Human resources is not popular with workers — many would go so far as to say they hate working with their HR department. Some 86 percent of U.S. workers are actually afraid of approaching these professionals and have no desire to talk to them about their grievances, according to a survey by MyPerfectResume. Of those that did bring concerns to HR’s attention, 90 percent said their grievance was not handled properly. Meanwhile, 65 percent of startups do not have an HR department at all, according to a BambooHR survey.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, especially when you’re building your own company. One of the perks of starting your own company is you can build your team exactly the way you want to—and that includes HR. In a breakout session at the Inc. 5000 conference in Phoenix, I spoke with Christie Horvath, CEO and founder of Wagmo, a pet wellness company and employee benefit, about how she built her dream HR team. It didn’t happen overnight and mistakes were made, she said, but she eventually found the solution that works best for her company.
“When you are cash constrained — which I think the vast majority of startups would consider themselves — figuring out where you’re going to put that incremental dollar matters a lot,” Horvath said. “And it’s a really hard decision when you’ve got the option to invest it in customer acquisition that’s going to directly drive revenue or go hire someone to run your HR division.”
For a while, Wagmo operated without HR for that very reason, but after the company raised Series A funding, investors told Horvath she should start thinking about adding HR. Investors, Horvath said, see HR as a tool to prevent internal lawsuits because “at some point you’re going to have an employee issue, it’s inevitable.”
To appease investors, Horvath hired a vice president of people with a long work history in HR — it was “a disaster,” she said. The person hired was “awesome,” Horvath said, but not the type of HR person the company needed. This person’s specialty was in “employee relations,” but Wagmo needed someone to build internal systems like “employee reviews” and “career ladders and compensation bands.”
Not only was this employee’s experience a poor fit for the company’s needs, their salary and job title were a drain on the company’s finances. The VP of people’s salary was upwards of $200,000 — which was “an insane amount of money to be paying when you are a Series A stage company with 15 people,” she said.
“If you don’t know what to look for as a startup founder, you can find yourself spending quite a lot of money on someone that’s objectively very skilled at their job, but that’s not actually the job that you need done,” Horvath said.
Ultimately, Wagmo’s VP of people departed the company “on amicable terms” because it “wasn’t the right fit,” Horvath said. After the VP’s departure, Wagmo contracted an independent consultant the company used for the past few years as a “factional HR” role. The consultant was able to implement the internal reviews and processes the company needed, but because she only works part-time, Wagmo was able to pay her $7,000 a month — considerably less than the former VP.
The company eventually grew to 30 employees, with plans to hire 10 more in the future, Horvath said. At this point, Horvath said it seemed like a more appropriate time to look for a full-time HR role because a staff of 30 plus workers is “when internal issues start happening.” This time around, Horvath knew she didn’t want someone with a traditional HR background. She was looking for “someone pretty entrepreneurial, pretty scrappy, and who’s willing to roll up their sleeves and get in there.”
For Horvath, that person ended up being her chief of staff, someone who’s been her “right hand woman for the past couple of years.” This employee approached Horvath about taking on some HR responsibilities within the company because she wanted to learn them. While Horvath noted that hiring someone without HR certifications and experience is “risky,” the role can be learned if the person in question is a go-getter.
“She’s got that entrepreneurial fire in her belly where she fully recognizes she’s not been in HR, but she went and she found a coach that comes from that category,” Horvath said. “She’s got all the right component parts, she’s simply missing experience.”
In addition to lessons from an executive coach, the new people officer is taking the necessary classes and training for HR certification on her own. But when it comes to building trust with the workforce, Horvath said this employee already has it because she’s an internal candidate — someone who understands the frustrations of her peers. In Wagmo’s case, building an HR team with an internal candidate has made all the difference.
“I personally think that hiring non-traditional people, it’s actually easier, because these people aren’t necessarily coming in with baggage or playbooks that may have mirrored what you’ve seen at other large companies,” Horvath said. “They do things a bit differently, which is always helpful.”
Kayla Webster
Source link