July 29, 2025 • 25 mins
In this episode of the HR Mixtape podcast, host Shari Simpson sits down with Nahed Khairallah, a global HR strategist and founder of Organized Chaos. They delve into the complexities of building effective HR departments in fast-growing startups, emphasizing the importance of a proactive, people-first approach. This conversation is timely as organizations increasingly recognize the need for inclusive leadership and strategic HR practices to enhance employee experience and drive business success.
Listener Takeaways:
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Learn how to balance structure and flexibility in HR to support rapid growth.
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Discover why psychological safety is crucial in fast-paced environments.
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Explore strategies for integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion into the core of your organization from day one.
Hit “Play” to gain valuable insights that can transform your HR approach and empower your organization!
Guest(s): Nahed Khairallah, Global HR Strategist, Organized Chaos
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
If you're listening to the H.R. Mixtape, your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel,
well, like work. Now, your host,
Joining me today is Nahed Khairallah, global HR strategist and
founder of Organized Chaos. With a deep expertise in
(00:25):
scaling HR for startups, Nahed is known for disrupting conventional
practices and bringing structure to chaos with a people-first mindset.
You know, I love this concept of building
(00:47):
HR departments and, you know, having
been in the roles of an HR department one and
then, you know, working for a bigger organization now, There's
a lot of complexity and a lot of transition that HR
goes through. So, you know, in your experience, as you've gone
through and helped people build those HR departments from
(01:08):
the ground up, what's one of the first thing leaders actually often
Now, I love that question and I agree there's a,
there's a big distinction between starting a function from scratch ground
zero versus going into an established thing. But what I've seen with
a lot of leaders in companies, especially growing companies, and
(01:29):
for the most part, the leaders and executives that don't have much experience
in HR or have only experienced HR as either an employee or through the
lens of other people who have. The biggest mistake
I see is that they first think of HR or people function
when problems surface. And more
times than not, those problems not only are people related,
(01:52):
but sometimes even like, you know, compliance related. So
that's kind of one of the first mistakes I see is they only address
the HR function when it's gotten to a point
where it is actually going to start hurting the business in a
severe way, as opposed to doing it proactively. So I'm of
the mindset that typically when you're a company, You started to
(02:13):
grow beyond, you know, 20, 30 employees. It's, it's, it's time to start thinking
of it, not necessarily on a full-time basis, at least on a factual and
so forth and start building the foundation. But that's, that I would say is
the biggest, I would say mistake I see with, with
You know, I love that you started there because I can't
tell you how many people I've talked to in my life when, yeah, I
(02:37):
You know, policy police, which, you know, I hate that view
Yeah. And there's so much more that we can provide. You know, as
you've worked with those fast growing companies, how do
they balance that idea around structure and flexibility? And
you alluded to it a little bit, you know, don't necessarily hire an HR person
Yeah, so I think that's an important question. Structure
(03:01):
and flexibility, there's a very fine balance you need to
hit in a growing company because too much structure leads to rigidity and
you actually hold the business back. But if it's the wild west,
then there's a lot of room for mistakes and really
unnecessary things that you can fall into and traps
you can fall into that could have easily been avoided. The most
(03:22):
important thing I think for any HR leader, anyone who's handling
HR, start with understanding the business and not
only what the business does, but where is it trying to get to, when is
it trying to get there, and what is the right context and
what is the full context of the organization, meaning whether the research is
available. Is the level of talents you have going to
(03:42):
enable you to do all these things and so forth? Because I think those inputs
are a core requirement for you to actually build the right amount of
flexibility versus structure and be able to assess that,
Hey, if I put an X, if I put a certain policy in place, is this actually
helping us move forward and achieve what we're doing or is it going to hold us back? That
is really my, from a helicopter view, how I like to approach things and how
(04:03):
I advise people to approach things. Because at the end of the day, the HR function
is there to support the business, achieve its objectives. It's not
there to hold it back and be this ultra risk-averse function,
which unfortunately it is sometimes. And in some
cases it's the fault of the HR people like ourselves who get
You know, as you've worked with that idea around talent
(04:26):
strategy, you know, I think about the different
approaches that I've seen in different jobs, in different places I
worked in. And I have definitely walked into places that
had full job architecture, full succession
planning, full performance management. They knew their
pipelining process. We typically don't
(04:47):
do a startup and create all that stuff to begin with. But maybe
there is some kind of future proof talent approaches
we should be thinking about. So we don't have to work backwards when
Yeah. So I think that's an amazing question. That has also something to do with
how much structure do I introduce. The thing with job architecture,
(05:09):
career pathing, succession and so forth. Realistically
speaking, it is very volatile when you're a fast growing company, because
there's so much change that can happen. You can build an architecture today
and look at it six months from now and think, Oh my God, this is outdated. We
need to do something different because our business all of a sudden decided to pivot
into this new way of things. There's a new set of capabilities we need, so
(05:32):
on and so forth. Our trajectory has gone from, Hey, we want to grow. into
a $10 million company in the next three years, but investment capital came in
and we need to 10x that. So there's a lot of factors that can play into that. One
thing that I always try to work with companies on
is finding the right balance between what do we know today versus
what is the unknown? Because I think you need to sort of build for
(05:54):
what you know today, plus a little bit into the future, but not too
far out to the point where it's a meaningless exercise and
you know for a fact it's going to change. So let's
give a practical example here. Let's say I have a software development team,
right? I'm a software company. I'm, you know, I have an engineering team. Do
I really need five layers of engineers when I only
(06:15):
have an engineering team of 30 people and my trajectory is
maybe 10, 15% of headcount growth in
the next three to five years? Probably not. So I would
probably define, let's say the company right now has maybe two layers of engineering. I
would like to introduce and clearly define what those two layers
are, but also what does the next layer after that look like? And
(06:36):
what are the conditions that need to exist for us to even tap into that
new rail? And what are the triggers to get us there? So that's
how I personally like to approach this because You can't only build
for today if you're a growing company because you're always in build mode. But
at the same time, you cannot build too far into the future where that
output becomes meaningless. You have to redo it again. And it just
(06:59):
That last point about confusing to the organization, I think
is so true, especially in startups
and fast growing, because you could not have articulated it
better that In six months, your
whole team could need to be something totally different. And,
you know, you might be going through a reorg every 18 months,
(07:21):
which is very taxing on your employee population. So
I think it's good to think about that framework from
that now and next perspective, like you shared and like that you
made the effort to mention and what are the triggers we're going to have to
watch for to get there so that you as the HR practitioner
can go, Hey, I know this trigger's coming, I need to
(07:41):
proactively go have this conversation with our leadership team on, you know, what
the plan is. I love that. You know, as you've worked with
these teams, you know, one of the things that I think that could be
sticky is creating that psychological safety in
that fast churning environment. How does
that development or that concept look differently in
(08:01):
a fast-paced environment compared to, you know, you've got people who are working, you
Yeah, I think for the most part, transparency and
clarity are super important. Not transparency in
isolation of clarity, because you need both for this to work properly. Just
bloating out everything we're thinking of is great, but if it's
(08:22):
not presented in a clear fashion and shows that
there's been enough thought put into this where we're actually thinking
through what we need and so forth, then it creates a lot of confusion. With
clarity it's important first of all for any leadership team, people manager,
how to function and so forth, to spend and take the
time to think through what is the current situation today,
(08:43):
where do they think their function needs to go, but also work
with their team to have that understanding because involving
them in this conversation is going to add a lot of value. It shouldn't always be
top to bottom. It should be bottom up as well to have that line of communication, but
at the same time being transparent as to what the expectations are,
when could potential changes happen and how, and
(09:05):
what could they look like? I think there's nothing wrong with that because sometimes
I think not only HR people, but leaders in general fall into
the trap of trying to please everyone all the time. And
when you're an organization, you're clear with your intent and you're transparent about
it and you are staying
true to your word and actually actioning everything you're saying, then
(09:27):
if someone doesn't think that's the right environment for them, it's actually better for
them and for you for that to be recognized at
some point before things, you know, go down the drain pretty
much. So that's kind of how I like to articulate and think of those things,
Well, and I think that wraps right into my next question around inclusion,
(09:48):
diversity, equity, equitability, you
know, those concepts in general. And I know
that, you know, as a country right now, we're going through some complexities
on how we're talking about this. And so I want to be sensitive to
that. And the idea around inclusion
and authenticity is not going away, right? Employees do
(10:10):
want to feel included, they do want to feel like they can show
up. How do we bake that in from the beginning as we
are supporting startups compared to having to, you know,
Yeah, I agree. And I love that question. My
personal take on the whole DEI situation,
(10:30):
what's been going on and how we got here is that, at least again,
my personal opinion is I think companies took
this in the wrong direction for so long because DEI became
honestly a publicity stunt for many companies. It became
an issue of, Hey, how can we advertise and how can
you put it out there that we're actually diverse and so forth without
(10:54):
it actually meaning anything within the context of the organization. My
take on this is if you want to infuse DI naturally into an
organization where it is actually a core part of who you are, as
opposed to it just being, you know, words on flashy slides
and websites is from day one, it should
be something which is a value, which is ingrained in leadership to
(11:14):
the point where And HR plays a big role here to
where you design your processes and things like hiring, right?
Interviewing, onboarding, training and development, so
forth. You build frameworks and you build guardrails
around detecting when those things aren't happening. But what I mean by
that is that diversity, we've actually fallen into the trap of thinking
(11:37):
of diversity only from what we can see, right? Based on
skin color, sexual orientation, and so forth. Diversity
is, in my mind, when you're truly someone
who values DI and so forth, it should be something
which is ingrained in everything you do. You should never think of
anything against any person or
(11:59):
actually treat them differently for any reason at all based
on certain biases, color of skin, their ideas, where
they come from and so forth. The way you do that is every
step within your organization throughout the employee experience, from
top to bottom, from entry to exit, even before that, has
to have processes that are designed in a way to make
(12:22):
sure that that is not happening. And HR plays a big role here in
terms of making sure that managers not only are aware of this, but
also there are structures in place and frameworks to help protect this.
But at the same time, also, you need to support managers
and people and everyone in there to make sure that You are
presenting yourself as an employer in a way where everyone feels safe, they
(12:44):
feel seen, and they feel comfortable to bring their true selves to
the organization. And that typically translates to the actions of
the organization, not only the words that they try to put out there. So
if I am opening up the platform for anyone
to apply to a job and I will not even consider anything
related to their skin color, their name,
(13:06):
where they come from, and so on and so forth. And that means nothing to
me to get someone into an interview because I feel that they fit the
bill in terms of qualifications they're in. Same thing for interviewing, same thing for everything
throughout the organization. So it's a very active thing
to do. But I think that it's not
its own compartment that you need to tack onto the HR function
(13:27):
or into the organization. It has to be built in and
ingrained. And that's one of the reasons why I personally think that,
you know, DEI as a concept and as a function
is something that has to be so intertwined with the people function. Because
I think splitting, I mean, a lot of companies have split them up together. You
have a DEI person, HR person, so forth. I'm one
(13:49):
of those people who thinks that They have to be one and the same because
with the people function, you are tasked with ensuring, one
of your roles, of course, is ensuring that the people experience is
enabling people to succeed in the organization. And this is a very core element
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think in
(14:10):
even visually as we represent our HR departments, you
know, that layer of inclusion initiative should be
one of those, you know, table stakes that we talk about, that
it's built into everything we do. Because you're right. If it feels
like this separate thing, then it is a separate thing. It's not
part of what you're doing. You know, that leads into
(14:32):
thinking about how you are creating the culture that
you want in your organization as you are a
startup and you're growing. How do we make sure that that
stays tight to what our intent is because
Yeah, I love that question. My personal experience
(14:54):
in having worked with and consulted with more than a hundred companies, I
see this without a fault that culture gets,
you know, gets off its rails completely when leadership
decide that HR is no longer our responsibility. It
is the responsibility of HR and so forth. Culture
is the responsibility of every single individual in the organization. It
(15:17):
is designed and it is articulated and
it is read out throughout the entire organization, of
course, by leadership, but also with the collaboration with staff.
But at the same time, every single person is accountable with
their actions and behaviors and how they work with
others in the organization to contribute to the culture. I,
(15:40):
I'm going to be impacted as an employee by a culture. If
I have a colleague on my team who behaves in a way which doesn't fit
our culture, yet it goes unchecked because it is
let go when it is accepted. That has nothing to do with the founder that
has something to do with that individual employee as well as the manager and so forth. So
the way you keep it intact is. It
(16:02):
starts with, it's always starts with the leadership team, in my opinion. And
specifically when you're a growing company, I like to point out the
founder or founding team specifically, because culture
is something you have to define deliberately
from day one. Because if you don't, it's going to take a shape of its
own based on who you're bringing to the organization. Whereas you
(16:24):
want to define, Hey, what, how do we need to operate as an organization? What
do we stand for and how do we work? together and
how to do things around here. And then you need to bring in people who align
with that and who can actually bring back to life. So that's where
I think it starts, but you also need to make sure that as
a founding team, a leadership team, as you grow, culture has
(16:44):
to be one of the core things you keep your eyes on. Because as
you grow as a team and you delegate more things, this is one of those things
you just do not delegate, because it is a shared responsibility
between everyone. But I hear so many times that, oh,
our engagement scores went down, or we have high turnover. Hey,
HR, what's going on here? Why aren't you improving this? HR
(17:07):
is one function who can contribute and enable and help you
do that, but it's ultimately everyone's responsibility. And the moment it
a good explanation of that because we know that
HR often gets that tag, right? Like, oh, it's not
what it's supposed to be. You're doing it wrong. And it's like, well, I'm
(17:29):
not sitting with your employee all day long. I can't
influence at that level. You know, I think about the
work that you've done with organizations who have been cognizant enough
to realize that they need HR in
their, in their organization. What's your advice
or coaching specifically for founders or executives
(17:52):
who have never worked with HR before? How do we
change their narrative when they are looking to build their company that
HR is one of the top things on their mind for all the reasons
we already talked about instead of that, oh, we reached a
Yeah, no, I love that question. So the way I like to describe HR
(18:14):
is I think it's, it's, it can be the rocket shield for growth
for any business. And the reason I say that is the following. Think
of building a skyscraper, right? You can't build a skyscraper with
the foundations of a small house or a small shed, right? You
need to build solid structural foundations. HR
is that people foundation. Companies today, and
(18:35):
if you're looking at the knowledge-based economy, which is where most startups today,
you know, are popping up and so forth, it's at least 50% of
their spend is on headcounts. And
a lot of kids, if you're talking like SAS companies and so forth, you're anywhere
between 70 to 80%. So my
pitch to founders is that. You
(18:57):
are not optimizing the usage and
enabling your team properly without HR
because every function is busy doing its own thing. Especially
in the early days, you're trying to bring in revenue and you're focused on revenue and
product. But guess what? HR is that rocket fuel that
can actually help you accelerate and optimize your usage of your talent
(19:19):
and people. That is where the main value comes from. So. Generally,
like I closed it was, don't you want to optimize 80% of
your spend to make sure you're getting the best bang for your buck? I
mean, if not, then you're in the wrong business, my friend, because
it's not a good business decision if you don't want to. And
(19:40):
generally speaking, you need to back that up as an HR person when
you say something like this. And the only way you don't do that with policies and
procedures only. You do that with understanding what, again,
going back to where we came, where we started is understand exactly what
the business does, the nuts and bolts, how they're put together. But also
when you understand that and apply the HR lens to it, there's
(20:01):
a lot of value you can add that founders do not see themselves. So,
and we can dive into some examples if you want to, but there's a lot of, there's a
lot of situations where HR can add so much value, which is invisible to
others because also HR has a lot of data at their fingertips. that
a lot of people just do not think of, like you have financial data, you have
people specific data. With that understanding of the business, you
(20:23):
are one of the most information heavy functions that
you can leverage to give insights that other functions and even founders can't,
I have talked about that so many times in person and
on the podcast that if you can come to your leadership team
as an HR practitioner and say, you know, I know we
are planning to start development on this product and
(20:46):
we need this skill set. You know, I've identified we
have a gap and we're going to need to hire three people with this
specific skill set. And I know that based on
past data, when we do this, that our
revenue will increase by X percentage because we'll be able to reduce our
production time. Whatever the thing is. You have that.
You're absolutely right. You have that rich data to tell that story
(21:10):
to that leadership in such a way that it's like almost
like a no brainer, right? Like, oh, of course we got to go do this because you've
made the case for it. You know, as we wrap up
our conversation, I think there's probably a couple more nuggets. What are some things
that you can give to somebody stepping
into that head of people role for the first time inside of
(21:31):
a startup? What are some nuggets that they really need to
Yeah, no, I love that question. HR, typically
speaking, especially with first-time founders, is
not seen as a strategic core function
that's going to help them move the business to the next level. And
a lot, and we talked about this, right? In a lot of cases, it's like, Hey, I
(21:53):
need, I kind of need this function so I don't get into trouble or
the headcount is growing to a point where I don't want to deal with the people stuff. Let
me get someone to do it. It's more like, let me just get this monkey off my
back situation. An HR leader, I think the best thing
they can do is show value quickly. And
the way you show value quickly is with a few things, and just
(22:14):
not to sound very redundant is. Step one, of course,
understand the business, but step two, speak and build
a relationship with all the key stakeholders in the organization and understand what
are their priorities. What are the things that are keeping them up at
night? What are the things that if you were able to solve
for them, it would greatly improve their ability to execute? on
(22:35):
what the company's mission is. Those are the first things I would ask
any HR leader to focus on when they come in, because the
best way for an HR leader to not only
become a strategic partner, but also deliver the most impact is
if you actually focus and prioritize things that the business needs,
as opposed to only focusing on the stuff that
(22:56):
only the HR folks will see, the back end, the back office part
of HR. Like when I enter a new company and working with them, they
don't think I ever bring anything up about HR policies and procedures and
pay will and benefits and all that. Like those are things that literally no
business leader cares about in the beginning, especially in the early stages. They
just want it to be taken care of. How it gets done is not their problem. They
(23:17):
care about, Hey, what can we do to get better salespeople to drive revenue?
How can we expand our presence in
Europe, for example, and there's all these complexities with how
we can get people in, how do we need to hire them? How can we do this in a way
which makes sense financially, but also helps us hit our numbers? How
can we make sure that our org structure doesn't look this messy and we have
(23:38):
some you know i'm cloudy of who's reporting to who's
doing well where's the best way to organize this in a way that scales and
we don't have to break it down again the next you know the next year so things
like this which which will make a difference are the things that i would tell any hr
person to focus on and again prioritize based on
what is hurting the most in the beginning. Because again, most HR
(23:58):
people, once they step in, something's hurting things more than other,
but there's a lot of hurt going on in most cases. So start
there and you will be on a path to success because it builds
so much trust and credibility for an HR leader in
the beginning when they can start showing immediate value and impact their
journey throughout the organization's growth becomes much easier and much simpler
(24:20):
Such great advice for those in that startup role, but in
general, for anybody stepping into a new HR role, right?
Just those table stakes of what you need to learn. So this has
been a great discussion. I really have a heart for
startups and the specific complexities that, you
know, people leaders have when they step into these roles. So thanks for
(24:41):
Appreciate it. Love the questions and hopefully this gave
Come back often and please subscribe, rate, and review.
If you're listening to the H.R. Mixtape, your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel,
well, like work. Now, your host,
Joining me today is Nahed Khairallah, global HR strategist and
founder of Organized Chaos. With a deep expertise in
(00:25):
scaling HR for startups, Nahed is known for disrupting conventional
practices and bringing structure to chaos with a people-first mindset.
You know, I love this concept of building
(00:47):
HR departments and, you know, having
been in the roles of an HR department one and
then, you know, working for a bigger organization now, There's
a lot of complexity and a lot of transition that HR
goes through. So, you know, in your experience, as you've gone
through and helped people build those HR departments from
(01:08):
the ground up, what's one of the first thing leaders actually often
Now, I love that question and I agree there's a,
there's a big distinction between starting a function from scratch ground
zero versus going into an established thing. But what I've seen with
a lot of leaders in companies, especially growing companies, and
(01:29):
for the most part, the leaders and executives that don't have much experience
in HR or have only experienced HR as either an employee or through the
lens of other people who have. The biggest mistake
I see is that they first think of HR or people function
when problems surface. And more
times than not, those problems not only are people related,
(01:52):
but sometimes even like, you know, compliance related. So
that's kind of one of the first mistakes I see is they only address
the HR function when it's gotten to a point
where it is actually going to start hurting the business in a
severe way, as opposed to doing it proactively. So I'm of
the mindset that typically when you're a company, You started to
(02:13):
grow beyond, you know, 20, 30 employees. It's, it's, it's time to start thinking
of it, not necessarily on a full-time basis, at least on a factual and
so forth and start building the foundation. But that's, that I would say is
the biggest, I would say mistake I see with, with
You know, I love that you started there because I can't
tell you how many people I've talked to in my life when, yeah, I
(02:37):
You know, policy police, which, you know, I hate that view
Yeah. And there's so much more that we can provide. You know, as
you've worked with those fast growing companies, how do
they balance that idea around structure and flexibility? And
you alluded to it a little bit, you know, don't necessarily hire an HR person
Yeah, so I think that's an important question. Structure
(03:01):
and flexibility, there's a very fine balance you need to
hit in a growing company because too much structure leads to rigidity and
you actually hold the business back. But if it's the wild west,
then there's a lot of room for mistakes and really
unnecessary things that you can fall into and traps
you can fall into that could have easily been avoided. The most
(03:22):
important thing I think for any HR leader, anyone who's handling
HR, start with understanding the business and not
only what the business does, but where is it trying to get to, when is
it trying to get there, and what is the right context and
what is the full context of the organization, meaning whether the research is
available. Is the level of talents you have going to
(03:42):
enable you to do all these things and so forth? Because I think those inputs
are a core requirement for you to actually build the right amount of
flexibility versus structure and be able to assess that,
Hey, if I put an X, if I put a certain policy in place, is this actually
helping us move forward and achieve what we're doing or is it going to hold us back? That
is really my, from a helicopter view, how I like to approach things and how
(04:03):
I advise people to approach things. Because at the end of the day, the HR function
is there to support the business, achieve its objectives. It's not
there to hold it back and be this ultra risk-averse function,
which unfortunately it is sometimes. And in some
cases it's the fault of the HR people like ourselves who get
You know, as you've worked with that idea around talent
(04:26):
strategy, you know, I think about the different
approaches that I've seen in different jobs, in different places I
worked in. And I have definitely walked into places that
had full job architecture, full succession
planning, full performance management. They knew their
pipelining process. We typically don't
(04:47):
do a startup and create all that stuff to begin with. But maybe
there is some kind of future proof talent approaches
we should be thinking about. So we don't have to work backwards when
Yeah. So I think that's an amazing question. That has also something to do with
how much structure do I introduce. The thing with job architecture,
(05:09):
career pathing, succession and so forth. Realistically
speaking, it is very volatile when you're a fast growing company, because
there's so much change that can happen. You can build an architecture today
and look at it six months from now and think, Oh my God, this is outdated. We
need to do something different because our business all of a sudden decided to pivot
into this new way of things. There's a new set of capabilities we need, so
(05:32):
on and so forth. Our trajectory has gone from, Hey, we want to grow. into
a $10 million company in the next three years, but investment capital came in
and we need to 10x that. So there's a lot of factors that can play into that. One
thing that I always try to work with companies on
is finding the right balance between what do we know today versus
what is the unknown? Because I think you need to sort of build for
(05:54):
what you know today, plus a little bit into the future, but not too
far out to the point where it's a meaningless exercise and
you know for a fact it's going to change. So let's
give a practical example here. Let's say I have a software development team,
right? I'm a software company. I'm, you know, I have an engineering team. Do
I really need five layers of engineers when I only
(06:15):
have an engineering team of 30 people and my trajectory is
maybe 10, 15% of headcount growth in
the next three to five years? Probably not. So I would
probably define, let's say the company right now has maybe two layers of engineering. I
would like to introduce and clearly define what those two layers
are, but also what does the next layer after that look like? And
(06:36):
what are the conditions that need to exist for us to even tap into that
new rail? And what are the triggers to get us there? So that's
how I personally like to approach this because You can't only build
for today if you're a growing company because you're always in build mode. But
at the same time, you cannot build too far into the future where that
output becomes meaningless. You have to redo it again. And it just
(06:59):
That last point about confusing to the organization, I think
is so true, especially in startups
and fast growing, because you could not have articulated it
better that In six months, your
whole team could need to be something totally different. And,
you know, you might be going through a reorg every 18 months,
(07:21):
which is very taxing on your employee population. So
I think it's good to think about that framework from
that now and next perspective, like you shared and like that you
made the effort to mention and what are the triggers we're going to have to
watch for to get there so that you as the HR practitioner
can go, Hey, I know this trigger's coming, I need to
(07:41):
proactively go have this conversation with our leadership team on, you know, what
the plan is. I love that. You know, as you've worked with
these teams, you know, one of the things that I think that could be
sticky is creating that psychological safety in
that fast churning environment. How does
that development or that concept look differently in
(08:01):
a fast-paced environment compared to, you know, you've got people who are working, you
Yeah, I think for the most part, transparency and
clarity are super important. Not transparency in
isolation of clarity, because you need both for this to work properly. Just
bloating out everything we're thinking of is great, but if it's
(08:22):
not presented in a clear fashion and shows that
there's been enough thought put into this where we're actually thinking
through what we need and so forth, then it creates a lot of confusion. With
clarity it's important first of all for any leadership team, people manager,
how to function and so forth, to spend and take the
time to think through what is the current situation today,
(08:43):
where do they think their function needs to go, but also work
with their team to have that understanding because involving
them in this conversation is going to add a lot of value. It shouldn't always be
top to bottom. It should be bottom up as well to have that line of communication, but
at the same time being transparent as to what the expectations are,
when could potential changes happen and how, and
(09:05):
what could they look like? I think there's nothing wrong with that because sometimes
I think not only HR people, but leaders in general fall into
the trap of trying to please everyone all the time. And
when you're an organization, you're clear with your intent and you're transparent about
it and you are staying
true to your word and actually actioning everything you're saying, then
(09:27):
if someone doesn't think that's the right environment for them, it's actually better for
them and for you for that to be recognized at
some point before things, you know, go down the drain pretty
much. So that's kind of how I like to articulate and think of those things,
Well, and I think that wraps right into my next question around inclusion,
(09:48):
diversity, equity, equitability, you
know, those concepts in general. And I know
that, you know, as a country right now, we're going through some complexities
on how we're talking about this. And so I want to be sensitive to
that. And the idea around inclusion
and authenticity is not going away, right? Employees do
(10:10):
want to feel included, they do want to feel like they can show
up. How do we bake that in from the beginning as we
are supporting startups compared to having to, you know,
Yeah, I agree. And I love that question. My
personal take on the whole DEI situation,
(10:30):
what's been going on and how we got here is that, at least again,
my personal opinion is I think companies took
this in the wrong direction for so long because DEI became
honestly a publicity stunt for many companies. It became
an issue of, Hey, how can we advertise and how can
you put it out there that we're actually diverse and so forth without
(10:54):
it actually meaning anything within the context of the organization. My
take on this is if you want to infuse DI naturally into an
organization where it is actually a core part of who you are, as
opposed to it just being, you know, words on flashy slides
and websites is from day one, it should
be something which is a value, which is ingrained in leadership to
(11:14):
the point where And HR plays a big role here to
where you design your processes and things like hiring, right?
Interviewing, onboarding, training and development, so
forth. You build frameworks and you build guardrails
around detecting when those things aren't happening. But what I mean by
that is that diversity, we've actually fallen into the trap of thinking
(11:37):
of diversity only from what we can see, right? Based on
skin color, sexual orientation, and so forth. Diversity
is, in my mind, when you're truly someone
who values DI and so forth, it should be something
which is ingrained in everything you do. You should never think of
anything against any person or
(11:59):
actually treat them differently for any reason at all based
on certain biases, color of skin, their ideas, where
they come from and so forth. The way you do that is every
step within your organization throughout the employee experience, from
top to bottom, from entry to exit, even before that, has
to have processes that are designed in a way to make
(12:22):
sure that that is not happening. And HR plays a big role here in
terms of making sure that managers not only are aware of this, but
also there are structures in place and frameworks to help protect this.
But at the same time, also, you need to support managers
and people and everyone in there to make sure that You are
presenting yourself as an employer in a way where everyone feels safe, they
(12:44):
feel seen, and they feel comfortable to bring their true selves to
the organization. And that typically translates to the actions of
the organization, not only the words that they try to put out there. So
if I am opening up the platform for anyone
to apply to a job and I will not even consider anything
related to their skin color, their name,
(13:06):
where they come from, and so on and so forth. And that means nothing to
me to get someone into an interview because I feel that they fit the
bill in terms of qualifications they're in. Same thing for interviewing, same thing for everything
throughout the organization. So it's a very active thing
to do. But I think that it's not
its own compartment that you need to tack onto the HR function
(13:27):
or into the organization. It has to be built in and
ingrained. And that's one of the reasons why I personally think that,
you know, DEI as a concept and as a function
is something that has to be so intertwined with the people function. Because
I think splitting, I mean, a lot of companies have split them up together. You
have a DEI person, HR person, so forth. I'm one
(13:49):
of those people who thinks that They have to be one and the same because
with the people function, you are tasked with ensuring, one
of your roles, of course, is ensuring that the people experience is
enabling people to succeed in the organization. And this is a very core element
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think in
(14:10):
even visually as we represent our HR departments, you
know, that layer of inclusion initiative should be
one of those, you know, table stakes that we talk about, that
it's built into everything we do. Because you're right. If it feels
like this separate thing, then it is a separate thing. It's not
part of what you're doing. You know, that leads into
(14:32):
thinking about how you are creating the culture that
you want in your organization as you are a
startup and you're growing. How do we make sure that that
stays tight to what our intent is because
Yeah, I love that question. My personal experience
(14:54):
in having worked with and consulted with more than a hundred companies, I
see this without a fault that culture gets,
you know, gets off its rails completely when leadership
decide that HR is no longer our responsibility. It
is the responsibility of HR and so forth. Culture
is the responsibility of every single individual in the organization. It
(15:17):
is designed and it is articulated and
it is read out throughout the entire organization, of
course, by leadership, but also with the collaboration with staff.
But at the same time, every single person is accountable with
their actions and behaviors and how they work with
others in the organization to contribute to the culture. I,
(15:40):
I'm going to be impacted as an employee by a culture. If
I have a colleague on my team who behaves in a way which doesn't fit
our culture, yet it goes unchecked because it is
let go when it is accepted. That has nothing to do with the founder that
has something to do with that individual employee as well as the manager and so forth. So
the way you keep it intact is. It
(16:02):
starts with, it's always starts with the leadership team, in my opinion. And
specifically when you're a growing company, I like to point out the
founder or founding team specifically, because culture
is something you have to define deliberately
from day one. Because if you don't, it's going to take a shape of its
own based on who you're bringing to the organization. Whereas you
(16:24):
want to define, Hey, what, how do we need to operate as an organization? What
do we stand for and how do we work? together and
how to do things around here. And then you need to bring in people who align
with that and who can actually bring back to life. So that's where
I think it starts, but you also need to make sure that as
a founding team, a leadership team, as you grow, culture has
(16:44):
to be one of the core things you keep your eyes on. Because as
you grow as a team and you delegate more things, this is one of those things
you just do not delegate, because it is a shared responsibility
between everyone. But I hear so many times that, oh,
our engagement scores went down, or we have high turnover. Hey,
HR, what's going on here? Why aren't you improving this? HR
(17:07):
is one function who can contribute and enable and help you
do that, but it's ultimately everyone's responsibility. And the moment it
a good explanation of that because we know that
HR often gets that tag, right? Like, oh, it's not
what it's supposed to be. You're doing it wrong. And it's like, well, I'm
(17:29):
not sitting with your employee all day long. I can't
influence at that level. You know, I think about the
work that you've done with organizations who have been cognizant enough
to realize that they need HR in
their, in their organization. What's your advice
or coaching specifically for founders or executives
(17:52):
who have never worked with HR before? How do we
change their narrative when they are looking to build their company that
HR is one of the top things on their mind for all the reasons
we already talked about instead of that, oh, we reached a
Yeah, no, I love that question. So the way I like to describe HR
(18:14):
is I think it's, it's, it can be the rocket shield for growth
for any business. And the reason I say that is the following. Think
of building a skyscraper, right? You can't build a skyscraper with
the foundations of a small house or a small shed, right? You
need to build solid structural foundations. HR
is that people foundation. Companies today, and
(18:35):
if you're looking at the knowledge-based economy, which is where most startups today,
you know, are popping up and so forth, it's at least 50% of
their spend is on headcounts. And
a lot of kids, if you're talking like SAS companies and so forth, you're anywhere
between 70 to 80%. So my
pitch to founders is that. You
(18:57):
are not optimizing the usage and
enabling your team properly without HR
because every function is busy doing its own thing. Especially
in the early days, you're trying to bring in revenue and you're focused on revenue and
product. But guess what? HR is that rocket fuel that
can actually help you accelerate and optimize your usage of your talent
(19:19):
and people. That is where the main value comes from. So. Generally,
like I closed it was, don't you want to optimize 80% of
your spend to make sure you're getting the best bang for your buck? I
mean, if not, then you're in the wrong business, my friend, because
it's not a good business decision if you don't want to. And
(19:40):
generally speaking, you need to back that up as an HR person when
you say something like this. And the only way you don't do that with policies and
procedures only. You do that with understanding what, again,
going back to where we came, where we started is understand exactly what
the business does, the nuts and bolts, how they're put together. But also
when you understand that and apply the HR lens to it, there's
(20:01):
a lot of value you can add that founders do not see themselves. So,
and we can dive into some examples if you want to, but there's a lot of, there's a
lot of situations where HR can add so much value, which is invisible to
others because also HR has a lot of data at their fingertips. that
a lot of people just do not think of, like you have financial data, you have
people specific data. With that understanding of the business, you
(20:23):
are one of the most information heavy functions that
you can leverage to give insights that other functions and even founders can't,
I have talked about that so many times in person and
on the podcast that if you can come to your leadership team
as an HR practitioner and say, you know, I know we
are planning to start development on this product and
(20:46):
we need this skill set. You know, I've identified we
have a gap and we're going to need to hire three people with this
specific skill set. And I know that based on
past data, when we do this, that our
revenue will increase by X percentage because we'll be able to reduce our
production time. Whatever the thing is. You have that.
You're absolutely right. You have that rich data to tell that story
(21:10):
to that leadership in such a way that it's like almost
like a no brainer, right? Like, oh, of course we got to go do this because you've
made the case for it. You know, as we wrap up
our conversation, I think there's probably a couple more nuggets. What are some things
that you can give to somebody stepping
into that head of people role for the first time inside of
(21:31):
a startup? What are some nuggets that they really need to
Yeah, no, I love that question. HR, typically
speaking, especially with first-time founders, is
not seen as a strategic core function
that's going to help them move the business to the next level. And
a lot, and we talked about this, right? In a lot of cases, it's like, Hey, I
(21:53):
need, I kind of need this function so I don't get into trouble or
the headcount is growing to a point where I don't want to deal with the people stuff. Let
me get someone to do it. It's more like, let me just get this monkey off my
back situation. An HR leader, I think the best thing
they can do is show value quickly. And
the way you show value quickly is with a few things, and just
(22:14):
not to sound very redundant is. Step one, of course,
understand the business, but step two, speak and build
a relationship with all the key stakeholders in the organization and understand what
are their priorities. What are the things that are keeping them up at
night? What are the things that if you were able to solve
for them, it would greatly improve their ability to execute? on
(22:35):
what the company's mission is. Those are the first things I would ask
any HR leader to focus on when they come in, because the
best way for an HR leader to not only
become a strategic partner, but also deliver the most impact is
if you actually focus and prioritize things that the business needs,
as opposed to only focusing on the stuff that
(22:56):
only the HR folks will see, the back end, the back office part
of HR. Like when I enter a new company and working with them, they
don't think I ever bring anything up about HR policies and procedures and
pay will and benefits and all that. Like those are things that literally no
business leader cares about in the beginning, especially in the early stages. They
just want it to be taken care of. How it gets done is not their problem. They
(23:17):
care about, Hey, what can we do to get better salespeople to drive revenue?
How can we expand our presence in
Europe, for example, and there's all these complexities with how
we can get people in, how do we need to hire them? How can we do this in a way
which makes sense financially, but also helps us hit our numbers? How
can we make sure that our org structure doesn't look this messy and we have
(23:38):
some you know i'm cloudy of who's reporting to who's
doing well where's the best way to organize this in a way that scales and
we don't have to break it down again the next you know the next year so things
like this which which will make a difference are the things that i would tell any hr
person to focus on and again prioritize based on
what is hurting the most in the beginning. Because again, most HR
(23:58):
people, once they step in, something's hurting things more than other,
but there's a lot of hurt going on in most cases. So start
there and you will be on a path to success because it builds
so much trust and credibility for an HR leader in
the beginning when they can start showing immediate value and impact their
journey throughout the organization's growth becomes much easier and much simpler
(24:20):
Such great advice for those in that startup role, but in
general, for anybody stepping into a new HR role, right?
Just those table stakes of what you need to learn. So this has
been a great discussion. I really have a heart for
startups and the specific complexities that, you
know, people leaders have when they step into these roles. So thanks for
(24:41):
Appreciate it. Love the questions and hopefully this gave
Come back often and please subscribe, rate, and review.
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