The newest member of Sustainable Startup is Pierre. Pierre describes himself as a "true believer" in spiritual ethic. Awesome, Pierre I am glad to have you as part of this community, Welcome.
This post is all about the second part of the Sustainable Startup People Formula, "Simple".
If your startup is doing less than $25mm per year and/or not doubling in size annually I would be very skeptical of its success potential if it has an “HR department”. That’s correct, “if it has an HR department”. I am not against HR departments or their function; in fact I think their intended function is the most important aspect of the business. So much do I think of the function of HR that in a startup I believe the function must be handled by the senior or founding executive of the startup. I am not talking about processing payroll or the administrative tasks of HR, I am talking about areas like employee strength analysis, job descriptions, compensation, performance reviews. Also, in a startup I am not for over analysis and/or overuse of “profiling” systems. These systems have their place in a statup and are very important as an organization matures but initially I think they are relatively ineffective.
I have not seen strict personality profiling systems be overly effect in startups. These systems tend to be very accurate and insightful but not overly practical in mapping to what is getting done in the startup and what needs to get done with the resources you have. As we all know the art of the startup is in succeeding with limited resources. Rarely do we have “unlimited” resources to call upon to hire the “perfect profile” for each job task, description or title we need in order to get to market. Using the process that I will describe and demonstrate next week we can map goals to the tasks currently being done by the people currently doing them. In doing this you will see your holes and more importantly who needs to attend to your corporate strengths. You can determine who best can currently fill in what is lagging and who needs to absolutely stay focused on what is most important, (What is most important to focus on is your strengths. Your strengths are your key differentiators, Clarity Question #4)
What have we covered in the SIMPLE part of the formula? 1.) You don't need an HR department for a start up, but that HR is the most important aspect of a startup to be handled by the senior executive. 2.) Profiling systems are good but generally assume you have the money to resource the perfect person for the specific positions you have to fill. Next weeks post will describe the practical process to map your existing resources to what most importantly needs to get done in your start up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sometimes founders are ill-equipmented to craft and align compensabile factors to business outcomes. So I agree that HR type activities are on the heavy side for some startups, but if the "leaders" fail to address address fair and transparent compensible factors the organization may not be around long enough to maintain market relevance.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of scale I not talking about a 10 person company as this may be subject to "nepatistic" like operations. I am taling about a start-up that has grown beyond the "let's get it done" to something that needs to get a sustainable rhythm going.
peter
The challenge we have found with HR department as a resource, is that the department becomes a place where people (arguably our most important asset) can bitch, and complain about their lives, co-workers, and often why they can't do their jobs. We found this approach to be a waste of time for both the HR manager, and the employees and often senior management that would have to get involved as well. (We called this the "Barney" Syndrome - HR gets so focused on the symptom (the employee) that often what the employee was hired to do (output) was lost or overshadowed.) I don’t mean to come across as overly unsympathetic here, and although it is imperative that an employee knows what resources they have available to them, and also whom to turn to in the event of a complaint, we found it is more important that person understand their purpose, and their own development.
ReplyDeleteHence the "Director of Human Talent Development" - This works in conjunction with understanding each person's strengths, and allowing others to help compensate for their weaknesses by utilizing their strengths. It does not "pigeon hole" an employee into a job description, but instead becomes a map of their future with the organization, and helps to guide them towards their goals. This ensures that the employees goals are in alignment with the organization as well. Creating a much happier workplace, then one where a person is often focused on what they can’t do, but instead are empowered for success!