HR in a Growth Company - what, why and how?
There is no successful growth company without competent people management. Whether you are a product, service or consulting house, the prerequisite for success is a motivated, committed and well-being team.
Nothing is as mentally trying for a growth company CEO as challenges related to the employees and the team. People, conflicts between people, and challenges related to management and commitment are the issues that bother you during your sleep and are rarely solved with money. Managing and leading people requires time, know-how and, above all, the desire to understand and develop the organization.
Unfortunately, however, HR is often seen as a support function, and I feel that this is where we go wrong. If there is an HR professional in the company, his or her desk is often filled with less important things that someone from the business function outlines and wants to outsource from his or her own desk. The HR Manager’s working hours are spent updating the intranet, creating contracts, materials and plans, organizing events, coordinating partners and improving the atmosphere at the office. Of course, these are also important tasks, but in my opinion, not at all at the core of HR work.
If HR and people management remain in a secondary role in a growth company, one can completely by accident create a company culture with very harmful practices and operating models. And of course, it is really difficult to get rid of accustomed practices and the consequences can be truly catastrophic. Challenges and shortcomings related to personnel and people management are almost always the ones in the company that simmer under the surface and explode in your hands just when it's the worst possible moment.
The right place for the HR function is on the management's agenda, alongside business, sales, product development and finance. The functionality of all these functions is critical for the success of the company, if one stipples, everyone suffers. For this reason, it is very sad how rarely HR is represented in the management team.
Strategic HR and operational HR
The overall HR of a growth company can be roughly divided into two: strategic and operational. A strategy is a plan and a vision of how the company intends to succeed. Operational measures are the things that help implement the plan.
Strategic HR answers higher level questions: What? Why? How? So, for example, how do we manage? Why and what values guide our actions? How do we communicate, what, on which channels and how often? How do we take care of the personnel and their well-being? Which personnel-related indicators guide what we do?
Operational HR, on the other hand, answers practical questions: What kind of employment contract templates do we have? What are the employee benefits in addition to the salary? How is the recruitment process handled and what system is used? What does the occupational health agreement cover or not cover? How is working time monitoring organized?
HR as a whole in a growth company covers both strategic and operational activities, and work time should be allocated between the two according to what is critical at any given time and at which stage of the company's life cycle we are at the moment. Since time is always limited, in addition to substance knowledge, the ability to prioritize is the HR professional's most important skill. HR can't be about doing something separate from the business and ticking off a to-do list. HR must bring added value to the management table, and this means numbers, data and, above all, a proactive view of what needs to be done, why and what will follow from it.
In many growing companies, HR also plays an important role as a neutral party. As an employee, you don't want to tell everything to your superior, often the founder of a growth company, i.e. the CEO. No matter how empathetic and approachable the CEO can be, this unfortunately does not matter. From the employee's point of view, it is a risk to openly tell and give feedback to the person who directly decides on the employee's responsibilities, advancement and salary development. I wish it wasn't so. But this truth keeps coming up. Unfortunately, it's easier to give feedback or highlight development targets anonymously or to a neutral entity, who can formulate these in a constructive way and forward them to the CEO and the management's agenda. Of course, a competent HR professional knows how to act as a filter and identify the root causes behind the feedback, and not just act as a bucket that receives feedback and pours it is on the CEO.
"I feel a constant bad conscience that I don't have time to talk to my team one-to-one often enough. I feel like I know what everyone is up to, but do I really? Will key player X tell if he is considering leaving?” - CEO of a growth company
Growth company vs Corporation
Growth companies differ from larger and established companies in many ways. The CEO's area of responsibility is huge, pressurized and often lonely. As the CEO, you are ultimately responsible for everything and everyone, up and down. There are no processes ready. You don’t have a big budget to spend on different systems and hire an expert for each task. There are no established procedures. There are no ready-made contract templates. There is no glittering employer brand to lure in talents. There is no marketing machine or in-house lawyer. And there doesn't have to be. But you need to be adaptable yourself and build a team and experts who enjoy the pulse and are not only able adapt to, but excel in a fast-paced environment where job descriptions are huge and change is the only constant.
If you haven't worked in a growth company, a startup or as an entrepreneur, I claim that you can't possibly understand the realities or everyday challenges. For this reason, the HR of a growth company must have experience in growth companies. Experience in the HR function of a corporation is valuable but irrelevant if it is a question of building HR elements quickly from scratch.
Due to experience, Skilla specializes specifically in growth companies. Growth companies are familiar. The challenges and everyday realities are familiar. "Lack of everything" is familiar. Navigating with little information and resources in pursuit of a big vision and mission is familiar. In this environment, I can really help and play an important role.
Author
Outi Mäkinen is an HR and Recruitment professional and the Founder of Skilla.
Skilla is an agency specialized in helping small & medium-sized companies tackle people & growth related challenges.
With 10+ years of experience in HR, People Operations, Building Growth Companies and Guiding hundreds of Job Seekers I truly know what works and what doesn't.
This website is all about sharing knowledge and giving insight to the fields of People Ops and Making Alternative Career Moves. Happy that you are here!
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
