Straight-talking HR for Shalford small businesses.

HR support for Shalford SMEs.

Beagle HR works with small businesses in Shalford and the surrounding area, just south of Guildford along the Tillingbourne and down towards Godalming. Shalford is a busy village with a good spread of small employers, from local retail and services to professional and creative firms, many of them benefiting from being a short hop from Guildford’s larger business community.

Being close to Guildford means Shalford firms compete for the same talent but rarely have the same in-house resource. We give local employers the HR support a bigger company would have in-house, compliant contracts, a proper handbook, and practical advice when something tricky lands, scoped to the size you actually are and charged on a fixed fee.

With Guildford a few minutes away, many Shalford firms run hybrid arrangements and draw staff from across the area. We make sure your contracts, working-time and home-working policies reflect how your team actually operates, so flexibility is a strength rather than a source of disputes.

Retained HR support

Day-to-day HR for your team. Disciplinaries, sickness, contracts, the lot. Email and phone access to me. Priced on your team size.

HR compliance audit

One-off review of your contracts, handbook, policies and processes. Written report. Priority fix list. Priced on a call.

HR Compliance Programme

Six-month fixed-fee programme to put your HR foundations in place from scratch. Priced on your team size.

Common HR challenges for Shalford employers.

Shalford firms compete for staff with nearby Guildford but run leaner, so getting recruitment, retention and the people basics right matters.

Recruiting and keeping good people. Competition for staff in this part of Surrey is real, and the cost of living does not help. We help with clear offers, sensible probation, and the contract and benefit basics that make people stay.

The first difficult conversation. The first disciplinary, grievance, capability or sickness case is where small employers are most exposed. Handle it badly and it can become a tribunal claim. We guide you through it step by step, or run it for you.

Getting compliant and staying there. Contracts that pre-date the Employment Rights Act 2025, a handbook nobody has touched in years, missing right-to-work checks. We put the foundations right, then keep them current as the law changes.

Why a local Surrey HR consultant.

Most of the day-to-day work happens by phone, email and video, which keeps things quick and keeps your costs down. But being local to Surrey means we turn up in person when it actually matters: an on-site audit, a sensitive meeting, a disciplinary or grievance hearing where a real person in the room makes the difference. You deal with Dan and the Beagle HR team directly, not a call centre and not a different adviser every time. Because we only take on a limited number of businesses at once, you get an HR partner who genuinely knows your business.

Working with us is straightforward. It starts with a free 15-minute review, where we listen, tell you honestly what your business needs and what it does not, and agree a fixed fee before you commit to anything. There is no hourly clock running, no lock-in on the ongoing retainer, and nobody passing you around. You get plain English, a clear plan, and someone who picks up the phone.