Small business owners: you may qualify for a grant from the French government if you are considering beefing up your HR function
If you are running a small business, you may be eligible for the French government grant program to help you pay for the service of a human resource (HR) consultant.
This specialized professional will provide the practical HR support that you need. Areas of support include your small business’ strategy, its organization, or its HR management. You will therefore be equipped to actively manage your human resources over time in a professional manner.
ELIGIBILITY
Eligible businesses
To qualify for the government grant, you must meet the following requirements:
- Your business must have fewer than 250 employees and it must not be part of a group of companies of 250 employees or more,
- Your company’s revenue should not exceed EUR50 million. If it exceeds EUR50 million, your company’s total asset should not exceed EUR43 million.
You may partner with other small businesses to design your HR project and get support from a specialized consultant. You may qualify for the grant program if you and the businesses that you partnered with meet the above requirements.
If you’re running a nonprofit organization such as a nonprofit to help jobless find a job, your grant application will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. After a careful consideration of your application, you’ll be presented with two options:
- There are other existing programs that best suit your needs: you’ll be informed on those programs and encouraged to apply
- There are no other existing programs that best suit your needs: you’ll get government funds to pay for part of your HR projects.
Ineligible businesses
You’re not eligible for the government grant program if you’re a self-employed or an independent contractor.
CHALLENGES OF THE HR SUPPORT PROGRAM
A collective and sustainable approach
The HR support should help your small business implement an HR action plan that is consistent with its economic growth strategy in the medium term.
The HR support service provider should seek input from your employees and their representatives for a greater result for the team. This approach should be a way to advance social dialogue in your company.
Your business’ HR projects may consist of one or several of the following:
- Strategy to align in the short and medium terms the gaps between the human resources currently available and future needs in light of the economic changes,
- Strategy to mentor employees and to adapt their trainings to your company’s needs,
- Support for recruitment and development of your company’s attractiveness,
- Employee onboarding and integration,
- HR related change management support including digital and environmental,
- Work organization,
- Social dialogue improvement,
- Professionalization of the HR function in the company,
- Support for situations of cyclical variations in activity and/or in connection with a particular economic context.
A strict and precise application framework
The HR support program of your structure does not cover all the fields of action. Therefore, this support:
- Cannot consist in bringing your business up to regulatory standards,
- Is not intended to pay for the educational expense and the salary related to your staff’s training or coaching classes or your training or coaching classes,
- Cannot be a legal or accounting consultation.
IMPLEMENTATION & DURATION OF YOUT HR SUPPORT PROGRAM
Individual or collective implementations
The HR support service may be provided in two ways:
- Support to a business,
- Support to a group of businesses of the same industrial branch, sector, territory (interprofessional approach) or that share common problems.
The government strongly encourages you to partner with other small businesses to get support. Some of the benefits of this approach include:
- To organize communications and interactions between the small businesses that are coached,
- To make it easier to share best practices over time, and to contribute, if necessary, to the structuring of a group of employers, a networking group, an industrial branch, or a sector,
- To make economies of scale and optimize the use of the HR grant.
A flexible but regulated duration
Your HR support project or your group of businesses support service may take up to 30 days in total. You may spread the support sessions over time. However, your total support period cannot exceed twelve months.
Business owners underestimate the value that human resources management can add to their organization’s bottom line. HR Management can help businesses navigate economic development and manage their life cycle transitions: growth, economic difficulties, project development, support around the challenges of economic changes such as digital and environmental transitions.