Explore our award-winning software and see our range of end-to-end people management tools with one of our switch specialists. We’ll show you why switching to BrightHR will save you time, money, and admin.
