How to Manage Your Workforce with Cannabis HR

It’s no secret that the legal cannabis market is growing at an astonishing rate, with new dispensaries, commercial cultivators, processors, and other cannabusinesses opening each year. With industry growth predicted to keep rising, cannabusinesses now face the important tasks of hiring, retaining, training, and paying trustworthy, knowledgeable staff in increasing numbers. Fortunately, human resources firms dedicated to serving the cannabis industry have arisen to help business owners navigate these complex and time-consuming processes. Read on to learn all about cannabis industry HR, and discover our list of the best cannabis HR firms.

What Are Cannabis HR Firms?

Human resources (HR) administrators handle nearly any service related to staff, including hiring, training, and termination, administration of payroll and benefits, and the creation and implementation of essential company policies. Some cannabis human resources firms offer all or most of these services, making it easy to outsource your entire HR department to one company. Other firms are completely dedicated to a specialized area, such as payroll, recruitment, or employee training. Cannabis HR firms not only excel at employee management, but also understand and cater to the unique needs of the still new and strictly-regulated cannabis industry.

Why Outsourcing Employee Management is Essential for Cannabis Businesses

Employee management can be a full-time job all on its own – one involving adherence to strict laws and regulations. At its heart, the well-being of any business comes down to its employees. Properly vetted, well-trained, fairly compensated employees who understand the exact policies they are expected to follow significantly increase your business’s odds of thriving.

Expertise

Human resources administration is a highly specialized area. Unless you or any members of your staff are very familiar with the legal and technical aspects of policy creation, payroll and benefits administration, or other HR duties, it’s in your best interest to outsource these tasks to the experts in these fields.

Compliance

Compliance is key in absolutely every aspect of the legal cannabis industry. Failure to comply with industry regulations can result in costly fees, or even loss of your business license. Adherence to federal, state, and local labor and employment laws is also critical. An important component of cannabis HR administration is keeping up with all required staff and payroll-related record-keeping and reporting, while ensuring all staff-related policies and practices are fair and legal.

Efficiency

Running any business with employees (even just a few) involves a huge amount of record-keeping, policy concerns, and other important details. Dispensary, grow op, and testing lab owners have enough to keep track of without trying to become overnight experts in policy, payroll, and benefits – then managing these areas as well! Even if you do have some cannabis HR expertise, outsourcing all or some of these important tasks to professional specialists can save your business massive amounts of time, energy, and money.

What Do Cannabis HR Firms Do?

Staffing

Cannabis HR firms are experts in staffing – from recruitment, running background checks, and creating job offer packages, to managing the interviewing, hiring, and onboarding processes, conducting performance reviews, and carrying out corrective actions, exit interviews, and terminations or retirements. Some cannabis staffing agencies also offer employee scheduling and time clock services.

Cannabis staffing agency professionals will ensure your company complies with anti-discrimination laws, and that any employee mistakes or misdeeds are handled correctly,  protecting your company from potential lawsuits. While many cannabis HR firms do cover all duties related to hiring and managing staff, there are also several excellent companies dedicated strictly to cannabis staff recruitment.

Training

Proper training is an absolute must for all cannabis industry staff. Implementing effective training during the onboarding process will ensure your employees understand their roles and responsibilities from day one, improving employee retention rates and enhancing the security of your business. Improperly trained staff are far more likely to make costly and potentially legally catastrophic mistakes.

Beyond the day-to-day processes of their jobs, cannabis employees must undergo training specific to cannabis handling, cannabis security, OSH (Occupational Safety and Health), workplace harassment, and legal dos and don’ts. Most jurisdictions have educational requirements in place for cannabis-handing employees, so be sure that the training programs you invest in meet the requirements for your location. There are several high-quality marijuana training courses available to cannabis businesses, administered either entirely online or in person.

Payroll

Proper payroll administration is critical to a successful business. As well as ensuring your employees always receive their hard-earned money on schedule, cannabis payroll companies have to follow strict banking guidelines to remain compliant, especially in places like the United States, where cannabis is still illegal at the federal level.

Cannabis payroll duties include automatically paying employees on a set schedule (via direct deposit or printed paper checks), generating detailed paystubs, accounting for tips, taxes, and benefit deductions, generating summaries and reports for the business records, tax reporting, and more. Most cannabis payroll providers utilize software that can easily be integrated with other commonly used dispensary software, such as time-clocks.

Employee Benefits

The world of employee benefits, from insurance to paid vacation time, can be quite complicated to navigate. If your company offers any type of employee benefits, you’ll need the assistance of a benefits administrator. Employee benefits include health insurance, HSA (health savings accounts), disability insurance, life insurance, 401(k) or other retirement plans, paid sick and vacation time, worker’s compensation, tuition reimbursement, and profit-sharing.

Not only do benefits administrators walk employees through their benefit options, but they must ensure everything is done in accordance with local legal regulations, such as the extremely long and detailed Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the United States. Cannabis employee benefits administrators are not only experts in these specialized fields but also understand the unique concerns of staffing within the legal cannabis industry.

Policy

Implementation of company policies related to the roles of staff and management alike is crucial to ensuring a safe, effective, and legally compliant cannabis business. Cannabis company policy creation is much more complex than it might sound at first. Employee management firms with expertise in policy creation can help you create ironclad policies to keep your business and staff legally protected, with a clear road map to handle any situation that comes up.

Well-written company policies are necessary to clearly outline job descriptions, compensation structures, drug use policies, scheduling and time-off policies, corrective action and employee review policies, and many more. Having clearly-stated policies and procedures encourages an engaged and content staff, and makes it easy to implement proper corrective action when mistakes or misdeeds arise. Company policy specialists can also create print or online employee handbooks, containing all necessary policies in one convenient document.

Who Should Hire Cannabis HR Professionals?

Any business in the legal cannabis industry can greatly benefit from the services of dedicated HR and other cannabis employee management professionals. This includes dispensaries, commercial grow operations, cannabis testing labs, processors, manufacturers, cannabis delivery and logistics companies, and any ancillary businesses serving cannabis clients. Even if your business is small, with just a few employees, it’s crucial to lay down company policies and efficient infrastructure for potential future scaling up, while keeping your business running effectively in the now.

What Should You Look For in a Cannabis HR Firm?

As the legal cannabis industry continues growing at a remarkable rate, ancillary firms wanting to get in on the action have popped up all over the world. With so many options (of greatly varying quality) to choose from, how can you ensure your business is served by an HR firm that truly knows what it’s doing and will keep your cannabusiness in compliance? Here’s what to look for:

• Cannabis Expertise – Only entrust these essential business services to companies that understand the ins and outs of cannabis businesses. Seek out an HR firm with a dedicated cannabis department, or one dedicated entirely to serving the cannabis industry.
• Compliance-Minded – It’s not enough to simply hire, train, and pay employees. Proper record-keeping and reporting are critical – especially in such a tightly regulated industry as cannabis. Look for a firm whose practices and procedures are designed with compliance in mind every step of the way.
• Approved Training – Ensure cannabis employee training not only covers the specialized areas you need your staff to master, but also meets the requirements of the country, state, or province your business is located in.
• Software – Ensure your employee management firm either utilizes user-friendly software or can easily be integrated with your company’s software of choice.
• Support Team – Easy access to a support team that can answer your questions, give HR advice, and walk you through unusual issues is essential.
• Pricing – Of course, it’s important to ensure any outsourced employee management services fit in with your business’s budget.
• Excellent Reputation – Any excellent cannabis HR or payroll firm will be backed by an excellent reputation, with plenty of reviews from satisfied clients. Pass on hiring any firm without an established track record of quality service. Ask around for recommendations from your local cannabusiness network, but be sure to do your own research before signing on the dotted line. Our list of trusted, high-quality cannabis employee management firms is a great place to start your search.

Our Recommended Cannabis Employee Management Firms