Nora Jenkins Townson
There is a special chaos that happens when a startup reaches 30 employees. People have a harder time tracking what’s going on, and it’s easy for some to feel left out or ignored.
Right when you want employees focusing on taking the company to the next level, they’re suddenly focused on their own futures. Insecurities and politics can abound, and the work can suffer.
How to stop the madness? In my experience, it all comes down to structure. It might seem early, or scary to a company used to succeeding on grit, but 30 is a key time to begin putting processes into place.
You’re no longer 10 people sitting around a table together, and communication can start to break down. Looking to large companies is no help either. It’s easy to get lost in a sea of frameworks, and you don’t want to overwhelm your team.
What steps can you take to keep things on track and scale effectively? How much is too much?
My company, Bright + Early, works with companies at exactly this stage, helping them grow up without losing the culture that makes them special. For a company just on the verge of scaling, here’s what I recommend.
Values
To scale your culture effectively, you need to define it. Values are a set of behaviors and norms that you want people to use to make decisions for the company. They are essential for hiring, and for evaluating fit and performance.
Many founders are embarrassed to not yet have company values. The pressure to make this perfect, definitive document can lead them to put it off for years. Here’s the hint: you can’t create values; you already have them. You just haven’t written them down yet.
What to do: Think about how you want your team members to make decisions. What behaviors make you want to hire someone? What behaviors make you want to fire them? What unique way does your company do things that set you apart from others? Write down what already exists.
Extra tip: If you’re really stuck, include a question in an employee survey asking what they feel the company values and how they’d define the culture. If you hear the same words over and over, those are your values.
A handbook
We’ve all seen envy-worthy examples of company handbooks. From the beautifully designed (my alma mater Wealthsimple) to the powerfully direct (Netflix), a great handbook can both scale your culture and attract the right hires.
Your handbook should include:
- The history of the company
- A guide to your office, if you have one
- Your values, and what they look like in action
- A guide to team norms and the software and tools you use
- As much information as possible on how the organization is run. How often do you do performance reviews? When is payday?
- Company policies like health and safety, respect and harassment, vacation, parental leave, etc.
A way to measure employee engagement
We always start our work with startups by doing an employee survey. Not only does it inform us how the team is feeling and shine light on any blind spots, but it gives us a benchmark to measure highs and lows against in the future.
Be sure to share the high-level results with your team and to respond to major themes to show that you’re listening. The quickest way to lose trust is to conduct a survey and do nothing with the data.
The tools: Software like CultureAmp and Lattice will help you conduct anonymous surveys that will give you deeper demographic data than a simple google form. The results can be broken out by team, by manager, by tenure, or anything else important to you.
They come with plenty of questions, and if you use their templates, they’ll often offer benchmarking against other companies of your type and stage. I like to run these at least twice a year, and transparently share with the company the highs and lows of it, and the things we are specifically committing to as a result.
A performance review system
Many founders are convinced that their team doesn’t want a formal performance review structure. However, when we speak to the employees, more feedback is often the first thing they ask for.
For the best results, I’m still a believer in the 360 review, which asks folks to review themselves, their peers, their manager, and anyone they manage. Just be sure to focus on constructive growth goals instead of discipline.
The tools: Reflektive, Lattice, and CultureAmp can help you conduct reviews, with built-in templates included. Many HR systems, like Bamboo, also have their own performance review systems built-in.
Extra tip: A review is only as good as the manager delivering it. Make sure managers are comfortable delivering feedback in a way that is honest, empathetic, motivating and growth-oriented.
Compensation
Are you still paying people whatever they ask for, as long as it sounds reasonable? You’ll have to fix this soon. Especially if you’re working with VCs or reporting to a board, you’ll need a compensation strategy.
The tools: The easiest way to do this is to gather market data from tools like Payscale, LinkedIn Salary and Glassdoor. Then, decide where you want to be.
Can you afford to pay top of market? If not, what else is your company offering? The market for roles like software engineers can change quickly, so if your salaries are no longer aligning with what they’re asking for, it may be time to revisit.
HR software
The easiest way to step up your HR game? Stop using excel charts and get some proper software. An HRIS (that’s HR Information System) will keep your employee records organized and allow you to easily pull reports on pay and demographics, maintain an org chart, and track vacations.
Many either provide or connect to benefits, payroll and recruiting as well. This is an easy investment that will save you hours of time.
The tools: Bamboo, Rise, Gusto (US only), Humi and Collage (both Canada only) are all great options to check out.
With so many great tools available, bootstrapping your startup’s HR has never been easier. If you have the time and the will, you can begin to build scalable systems that will set the stage for the next phase of growth, and, more importantly, keep your team happy and engaged while you do it.
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