Why HRHive exists

When someone asks

In a small business, HR is usually looked after by an owner, a manager or an office administrator, next to everything else they do. Contracts are in one place, right to work checks in another and holiday dates in somebody's head.

That works until someone asks. An employee asks for a copy of their contract. A client asks who worked on their site. An adviser asks whether a check was done. The answer is usually somewhere, but finding it takes an afternoon, and nobody is sure it is complete.

Small businesses do not need another complicated enterprise HR suite. They do not need a long list of features or an implementation project. They need to know what they should have, what is missing and what needs doing next, so that they are ready when someone asks. That is why HRHive exists.

Who it is for

HRHive is for the person who looks after HR without an HR department: the owner, the manager or the office administrator. It is also for the HR consultants, accountants and payroll bureaux who work with many businesses and need each client's people, documents and dates in order. They can be invited into each client's organisation and switch between them. There is more on the advisers page.

Whoever you are, you start the same way. You can create an organisation and add your first person without a demo, a setup call or an implementation project.

How HRHive thinks about HR

HRHive is built around six questions, asked about every person you work with.

1. What should exist? The records and checks that person's situation calls for.
2. What does exist? What is on record today.
3. What is missing? The gap between the two.
4. What is due? What is about to expire or needs reviewing.
5. Who needs to act? The person who can put it right.
6. What is the evidence that it was done? A dated record you can show.

What should exist depends on how someone works with you. HRHive records each person as an employee, a worker, an individual subcontractor, an agency worker or another kind of contractor, with their details, documents and history in one place.

What happens next depends on the person and the situation. A right to work follow-up is tracked, with reminders before it falls due. A supplier is asked for a signed right to work written statement before work begins. A leaving date creates an offboarding checklist.

HRHive helps you see what is complete, what is missing and what needs doing next. The compliance overview ranks what needs attention and shows what is up to date. Reminders go out before documents and checks expire. Signed and completed records are locked, and printable evidence is ready when you need it, so "can you show me?" is answered with a printout rather than a search.

What HRHive is not

HRHive is deliberately not payroll. It does not run timesheets, clock people in or schedule shifts. It does not monitor what people do or measure how productive they are. It is not an applicant tracking system.

Those are different jobs, and they belong in software built for them. HRHive stays with the workforce record: who works with you, what you hold about them, what is missing and what is due. If you run payroll or recruit people, you will still use other tools for that.

How the knowledge side works

Alongside the product, this site has guides, a law and compliance library, free tools and templates. They share one rule: show your working.

• Sources are shown. Every page that explains a rule cites the official source and links to it.
• Reviewers are named. Each page says who wrote it and who reviewed it.
• Dates are visible. Each page shows when it was last checked and when it last changed, and keeps a change history. Law pages also show when the rule took effect.
• A person signs it off. Nothing regulatory is published until a named, qualified person has reviewed it.

All of it is general information, not legal advice. Start with the guides, the law and compliance library, the free tools or the templates.

How HRHive treats people's data

HR records are among the most personal records a business holds, so we say what we do and keep to what we can show. Each organisation's data is kept apart from every other organisation's, using row-level security on every table that holds organisation data. Date of birth, National Insurance number and bank details are encrypted individually, with a separate key for each organisation. There are no passwords to steal. People sign in with a one-time link, an emailed code or a passkey, and owners and administrators must use a second step too. Important activity goes into an audit log that shows who acted, from which device and address, and what changed. The Trust Centre has the detail, and our privacy notice explains how personal data is handled.

How we write

We write the way a calm, organised colleague would talk you through it.

• Plain words. Record, due, missing, complete, attention, evidence. We use "compliance" sparingly.
• The thing itself. "James's right to work follow-up is due in 12 days" tells you something. "Take control of your compliance journey" does not.
• No scare tactics. We do not use fines to sell software. We say what the rule asks, show the official source and leave the decision to you.
• No blame. Records often start in a folder, an inbox or a spreadsheet. That is normal, and nobody should feel foolish about it.
• What is true today. What HRHive does now is described as available. What we are still building is labelled planned. What we cannot show, we leave out.
• British English. Dates look like 5 October 2026. Our examples use a made-up business, Oakridge Building Services Ltd, and made-up people, so nobody's real details appear on this site.

The company

HRHive is a trading name of Hartsmith Ltd. Small businesses should be able to reach a person, and the contact page says who to write to.