Why You Need HR (or People and Culture) Managers Early in Your Tech or Non-Tech Business – And How to Choose the Best One

There used to be a time when investors were mostly concerned about the insane growth of the customer base, and placed very less thoughts on revenue growth or profitability. However, those days seem to be drawing back behind the curtains and today, there is a real clamour for revenue growth and a path to profit

What this implies is that there is now a very high requirement for productivity. Every salary or wage cost has to be accounted for, especially when you compare them with the ROI from those expenditures.

In the days of traditional businesses (which of course we still have myriads of very successful ones), every staff or employee must have a definite contribution to the organization, and every staff is expected to have KPIs or Goals they must meet. This is why there came a time when young people ran away from Bank Jobs. Because alongside Bank Fat’s salary offers, came Neck-breaking targets.

But if you look at the Failure rates of startups and compare them with the success rates of traditional organizations, it’s not so difficult to realize that operations optimization, workers efficiency, and many more make those businesses seem more productive than the tech businesses.

While there have been cases of “Horrible bosses”, and mental health challenges, it seems these companies rarely fold up. Some rise to become Big 4s, while some remain long-term players and last generations. Of course, some fail.

One of the reasons for efficiency in these organizations is the fact that they never joke with two roles:

– Operations

– Human Resource Management

Some organizations would have HR leads and Ops Leads separately while some will have one person handle HR and Ops. Either way, two facts are evident.

1. People need to be led

and

2. People need to be Managed

These two are often lacking in SMEs, and for many tech startups, they over-shoot.

Tech Companies and Remote Work

In the last 18 months, I’ve heard not less than 10 CEOs tell us at Salesplat that whoever they want to

Hire has to be On-site. Because they believe there is no efficiency in working remotely.

I wrote recently of two extremes we observed at The Growth Hub as regards remote work – which is

1. The Over-working, Over-stressed remote teams who literally are often close to crashing

2. The under-working, lying on the bed, double or triple jobs, Netflix during work hours persons

Sadly, from conversations with CEOs, it seems the second extreme is what they experience the

Most and some actually won’t mind extreme 1 and pay for extra hours

In all this… I’ll dare to say that, a very solid human resource or people and culture operations can create a great balance.

HR vs People and Culture

In the last couple of years, there has been a gradual shift from the conventional HR people known to be wicked and lacking empathy… to the “People and Culture” play

This is partly because, now, people have many options, Especially in the digital age. Beyond having options, Mental health is now in full-blown awareness mode and of course, it’s no longer shocking to hear anyone say “I’m prioritizing my mental health”

So why do you need HR or People & Culture Managers?

Even though this can be taught every single day for one whole month

I’ll attempt to create a simple explanation of why you need to have HR earlier on your business.

Depending on your company structure, aside from HRs working on your hiring and recruitment, the following are how they make your business environment better:

1. HR / People & Culture can be in charge of Daily Clock-Ins

For example, At Salesplat, there is either a daily clock-in on WhatsApp or Slack (depending on the Unit or product)

Ideally in your company, If a staff won’t be at work, they should send a mail to HR copying their team lead and ensure they inform them detailedly of why you won’t be the there

2. The HR is to be in charge of work-life balance for the remote workers

Creates some Fun Activities during the week to stir everything and everyone up and also foster the peer to peer and cross-departmental relationships

At Salesplat, it’s a fully remote Team and so the fun activities include “Hot Seat”, “Ice Breakers in meetings” and so on and these make people know themselves better

3. HR oversees performance evaluations

The HR is to be in charge of Performance Evaluation, working with Team Leads to check how people are performing or not performing relative to KPIs

So, ideally, your HR manager should understand how to set or Co-set KPIs with team or department leads

4. HRs are to work on proper documentation and ensure internal comms is smooth as it pertains to Talent welfare

HRs are to be a Safe space for your staff, to share their challenges, especially personal ones.

When you operate a remote team, this part is one of the important

5. HR, in collaboration with your operations team, can be in charge of Weekly Meetings / Company-wide information sessions / Culture Assurance or Vision – sharing Sessions where Cofounders are part

If you have an EA or programs manager or Operations Manager … this might also be their job. But where This isn’t available

HR could draft the agendas and confirm with cofounders

So that meetings don’t go beyond scheduled times beyond the norm

There are many more things I’ll expect HRs to handle in the organization, but I’ll pause here

6. Your HR should ensure the learning and development of people

People will leave once they don’t have a sense or fulfillment of growth and development

I won’t be able to go deep into “why people leave your company”… but this is one of them

So…

What to look out for in a Remote Company HR?

Firstly, our Brand, SalesPlat has helped a number of Tech Brands hire their HR leads and it’s been great..: People Ops is part of Revenue focused Roles that we focus on

The following are what we expect you to look out for especially if it’s a remote or tech company

1. We focus on People and culture managers…

These are HR managers who have the abilities and experience to balance between work, fun, learning, and more.

If you are a remote Company, Don’t hire someone who doesn’t have a deep understanding of culture or hasn’t really handled Culture-related activities before. Your brand likely will suffer for it.

2. The persons to hire must really understand the psychological handling of people

They must understand different age ranges, roles, etc

They need to understand how Tech guys behave and why they behave so… how Gen Zs behave and why they behave so…. how Sales Persons behave and why they behave so

Their understanding of roles, age ranges, and industries must be deep

I won’t say many of those we’ve helped hired tick this up to 90%

You’ll struggle hard to get persons who score 70% on this

3. Whoever you’ll hire should understand systems, structures, policies, and operations

They should have created SoPs in the past or worked with a team that did. They should have created policies (there’s a way we know those lying on this)

What HRM tools / HRIS have they used or adopted before that they can set up for you?

As a remote team, you really can’t afford to be the test lamb for HR

4. If your team is remote

They must have managed remote teams before and you should check how they did it and how they structured their team management operations

Lastly

This is very important

A company is always the reflection of the founders depending on how much they allow the people they employ to function or not function

Even if you hire the best HR, you can still have a horse workplace if you are always preempting your HR and not allowing them to work

And you can have a great place if you step out the way and only give them guidance and support rather than making them useless

I definitely can’t exhaust this topic right in this post

But I do hope it helps you build a better business

And of if you need top talents, reach out to us…

Let’s keep Winning

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Olatunde Victor Adeoluwa

SalesPlat