March's Featured Manager: Renee McNally

McNally says, "Network and keep learning."

Name and title: Renee McNally, President of HR Solutions, LLC, which provides human resources consulting and outsourcing services. Personal background: McNally grew up in King of Prussia, PA and earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s in counseling from the University of Pittsburgh. The single mother of three has lived in Harford County 13 years. Professional background: Starting as a corporate trainer for TGIFridays in 1990, McNally then went into HR as training manager at two health care companies. She later was in HR management for Comcast and Amazon.com, starting HR Solutions four years ago. “The initial objective was to be able to work around my kids’ schedules and keep my hand in HR, which I am passionate about. I quickly realized how much need there was for the small business owner to have HR services and the company really took off,” McNally said.

Keys to success: McNally said success comes from networking, getting out into the business community, building relationships and trust and educating business owners about what HR really is. “I also took a lot of time educating myself about the needs of the business owner and how I could make service cost effective,” she said, further stating, “I also credit the Small Business Development Center for all the resources I’ve gotten and still get from them.”

Goals: “To continue to grow my business and to support and be a resource for small business,” said McNally. “I more than doubled my revenue in 2008 and hope to continue that trend,” she added.

Advice: “Keep learning,” urged McNally. “Don’t be a know it all. I come across a lot of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ and you need to continually look for learning opportunities.” She said when she starts educating business owners about HR topics “their mouths usually drop open and their heads spin with ‘ I had no idea I couldn’t do that or I need to do that.’ ”

What could be done to make business more successful: “To get the word out to small business owners that HR is something they need to be educated about or they’re putting themselves at risk. If you have even one employee, you have employment regulations you need to comply with,” said McNally.