There are three models for structuring an HR team and only two of them work under five hundred people. The generalist model gives each person a group of employees and asks them to do everything for that group. The functional model gives each person a discipline and asks them to serve everybody. The three-legged model splits into partners, centres of expertise and shared services, and it is the one most often copied from companies ten times the size, where it works. This page is the three, honestly, with the headcount each needs.
Generalist: one person, whole employees
Each HR person owns everything for a set of employees or a set of departments. It is simple, the internal customer always knows who to ask, and it scales badly in exactly one way: every person has to be competent at recruiting, employment questions, systems and compensation. For a team of two or three it is usually the right answer, and it is what most companies of under a hundred and fifty run.
Functional: one person, whole discipline
Each person owns a discipline across the whole company: one recruiter, one operations person, one generalist for employee questions. Depth improves and hand-offs appear, which is the trade. It works from about three people upward and is the natural evolution of the generalist team once somebody has clearly become the person who does all the recruiting anyway.
Three-legged: partners, expertise and shared services
Business partners for the departments, specialists for compensation and learning, and a service team for the transactional work. It is the model most large companies run and it needs enough headcount to fill all three legs, which in practice means past a few hundred employees. Adopted early it produces partners with nobody behind them, and the chart shows it immediately: dotted lines everywhere and no shared service to absorb the work.
Questions people ask about hr team structure
How many employees per HR person?
Wide ranges are quoted and none of them survive contact with a specific company. Count the joiners, leavers and movers instead: 28 a year is a fraction of a role, 200 is several.
Should recruiting report into HR?
Under a few hundred people, usually yes. Splitting it out early creates two functions competing for the same hiring managers' attention.
Do HR business partners need a dotted line to the department?
Yes, and drawing it is what stops the partner being treated as an occasional visitor. It is one standing relationship each, and worth what it costs.