AFTER two decades of corporate life, Worcester businesswoman Sara Marrett has decided to start her own small HR business.

The 42-year-old mum, who lives in the Diglis area of the city, has set up an independent branch of The HR Dept, covering areas including Worcester, Droitwich and The Malverns, and offering HR services to small businesses in the region.

She said: "I'm loving the new challenge and particularly enjoying the flexibility of running my own business. Corporate life prevented me from spending enough time with my nine-year-old daughter Georgia and since the turn of 2015 I've been able to start taking her to school for the very first time. Corporate life was a challenge and I haven’t been able to spend enough time with Georgia over the past few years, so setting up this new business has given me the chance to do that.

“I’m working from home, which is great, and I’ve been able to drop her at the school gates, which is something I’ve never been able to do before. It’s just one of the benefits of running my own SME. There are challenges, too, like not having a monthly salary, but the independence and responsibility are things I’m really enjoying.”

Mrs Marrett had more than 20 years in corporate HR, from sectors including aerospace, manufacturing, engineering, utilities and agriculture. She introduced flexible benefits programmes and new pensions set-ups, and brought firm’s HR functions in line with growth they had experienced.

“Now I can use my corporate experience to help SMEs," she added. "With employment law how it is now, with the changes that have come in recently, employees tend to be a lot more informed than employers, particularly within SMEs. There are so many traps out there for small businesses and I want to help them be as informed as possible, with commercial and pragmatic advice to find the commercial solution in a field where the situation is never black and white."

Her services will be supported by The HR Dept’s head offices in Bristol. The company is a national firm with more than 60 licensees operating in territories around the UK, providing a the full range of HR and HR-related services to SMEs.