He sent an email to half a dozen people he knew, asking for business.
"It was [the] one and only time I did that. It did smack of desperation - I was desperate. I was used to being very, very busy and it knocked my confidence for a bit."
He grew the business through networking and Grow PR became a separate entity, striking out on its own, but before there was enough work for two Dave Robb became a partner, the man who replaced him at Wattie's.
Mr Robb was planning to leave Wattie's and also set up a Hawke's Bay HR company.
"He had consulted before - he was lead consultant with the Employers and Manufacturers Association - so understood what it was about.
"Dave and I have good mutual respect so I made contact with him and said, why don't we join forces rather than competing?
"Dave was an opportunity. He gave real impetus to employment relations - he's an employment relations specialist. So even though we didn't have the workload to justify taking him on we pretty rapidly built the business up."
Grow HR is not a recruitment agency because "it doesn't float the boat" despite being "hugely lucrative", Mr Cowan said.
"The way we make money is a hard graft compared to recruitment agencies because they charge a percentage, but it is not of interest and we believe it would dilute our offering in terms of human resource management, employment relations and health and safety, in my view. We are really passionate about those three areas."
Grow HR only works for employers, ensuring a people-management framework is in operation and line managers are effective leaders.
"That's the lead focus and that's the way I've been wired.
"When I first got into HR it was called personnel management - the personnel manager was more or less an intermediary between management and staff. With the advent of human resource management, which came about in the late 80s, the focus of HR was to support the business to achieve its business goals. You are supporting senior management to achieve the business plan, ultimately, and with that the profit targets and all that goes with it in a holistic way."
He said there were unpopular parts to the job - restructuring and personal grievances.
Grow HR's modus operandi was not the norm for grievances - most law firms routinely dealt with them through adversarial letters and could take days before talking to business owners "unduly prolonging stress".
"When you are small/medium business owner and you receive a personal grievance letter it knocks you around. You need to speak to somebody, to get a feel for what is involved and de-stress. If you can't get an appointment for a number of days then you are left stewing and you don't know how to treat the person if they are still in your employ.
"If you go meet a solicitor he will take a brief, identify employer culpability and then write a stronger response.
"That can inflame the situation - get the aggrieved party's hair up on the back of the neck. I have yet to come across a grievance that has been resolved through an exchange of letters.
"Grow has an in-house lawyer but takes a different approach.
"We go straight out and meet with the client, ascertain whether or not there is culpability and then outline options available to the employer to address the situation."
Grow's preferred option is a meeting without prejudice - an off-the-record conversation - which some legal firms were at first reluctant to recommend to their aggrieved client.
"When we first started doing that it wasn't playing the game because we weren't writing letters back - we got a very mixed response. Having said that, those that we deal with are far more philosophical, now they know how we operate.
"We aim to resolve the matter at the lowest possible level at the least cost. If we can't resolve it then what we do is make two pencil dates at the mediation service and go back to them and say which of these two dates suits - not will you come to mediation - it is just a very simple sales technique."
The without-prejudice basis allowed "tough conversations".
"We use the mediation service very proactively. It is a forum where more than 90 per cent of cases get resolved - an exceedingly successful forum - and we are very lucky to have two incredibly effective mediators in Hawke's Bay."
Grow was first located in a converted Hastings house, soon moving to a professional business premises in Warren Street North and two years ago moved into its current Karamu Rd North office.
Last month it opened a Napier office in Onekawa, to support its 40 clients in the area, and is keen to gain more. So keen its staff "have been beating the streets".
"We have gridded the area and we go from door to door, doing envelope drops and inviting people, along with existing clients, to come along and have a bacon butty on Wednesday mornings."
At 80 per cent of visits the business owner was available.
"I wondered if it would be a good approach but it has been very well received.
"Sometimes you get a bit of a defensive reaction because the receptionist/admin person also does the HR. You can download an employment agreement from the Labour Department website, play round with it and think you're a bit of an authority on it so they may not welcome you - you might be putting someone out of a job - but generally it has been a real receptiveness to it."
The company has a long-term eye on succession, an example he said more should follow with only about 25 per cent of all companies having a succession plan.
"They don't realise the potential for their business - they could sell it - and you have a loyalty to your clients.
"If we were going to maximise profit we wouldn't have taken on three people this year. We would just work really hard, do all the work and make a whole lot more profit because we worked so bloody hard and then in five years' time shake hands and say, 'Gosh that was jolly-good fun', and shut up shop. That's not fair and entirely selfish."
Grow has a team of nine, the latest of which is another former Wattie's HR general manager, Lynette Blackburn,
"Dave and I have worked with and know her very, very well. She was interested in leaving because she had been through three hideous restructurings. She is awesome."
He said Wattie's was an excellent HR training ground but its culture had changed under 3G Capital's ownership, a culture established by Sir James Wattie.
"Sir James prided himself on having great relationships with its people. He would wander around the site every day and knew everybody by name, their family situation, their kids and all the rest of it. When I was going through university he was described as being one of New Zealand's great natural leaders.
Sir James was a strong advocate of having one cafeteria with no fixed seating.
"It is amazing the latent talent within any organisation. You should never make an assumption about somebody sitting on a plastic chair in a cafeteria wearing overalls - that they are of a particular ilk. There are some incredible people with incredible skills in organisations and if you don't sit down and get to know them you will never know. That was the beauty of their cafeteria, you sat down and talked to people and it was just fascinating - the background and skills they had."
When visiting new clients Grow always asks for a tour of the site which helps ascertain their relationships with staff, he said. Small things like people looking to make eye contact and how clean the cafeteria was gave a good measure of how serious the company were about staff relations.
In a tough market environment Hawke's Bay businesses had lifted their game, working harder engaging with staff and building better workplaces and businesses.
"To survive and grow, we have seen a lot more businesses in our region diversifying into specialist areas to service niche markets, both nationally and internationally. This has meant more innovation and inventiveness to achieve higher productivity. For them this has meant finding and retaining quality staff, and maintaining a workplace where everyone is in the loop."
Continuing changes in employment and workplace law meant more businesses were recognising the risks and potential costs if they did not have good HR and health and safety practices.
"We are a team who have been managers in human resources, employment relations, and health and safety in the 'real world' of business, including some of the region's largest enterprises. We understand the issues facing employers and businesses because we have been there personally. Each of us has the knowledge, skills and experience to present tailor-made solutions.
"Delivering the basics of a quality professional services business is behind any success we enjoy as a company.
"It's also the reason for establishing our second office in Hawke's Bay."
He is enjoying the challenge. As an employee he soon got bored when the challenge disappeared. A decade on from cutting the corporate apron strings he said the move to provide a virtual HR arm for businesses, now from Auckland to Invercargill, was immensely rewarding.
"It sounds awfully twee but it is a real privilege to do what we are doing. It is really great for people to have a high level of confidence and open to what we can do.
"That's what floats the boat - sometimes you enjoy it so much you feel guilty."
