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Episode 46 - Giovanna Roma, Senior HR Manager at Picus Capital
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In this episode, Sade is joined by Giovanna Roma, Senior HR Manager at Picus Capital, for an insightful conversation about one of the most critical elements of startup success: hiring the right people at the right time.
They dive into:
- The unique challenges and opportunities of hiring in early-stage startups
- Why Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) should be built into hiring practices from day one
- How founders can determine when it's the right time to hire an HR professional
- What early teams should focus on when developing their talent strategy
Giovanna shares real-world advice drawn from her experience working closely with startups across industries, offering practical insights for founders, early team members, and aspiring HR leaders alike.
Whether you're launching your first startup or refining your hiring approach, this episode delivers valuable takeaways you won't want to miss.
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello everyone
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:15
Speaker
and welcome back to another episode of Women Taught Tech. Today I'm joined by Giovanna, Senior HR Manager at Pickus Capital. We dived into some really interesting topics, including kicking off hiring as a founder, when to hire a HR team, and of course prioritizing DEI from the outset and so much more.
00:00:32
Speaker
I hope you enjoy this conversation.
00:00:36
Speaker
Thanks for
Finding a Career Path
00:00:37
Speaker
joining me, Jo. Really excited for this conversation. i guess, you know, typical starting question. um Tell me a bit more about yourself. Of course. Thank you so much for having me and really, really happy to to have this conversation.
00:00:48
Speaker
um So i I'm actually Italian. I come from Rome. um and And as my name already suggests, um I then lived in Milan for five years. I studied business and economics and I chose this because it allowed me somehow to not make a decision yet on what I wanted to do in my career and I hadn't found my professional calling yet.
00:01:09
Speaker
and Obviously, as we all know, this means that you're just postponing the decision.
HR Journey at Bain & Company
00:01:13
Speaker
And and so ah yeah ah through my studies, I started thinking about it more and more.
00:01:20
Speaker
And I had quite a lot of friends that were already fully into the whole consulting application process and investment banking and private equity, the assessment centers and all that. And somehow that didn't really speak to me.
00:01:32
Speaker
um So i luckily ended up in a student association where i had to somehow recruit new members. um and And that was my very, very first bite of recruiting, um obviously still in a very small and um Let's say casual context, um but um that gave me the idea of maybe going into the people function, which back then I really didn't know and I didn't know what options were there.
00:01:55
Speaker
um And so my first internship was actually in staffing at Bain & Company.
Specialized Recruiting at McKinsey
00:02:00
Speaker
um So that helped me a lot with figuring out. how consulting works and and getting a first so experience again in in general brother HR.
00:02:08
Speaker
um i then tailored, um I think more my preferences towards the recruiting direction or I realized that I still wanted to go rather in that direction. And so I ended up joining McKinsey in the Amsterdam office and I was hiring for specialized roles. so um actually very niche roles at all levels within the energy space and across Europe.
00:02:29
Speaker
And that was 2021. So obviously, and consulting was on a hiring spree, and very steep learning curve, very fast ah growth trajectory as well. It was honestly the best opportunity, I think, for for me at the beginning of my career.
00:02:43
Speaker
um And I really learned a lot and went from a team of three people where I was employee number two to a team of 11 within one year, one year and a half actually. um And so it was really amazing.
Transition to Picus Capital
00:02:53
Speaker
Then as the learning curve started to flatten out a bit, um I decided to do a rotation actually in the ah European Women and Diversity team.
00:03:01
Speaker
And honestly, McKinsey is one of the best companies, I think, for European, but also general diversity initiatives. and And so I was really lucky, honestly, to have this opportunity and the team was amazing. and I was surrounded by people that were already experts in this field and where I could really learn and learn these kind of best practices.
00:03:21
Speaker
um And um so that was really a great experience. Also good to wrap up my experience at McKinsey because in the meantime, I had moved to Munich, Germany, where I'm currently based. Amazing.
00:03:32
Speaker
And as um you know, things often come in twos or threes, so changes come together. And so I decided to not only change city, but also change a job.
00:03:43
Speaker
And I was looking for something that was similar in the sense of still fast paced, still a driven environment. But also I wanted something smaller somehow that gave me more ownership of the projects and It made me feel like I had a larger impact as well in my day to day. And so Pico's was perfect and it was love at first sight, and honestly, in my interview process.
00:04:04
Speaker
um And it still feels very right at the moment. So it's been two years. And since then, I wear two hats, as I always say. So on the one hand, I hire for the company, so for Picos. But I also support quite heavily the founders that Picos invests in. So um just for very brief background, Picos is an investment fund and we invest extremely early stage and we try to be very hands-on also in the way that we support founders. And that also includes obviously the hiring part and the HR part.
00:04:32
Speaker
And that's where I usually come in. um Yeah, so that's very briefly about me. Yeah,
Big vs Small Organizations
00:04:38
Speaker
I love that. And I guess, you know, your experience at bae and Bain and then also McKinsey versus maybe the experience at a smaller um fund like Picus is kind of giving you the best of both. was like, because now you've got experience in both and you've seen, I guess, how DEI can work in the large companies, but then also then seeing how it works and in kind of smaller startups.
00:04:57
Speaker
I'm sure your experience has been so valuable for them. Yeah, I mean, 100 percent. I love that you actually mentioned this difference between big companies and smaller companies. um And I think it's it's really crucial because obviously, at least from what I saw in a company like McKinsey, um there are so many options of so many different roles that you can do. from all sorts of backgrounds. And obviously, if you go to smaller and smaller realities, um there is some limit also to obviously the roles that you need in that moment and then backgrounds that you can consider for that roles.
00:05:29
Speaker
um And obviously the pace of hiring is different. So in a larger company, you might have more flexibility with hiring someone for a role in six months, even in one year to extreme situations. And in a smaller company, you need someone yesterday often. And it's not always the case. Obviously, it depends. and There are exceptions, but i but I do see that these are some of the differences, I think, in in in size as well.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, totally.
Urgency in Founder Hiring
00:05:52
Speaker
I mean, like you said, right in the fast pace world of startups, I think, especially founders, they probably feel the pressure to hire quickly, whether it's a like, like you said, fill immediate gaps, because you need someone yesterday. I mean, I think there's so many founders who when I say like, what's the timeline for this engineering role? Oh, we need this person yesterday. it happens so often.
00:06:09
Speaker
um Or they're kind of keeping up to the keeping up with growth patterns or goals or pressure from investors. I think what I've seen so often is it can be quite tempting to kind of rush the process. But I think hiring fast does come with serious risks, which I'm sure you've seen in the help which you've been given.
00:06:25
Speaker
I guess from your side, right, because of course you are the investor or you are the person which, not you personally, but you're the person who's you may be that pressure externally which founders do feel. Why do you feel founders kind of feel this urgency and kind of maybe can you expand on this from like an investor point of view and use the help that you then give?
00:06:41
Speaker
yeah Yeah, so first of all, 100%. I think it happens actually quite quite often. So you really hit the nail on the head. And um I think it happens for, i mean, let's put it in consulting terms, three main reasons at least that I can think about.
00:06:55
Speaker
um First of all, ah obviously, there are less people in the team, especially in early stages. There is just so much to do. And so you feel like you need more hands to help.
00:07:06
Speaker
um And again, it would be great to have them today or yesterday or tomorrow. um and And so you feel this pressure to fill the position because then you know that help is underway. So that's that's one.
00:07:18
Speaker
um Then the other thing is that um obviously hiring is just one of the things that founders have on their to-do list and it's an endless to-do list. And so they might feel like, okay, i really need to get this done so that I can move to the next topic. So somehow the time that can be allocat allocated to hiring feels limited and the faster you hire, the faster you get it done again.
00:07:40
Speaker
um At least that's the perception, obviously. um And then obviously, as you also mentioned, if you have investors, if you have external stakeholders that you're working with, um some key roles might actually be linked to some funding milestones that um the the investors and the founders are mindful of and they're discussing about. And so you know that that role is priority and you want to show that you're making progress and that your team is on track somehow and that's why you need to have it done by date x let's say regardless of the talent market or regardless of whether you find the right person or not um i think though obviously these are the reasons why this happens um but needless to say sometimes hiring someone fast
00:08:22
Speaker
um then can come at the cost of fit or quality of hire.
Strategic Hiring Pitfalls
00:08:27
Speaker
And you might think like you have solved a problem and in the end, this kind problem comes back like in a boomerang effect and bites back at you because, maybe the person was not the right one. And then it creates this series of events where you have performance improvement processes, feedback discussions that drain a lot of energy. The team also has these sort of shakeups.
00:08:48
Speaker
um And in the worst case situation, it can also happen that then you have to hire for the role again, which obviously is what everybody wants to avoid. yeah yeah i think what you said there's so true and and i think what i found a lot is that when founders say they needed someone yesterday they hire quickly yes and i don't i don't think i don't want to say they compromise on quality all the time but if they want someone who's maybe available immediately to start but then they then hire maybe for now as opposed to say six to twelve months time because the needs that you have now may be different to the needs which you have in 12 months time which means
00:09:20
Speaker
If you maybe would have taken the extra month or so, or two months to find that right person, you then maybe won't have to hire again or hire a second person to fill that need in 12 months time.
00:09:30
Speaker
But I found, like you said, there's so many kind of nuances and intricacies that come with this, but there's, I do find that when founders hire quickly, they either have to keep hiring because that person, is needed more or they need someone for what they need to do in 12 months time.
00:09:45
Speaker
Yes, 100%. ah hundred percent And actually, now that you mention it, another thing that comes to mind is that um often you have several roles open at the same time, obviously, and in such small teams and where things move so fast and to a certain degree, you're also more flexible sometimes with the requirements for a position. It can happen that you hire one person and then the fact that you hired that person changes what you need for another position. Yeah.
00:10:11
Speaker
And so I think it becomes even more important to really prioritize as a founder and think, okay, for instance, right now my priority is to hire a CTO and maybe and the CTO will have a preference to be much more involved on the product side.
00:10:25
Speaker
And maybe that will then delay hiring someone senior on the product side. but If you hire both roles in parallel very fast. you might end up with a CTO who wants to be involved in product and a senior product person. And then there is this overlap where you might have actually saved um somehow ah yeah financially and also time um by then hiring rather someone more junior in product for for the beginning. So it's just an example, but and I do think that that happens quite often. Yeah, no, I see that happen a lot as well, like especially in the engineering front. I see companies say hire, say a four-stack engineer
00:10:58
Speaker
who, yes, on paper is full stack, can do both front and the back end, but they end up being maybe a bit more front and heavy, which means the next person you hire, like you said, is going to need to be a bit more back end heavy. So you can actually compliment the two, as opposed to maybe hiring someone who you thought could do both and fill both voids when really, Like you said, they may have a preference to where they work and how they want to work in the future. So, yeah, so much.
00:11:21
Speaker
And like you said, I think that the hat that founders wear, i mean, even like what I just said, that's one thing founders have to worry about. What you said is another. They have so many hats they wear and and hiring is one of many things they have to do. So I can imagine that it's so overwhelming. I mean, even just me as a recruiter, I can imagine what it's like when you're being a founder and running a company.
00:11:42
Speaker
Yes, 100%. And I mean, again, as you said, for us, it might be most of our job to focus on those roles. And for them, it's one of the 10 different other problems that they have at the moment. So I do 100% get why there is this urgency and why you want to get things done fast.
00:11:58
Speaker
um And it would be helpful to also do it in a way that you don't have to do it again, or you can really, you know, do it efficiently and then really get it done and then have even more help after. Yeah, yeah.
Diversity Beyond Quotas
00:12:09
Speaker
And I guess with that in mind, right, wearing different hats and doing quite a lot and hiring being one of many things a founder does, I guess I've seen quite a lot that I don't want to say diversity is not front of mind because it definitely is. But I think maybe the priority on diversity is maybe not the first thing a founder thinks about when they're hiring in this situation or even just hiring in general right because the the the notion of what they're doing is just to get someone that can do the job as opposed to the future plans of diversity or like thinking about the culture and all of that i guess from your experience and what you found how important is it for a founder to think about diversity
00:12:47
Speaker
over maybe not even just technical skills over competent skills um especially in the very early days how have you found that to to be the case? Yeah, um so it's a very great question. And again, this is, I think, one of those situations where maybe for an established company, it might be, or hopefully it is, in most situations, a no-brainer and something that is even expected from markets and from the public, basically, in customers and customers, that you you should have standards in that sense and publicly disclose what you're doing for diversity. And with smaller companies, somehow it gets deprioritized over milestones that you need to have and the actually building the company, which is obviously priority number one. and
00:13:29
Speaker
At the same time, i think it really depends from from founder to founder. And I think eventually most people or i hope almost everybody reaches the conclusion that it's important. um It can be that it happens um once you learn about it in practice in your founding journey or it can be that you already had experience with it firsthand before founding the company and so it's already top of your mind from the beginning and that's obviously the ideal situation.
00:13:56
Speaker
um I think the important thing to remember is that diversity is not what we think immediately about when we think for instance about quotas or you know gender diversity or ethnic diversity, which is very heavily advertised sometimes um from bigger companies, but it can also be diversity of thought and diversity of background and um having um simply being open to people that are not exactly like ourselves so um and in any way this really can be and it's also about just in a more pragmatic way I think being respectful and being open to learning about other people and I think um one way to see it is also that it can feel like a burden to think about this additional requirement somehow but um I think it can become actually a competitive advantage to think of diversity for founders because
00:14:47
Speaker
We always say, you know, fail fast for startups. And um in a way, the best case scenario would probably be to fail even within the safe space of your team where you have someone that questions you and, know,
00:15:01
Speaker
maybe pushes back in a healthy way on some things because they're thinking in a different way about something than you are. and And so you don't even need to get to a point where you make the mistakes publicly or you make the mistakes that affect your company, but rather you have this very safe, trusting environment where people don't think exactly the same way and you can have a conversation about it. And that's, I think, why diversity should be important also for founders in early stages.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah, and I think, like you said, right, diversity is so much more than just gender. Like you said, I think it it's become a topic because I think that's what you can actually physically, not physically, but physically, like even just visually see. Like, you know, I speak of so many founders who are saying, oh, yeah, you know, we've...
00:15:42
Speaker
not through any fault of their own, but we've now got an all-male kind of founding team. We now need to kind of think about hiring more women. And and I think that is incredible. and i and i And I love it when founders say something like that. However, I do, like said, it's more than just that. It's diversity of thought.
00:15:58
Speaker
It's educational background. It's even just like in diversity of like industry, like where where else have they worked and kind of what could they bring to the team? yeah But I do think, like you said, with the metrics and the quotas, we sometimes get quite caught up in just that because that's all we can not all but that's what we seem to think we can measure and I think many founders get caught up in that spiral of oh we need to hire more women but they're not actually thinking about actually you know what else could we be doing to really diversify the company yeah yeah and then again obviously if you hire for instance more women in the team but then the women are exactly the same as everyone else in the team um and there is
00:16:34
Speaker
Maybe even less diversity than if you actually focused on being more open in general and maybe hiring, i don't know, an engineer instead of someone from a business background that also happens to be a woman, obviously in an ideal situation and also yeah from a different country and bring different perspectives.
00:16:48
Speaker
So I think obviously you want to ideally have a win-win where you have as much diversity within the right role and within the criteria that you need as possible um that still works together with the team.
00:17:00
Speaker
But just to say that sometimes focusing on these um easier, clearer metrics that everybody thinks about might in the end lead to even less diversity than if you keep an open mind and think of what other backgrounds can I bring in? What other type of diversity can I bring in? Yeah.
Mitigating Unconscious Bias
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah. And i think that's the kind of idea of that unconscious bias, because I think that that is very prominent in hiring decisions, right? And I think that's not like it's unconscious, so we don't really know that. But when I speak of founders before and and they've kind of maybe got a team of people that all went to the same university, just purely because that was who then who their network was and that's kind of who they've hired.
00:17:34
Speaker
And unconsciously that then kind of spills out into hiring decisions and kind of who they hire in the future. I guess from your side, what are maybe some of the common biases you've observed in the hiring process that you've seen and and maybe like how can founders overcome them? Because, you know, if I was to build a team, I would...
00:17:51
Speaker
unconsciously hire people that maybe have the same interests as me and kind of not um I don't say like me because that feels a bit weird but it just happens quite naturally how how would you maybe advise founders to to kind of overcome that and and what have you found to be the case with that yes 100% I think it's I mean the problem with unconscious bias is that obviously by definition it's hard for yourself to identify in yourself and it takes a lot of time to reflect and maybe also have some sort of mirror that can help you yeah and And I think this is maybe the first thing that comes to mind that helps is also to involve other people in the interview process.
00:18:28
Speaker
um ah People obviously that you trust and that you think will also hire someone that is going to be a great fit for the company. um And I think it's also important to then make sure that the opinions that these people have throughout the interview process are not linked to each other.
00:18:44
Speaker
because I don't know what your experience has been so far, I'm sure that you also saw it, but very often and I see that interviewers talk to each other before even talking to candidates. um And then what happens is maybe the first person had a great conversation and loved the candidate and then they go to the second person and they're like, I'm sending you this candidate and they're amazing and I can't wait for you to meet them. The only question mark that I have is on the quantitative part, for instance. And then the next person doesn't check anything else.
00:19:09
Speaker
and but i'm I'm exaggerating, right? But yeah, they don't check anything else but the quantitative part. And maybe they then ask the most difficult questions that they can ask on that side that they wouldn't have asked to other candidates.
00:19:22
Speaker
And so, you know, very skewed somehow in the end um interview where you are checking a candidate with a lot of blind spots somehow, things that the other person checked and already gave a click and a tick for. um And instead, you're raising the bar quite a lot on maybe question marks that wouldn't have even come up maybe for that interviewer.
00:19:42
Speaker
And so I think it's important to keep these separate data points in the interview process. And then in this situation, once you manage to do that, you can have a constructive conversation after and then also maybe spot each other's biases. So.
00:19:57
Speaker
You might see that the other person paid more attention to one thing than compared to you. And then obviously in an ideal situation also, everyone should reflect on themselves afterwards. Um, and then maybe ask themselves, okay, is this something that comes up often for me that maybe I am particularly positive when someone comes from that school or am particularly negative if someone doesn't nail the brain teaser, for instance.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah, no, you're so right. And I, and I've seen, seen that so happen so much, especially when it comes to like speaking before an interview. um A pairing comes to mind right away and and they always communicate before an interview. And then, like you say, when they have that conversation, nothing else was tested.
00:20:37
Speaker
But the one thing which maybe one person had a concern about, which is... I want to say, like, especially in a startup, it's not a terrible thing because of course, when you are hiring such a small team, you want to make sure that everyone's on the same page and everyone is on board with hiring that person. However, like you said, there could be people that maybe come through the process after that person. which get a much bigger grilling on everything as opposed to the one thing which that person was being tested about. So you're right. it's about being
When to Bring in HR Expertise
00:21:06
Speaker
aware of the data points and being aware of what other requirements, what are the must haves, what the nice haves and how can we actually compromise on things which you could see the potential in, you know, I think that's what's really important, especially in such a small company.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yes, exactly. So with what you said also regarding trying to keep somehow the same bar for everyone, i think it always helps to write down, even just in a very basic way on an Excel sheet or on a shared document, the main requirements that you think every candidate should have for the position so that You're not going to change them according to how much you like or dislike. can't do it in terms of gut feeling, right?
00:21:43
Speaker
um and And again, because it's unconscious, it's hard to check in the moment. So it's good to have your past self check in on you somehow in this case. Yeah, totally. And a lot of what we're speaking about in many startups does fall in the hands of the HR team. Of course, you and I have a lot of experience on these topics and in these sorts of um issues that maybe founders may be going through.
00:22:05
Speaker
But many startups may not even have me or you and in the first ah in the past few days or in the first few years, right? and So I guess from like what i'm trying to get is how... I mean, what what have you found to be the most common HR related challenges which founders maybe struggle with without actually having people like me or you on board or in place?
00:22:25
Speaker
I mean, of course, hiring at the beginning is usually one of the main topics that founders face. um And I completely understand that in many situations, it's very expensive to hire an HR person from the very beginning.
00:22:39
Speaker
And there are maybe other roles, as you said, on the tech side, which take priority. And it also depends, obviously, when it makes sense to hire an HR person in terms of size of the team and so on.
00:22:50
Speaker
um But I do think that there needs to be at least this awareness of, okay, there might be problems that will come up and on this side in in ah HR and in recruiting. And we need to keep an eye on on it and realize that maybe at some point you do need external help.
00:23:06
Speaker
And in in terms of when I think you you can try to hire someone in HR. it really varies from company to company. So sometimes it comes from preference of the founders. Some founders want to be more involved in the HR side. Some founders maybe a bit less prefer to outsource. um Or obviously if you are a company that is scaling very fast um and hiring for a lot of roles at the same time, that's obviously a huge problem for you in your in your list of of to-dos and priorities. And there it can definitely make sense to hire someone that can help you sooner rather than later.
00:23:42
Speaker
um So I would say these are definitely some of the topics. And then obviously and the whole culture um and maybe also feedback part um can come in when the team is a bit larger um or when there is a tiny bit more structure. And obviously yeah about the very, very early stages, right? so um So I would say that usually hiring comes first somehow. And then once you have hired the people, then you start having the feedback, the values, the culture building part, the team organization in general. Yeah.
00:24:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're so right. But the issue why it's I've sometimes found in that is that, of course, unconsciously, then you hire people who are maybe all in one kind of demographic or all kind of all like you, which means then the culture starts to form um like the people you have. Right. And and I always say, like, for many founders, you are the culture, unfortunately, when you are such a small company, when you're building from the ground up and from the very early days,
00:24:36
Speaker
people look to the founders as the, I don't say role models, but for the culture side of things, the kind of, um like the company, right, they are the company. So I find that sometimes that's really tricky, right, because then when you have these issues, and you have the culture side of things, bringing in HR then almost feels a bit too late, because the culture is pretty formed, and you've got people that have been there for ages, are have at in a certain way that may not be acceptable now right um and that's what i hear all the time like it's too early for us to hire HR we've got to kind of um keep these you know priorities sorted how like what advice would you give to founders who maybe are going through that it's too early but they're having issues like culture they're having issues around hiring they're having issues around retention how would you advise them on those topics yeah yeah no that that's completely true and so really 100% at the same time
00:25:26
Speaker
even though you might not find yourself yet in a situation where you have a standard full-time HR role within the team at the very beginning. But I think there is always a lot of value from having conversations with people that are experienced in this field, which can be agencies that you trust. It can be yeah the HR team from the investor side if you have this chance, like in our case.
00:25:49
Speaker
Or it can be there are quite a lot of super talented senior HR professionals that work at freelance as freelancers and advisors for startups. And they also come with this kind of very varied experience from having worked with different startups.
00:26:03
Speaker
And so, ah you know, in a way, i think every founder has a certain number of mistakes that they can make in their founding journey before they run out of time or money. and And you don't want for these kind of HR and recruiting mistakes to I think be the main ones that are going to then create problems if you can avoid them. yeah You can. So um I think it's important to talk to people before, even if you don't have the chance to hire someone full time yet. And I think that can be super valuable um as again, having a sort of external sparing partner that is going to give you a reality check um or even just question um whether
00:26:43
Speaker
you know, you're hiring maybe too many of the same people, as you said, or whether you could expand the talent ah market that you're looking at a bit. Yeah, so valuable. And I think
HR Essentials in Growing Startups
00:26:52
Speaker
many founders, of course, have a ah ah like such a great experience, right? at So many different companies before they become a founder.
00:26:59
Speaker
So they do have a network, I'm sure, of HR people they've worked with in previous companies that could actually help. and And you're right, it doesn't have to be a full time employee that you kind of commit to. full time or kind of permanently, but having that kind of external or sparring partner for topics or even something you can really speak to about this is is such a valuable asset to have, especially in those early days, because employer brand is so important as a startup. I think it's even more so as a startup because your name and reputation is what's going to carry you throughout your whole journey. Unfortunately, you don't have the backing of Google or the brand of YouTube or those big tech companies that can, you know, vouch for you. Right. So it has to, you have to get it right. And then that is how you can sort out these issues early on.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. And I've seen this also, quite often with, for instance, founders talking to senior tech people that they have met in their career to get advice on how to build the first tech team and what kind of CTO they should look for if the CTO is not one of the founders, obviously.
00:27:55
Speaker
um and And it should become normal to have the same approach, I think, also for ah hr and for recruiting. So, to get advice and get consulted from people that you trust or from people that your network trusts um so that you can at least understand what your options are and and um also what you should be mindful of in your HR journey in the company, let's say.
00:28:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I guess other than recruiting, hiring and and all of the topics which you've mentioned, when else do you see typically HR becoming a critical function of a startup's journey?
00:28:27
Speaker
Because i you know I would think hiring is a is the first thing, right? But again, if you manage to get through that hiring stage without having a HR team, when else is the kind of next? when When else, if I'm a founder now, when else should I look be looking for that next milestone that hit that I think, okay, actually, we should put someone in place now full time? Mm-hmm.
00:28:46
Speaker
I mean, again, i think it it's the answer, unfortunately, is always it depends. and It depends on the company and how fast they're growing as well. um But obviously, there comes a phase when there is this additional complexity from the employee management side oh having to structure the contracts in a way that makes sense for that particular company, which is obviously always very... somehow yeah move to the company in an ideal scenario and there i think it's also when it becomes valuable to have an expert on this side so on the labor law side and contract side and um trying to really do it in a smart way to also optimize for talent on that side not only on the hiring side so that's very much on the somehow hard skills in HR part and then on top of that someone in the in the people team needs to take on the the challenge of
00:29:36
Speaker
keeping the culture on track and making sure that the team stays cohese and gets along well and in a constructive way through all these changes that a startup might go through.
00:29:48
Speaker
um And I think, I don't think HR should be this micromanager function that checks on the other functions in a company. I think it should rather be an enabler, but again, bringing this kind of um mirror somehow to the founders or to the leadership where maybe you can flag if you see that there are any problems in And you're not the obviously the only person that should be responsible for these problems.
00:30:11
Speaker
Absolutely not. It should be the whole company. It should be the whole leadership team. And also, obviously, ideally, everyone should feel responsible. But I think it's it's good to have someone that has that closer to their heart, let's say, in the company. And that should definitely, in my opinion, also be one of the roles of of the people function.
00:30:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think the labor law is is such a valid point, right? Because, you know, especially, for example, in fintechs, there's so many regulatory practices they have to go through before even hiring someone. and And if you don't have that person who has been through that before, it may be mistakes that you make along the way that are quite costly, right? So actually having someone who has experience in the field which you're in, um ideally that has done it before, right, that's been through a startup, grown it, and then kind of starting again is is what's so important.
00:30:56
Speaker
And also, of course, and if the company is expanding to different locations, there is so much other complexity that comes from that. And um also mobility within the the company. Obviously, it's very nice to have to give the chance to employees to move to different offices. And a lot of startups have been very successful and scale ups in this.
00:31:15
Speaker
um But then um you might somehow make the move before you actually figure out if it's possible to do it. so you might promise it before figuring out how to. yeah um And that's also where I think you need someone that is experienced in that direction, for instance.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah. And it can become but quite costly, right? I see so many startups having to use platforms like remote.com or Dill because they're having to set up contracts with people who are not in the same country. And that is so costly. I mean, when I found out I was working a startup who was having to use them and I found out how much it was costing them. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is they were They were almost having to, unfortunately, offer the candidate of less so they could actually pay remote.com or deal the fee they deserved or they they required, which meant the candidate was worse off. So again, it it can also be quite costly by not having a HR function because you're having to pay other people yeah for something which you could have someone in-house doing as well.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And this is, I think, exactly the perfect example of one of the situations where a generalist HR person in the company would have been maybe the first one to flag. Yeah.
00:32:21
Speaker
ah Actually rethink this and should we check if it's really feasible for us financially or in terms of time ah consumption um to hire this person in a completely different country um or not.
00:32:34
Speaker
And so you kind of put an end to it from the beginning if needed. Or you say, let's find a better way to do it. And if this is really our priority and we want to hire half of the team, for instance, in the other location, then maybe it makes sense ah to hire someone that knows how to do this properly, for instance. And it's also going to be cheaper. So I think there are a lot of considerations and Every time it's very much specific to the company and there is definitely a stage which again depends on on how fast the company is growing. um But at some point you need someone that has this kind of overview of what's happening in the company in general on a people side and also flags problems when they see them proactively.
00:33:12
Speaker
Yeah, because i think sometimes we associate the people function and the HR team with just culture and employer brand and and what we call the fluffy terms. And really, actually, they are the backbone behind all the kind of operations, especially in a startup with how this is actually going to run.
00:33:27
Speaker
And you're right, it's almost having someone that can see issues that arise before we have the issue as opposed to here's the issue we're now having to pay a lot of money to kind of get this done because we've offered someone who is in a different country and we can't afford to hire them you're right it's it's more than just culture and people it's it's like the actual how do we run this company without it costing us a hell of a lot of money for hiring or for any other issue Yeah, yeah, absolutely. i couldn't agree more. yeah yeah And I guess, you know, some takeaways for founders who are maybe in this situation right now, who are facing a few issues or have faced a few issues, still don't have a HR function on board. Of course, like you said, it is very context dependent on what situation you're in and kind of even like money wise, do you have enough money to this?
00:34:12
Speaker
But what practical steps would you maybe give to founders in this situation right now? I think, again, what we mentioned, reaching out to people that ah might already have experience in this field can be very valuable and and getting their insights on on some of the main problems that they might see coming up in the next six months or one year for your company. So even just a one hour, two hour conversation with a few different people could really help, I think. And so I think this is the first thing I would do, reaching out to your network. It can be the investors, it can be, again, agencies that you have closer to you or previous people that you worked with, as you said.
00:34:48
Speaker
um And then I think just in general, trying to um think about these problems proactively rather than, as you said, when they come up um might save a lot of headaches, I would say.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, no, amazing. Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. I think headaches need to be saved because I think there are so many cool and amazing startups are out there right now who could be coming out there. but when they get bogged down with maybe issues which they shouldn't maybe be dealing with right now that's when I start to feel quite sad for them because I think they have such great ideas and such great passion and and all that. But then they get caught up in the actual side of things which someone else could really help with. you know Finding that external expert really is is key.
00:35:28
Speaker
And you could work with them on a freelance basis or you could work with them. um i don't want to say give away equity, right? But there's other ways you can work with them without actually having to to kind of employ them. So yeah, I couldn't agree more.
00:35:38
Speaker
Yeah, and in the end, obviously, the most important thing is to have a successful company that can focus on the product, the customers, on the exciting goals that you have in the journey. So um obviously,
Episode Reflection and Wrap-up
00:35:50
Speaker
it's it's something that should be positive. We try to enable them um in our recruiting capacity or HR capacity um to focus on what's really important and try to avoid having problems that um you can avoid having, let's say.
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I mean, the world of tech is changing so much. So there there are now also so many tools which you can use to actually help with this. But again, it's about having the people on board and and everyone and in the right direction, because like you said, the product and what we're building is what matters.
00:36:17
Speaker
and We shouldn't get caught up in the intricacies of of the issues which come up. Yes. um If there are ways we can avoid them, then 100 percent, why not? Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Well, thank you, Jo, for joining me. It's such an insightful conversation. Even I took so much away from this with regards to hiring, with regards to founders, their journey, HR.
00:36:35
Speaker
and So yeah, thank you so much for joining me. Same here. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much, Shadeh. And have an amazing day.