Managing Talent – The Key Growth Driver for Your Start Up
Ask any startup entrepreneur and she/he would tell you – hiring the right talent who create value and drive up the progress on your startup idea is the single best differentiator in making your business a success. And, building a team which brings together the right set of skills and ideas, which is committed to growing with you through the difficult early years is no mean feat.
Truth be told, many startup entrepreneurs understand the importance of effective practices to help grow and manage talent, but they are often in a great hurry to commercialise their idea and take it to market. With an intense focus on gaining market share, driving numbers ahead and dealing with competing priorities, talent management tends to take a back seat.
The Stanford Project on Emerging Companies – an eight-year longitudinal study conducted during the dot-com boom indicates that “companies that tended to bring in HR expertise first were the fastest to go public and the least likely to fail.” So how can startup entrepreneurs create effective talent management practices, and what practicable steps would work through the long run?
First things first
It is imperative to understand that an effective talent management strategy is always built right into the foundation of the organisational blueprint. So start thinking early and be proactive in drafting your talent management approach, ensuring you build in relevant systems. For instance, if your business operates within a very competitive landscape, it may be wise to strengthen your employer branding, reward and retention practices right from the very early stages of the inception of your business.
Accountability
Startup organisations often have fluid structures, with blurred lines of ownership and responsibility. But make sure you have a designated member of the executive team who will own, drive and monitor all people related practices.
Market matters
Consider the market you play within and ensure you craft effective practices along with all the relevant dimensions, including – employer branding, attracting and hiring talent, employee integration, culture building, development, engagement and retention.
Attracting and hiring the right talent
Investing in effective talent management practices is a precursor to attracting and hiring the best talent in the market. Even if you have a small outfit and budgets are slim, ensure you have the right practices that support candidate relationship and generate access to formal and informal candidate networks. Also, take the effort to offer prospective talent a ring-side view of your organisation and people practices. Doing so will help you gain real competitive advantage and enable you to hire better.
Culture is key
Think carefully about the culture you would like within your organisation and create a culture template to align your internal processes and practices with it. This will ensure you drive an organised set of processes that offer a consistent culture experience at the workplace. Consistency within the process and culture experience will help employees feel assured and motivated to deliver better – a great dynamic to have within a growing organisation!
Technology drives connect
In startup organisations, teams are often under immense pressure to deliver with speed and stay ahead of the competition. Given such a scenario, invest in automated tools that allow you to seamlessly interact, connect, and exchange/integrate feedback with your teams. These tools offer immense possibilities to manage, interpret and learn from data, and drive meaningful employee engagement programmes. With relevant data on hand, your employees will begin to see how well you listen to them and follow through on feedback to ensure a superior workplace experience for them.
Break the rules, customise and innovate
Startup businesses are usually about new ideas and uncharted territories, so why not let your talent management practices course through new directions? Be fearless, and embrace ideas that help drive greater engagement and impact within your organisation and industry. For instance, if your business operates in a space where you mostly employ individuals from a specific demographic – break the rules and structure work practices that motivate and energise their everyday work performance.
Managing Talent – The Key Growth Driver for Your Start Up
Ask any startup entrepreneur and she/he would tell you – hiring the right talent who create value and drive up the progress on your startup idea is the single best differentiator in making your business a success. And, building a team which brings together the right set of skills and ideas, which is committed to growing with you through the difficult early years is no mean feat.
Truth be told, many startup entrepreneurs understand the importance of effective practices to help grow and manage talent, but they are often in a great hurry to commercialise their idea and take it to market. With an intense focus on gaining market share, driving numbers ahead and dealing with competing priorities, talent management tends to take a back seat.
The Stanford Project on Emerging Companies – an eight-year longitudinal study conducted during the dot-com boom indicates that “companies that tended to bring in HR expertise first were the fastest to go public and the least likely to fail.” So how can startup entrepreneurs create effective talent management practices, and what practicable steps would work through the long run?
First things first
It is imperative to understand that an effective talent management strategy is always built right into the foundation of the organisational blueprint. So start thinking early and be proactive in drafting your talent management approach, ensuring you build in relevant systems. For instance, if your business operates within a very competitive landscape, it may be wise to strengthen your employer branding, reward and retention practices right from the very early stages of the inception of your business.
Accountability
Startup organisations often have fluid structures, with blurred lines of ownership and responsibility. But make sure you have a designated member of the executive team who will own, drive and monitor all people related practices.
Market matters
Consider the market you play within and ensure you craft effective practices along with all the relevant dimensions, including – employer branding, attracting and hiring talent, employee integration, culture building, development, engagement and retention.
Attracting and hiring the right talent
Investing in effective talent management practices is a precursor to attracting and hiring the best talent in the market. Even if you have a small outfit and budgets are slim, ensure you have the right practices that support candidate relationship and generate access to formal and informal candidate networks. Also, take the effort to offer prospective talent a ring-side view of your organisation and people practices. Doing so will help you gain real competitive advantage and enable you to hire better.
Culture is key
Think carefully about the culture you would like within your organisation and create a culture template to align your internal processes and practices with it. This will ensure you drive an organised set of processes that offer a consistent culture experience at the workplace. Consistency within the process and culture experience will help employees feel assured and motivated to deliver better – a great dynamic to have within a growing organisation!
Technology drives connect
In startup organisations, teams are often under immense pressure to deliver with speed and stay ahead of the competition. Given such a scenario, invest in automated tools that allow you to seamlessly interact, connect, and exchange/integrate feedback with your teams. These tools offer immense possibilities to manage, interpret and learn from data, and drive meaningful employee engagement programmes. With relevant data on hand, your employees will begin to see how well you listen to them and follow through on feedback to ensure a superior workplace experience for them.
Break the rules, customise and innovate
Startup businesses are usually about new ideas and uncharted territories, so why not let your talent management practices course through new directions? Be fearless, and embrace ideas that help drive greater engagement and impact within your organisation and industry. For instance, if your business operates in a space where you mostly employ individuals from a specific demographic – break the rules and structure work practices that motivate and energise their everyday work performance.
