No HR Plan for Your Web3 Startup? Here’s What You’ll Wish You Had Done

We recently had the pleasure of helping one of our Web3 clients make their first couple of hires. I couldn’t help thinking, however, about some of the things they’ll wish they had done regarding HR—especially if they grow as quickly as they expect to.

Your Web3 startup may be well-funded and have plenty of NFT projects lined up. But if you’ve also got big plans for growth, here are my top 5 recommendations for optimizing your HR during the early days so you can avoid equally big headaches later.

1. Don’t label mentors as managers

With limited resources, and an all-hands-on-deck mindset, early employees of small, fast-growing companies are often tasked with assisting more junior team members. They’re even, in many cases, given manager titles.

What these employees are rarely given, however, is the full-fledged authority a manager needs to be successful, including the ability to:

·       Grant pay raises

·       Approve vacation time

·       Fire staff when necessary

Those responsibilities are typically reserved for the company’s founders.

The point is that startups at this stage don’t have managers—they have mentors. And that’s an important distinction.

Mentors can play an important role in assigning work, providing feedback, and taking responsibility for the growth of other employees. But calling them managers in the short term can lead to a great deal of friction when:

·       Rapid growth alters your company structure and employee responsibilities

·       You introduce a middle management or senior leadership layer

·       New heads of departments become managers in more than just name

We’ve seen many organizations struggle with how to ‘take back’ manager titles from senior employees. So unless you’re giving these team members complete manager authority, do yourself a favor and label them the mentors they are.

2. Build your administrative base around growth

Most of the time when fast-growing companies look for ‘HR help’, what they really need is a solid administrator who can ensure HR tools are built with a company of 25-50 employees in mind.

Here are a couple of key HR administrative tasks that, when done properly, will prevent headaches later.

Work with a dedicated employment lawyer. Employment law and corporate law are two separate fields. Much like you wouldn’t hire a criminal defense attorney to help close your real estate deal, you shouldn’t turn to your corporate lawyer for employee contracts when you’re ready to recruit. Having a dedicated employment lawyer along will make your entire growth journey significantly easier, HR-wise.

Use a simple HRIS/Payroll system. You can keep employee contracts in folders and have your accountant manually run payroll. But once you’re a team of 10, you’ll wish you had an easier way to store employee data and track things like vacation time and salary increases. We like Collage as an HRIS (human resources information system) for most of our clients. But you can expect any best-fit system to save valuable time and easily make the monthly fee worthwhile.

3. Work on your employer brand now

Your employer brand is a combination of what you say it’s like to work for your company and what others say about working for you. You should never leave your branding up to chance—especially if (like many companies in emerging spaces) your working environment is tougher than most.

You can start working on your brand by:

·       Creating a simple careers page on your website that describes your mission and clarifies why people would want to come work with you

·       Asking engaged staff to leave reviews for your organization on sites like Glassdoor

Intentionally driving messaging around what it’s like to work for your company now will help shape a brand that makes it easier to attract the best candidates in future.

4. Communicate your vision for growing your headcount

Virtually everything that worked for your team of 10 is likely to stop working once you reach 25—and break down again when your team numbers 50. You should be thinking strategically about your company’s structure with those pivotal headcounts in mind and sharing that vision with your employees.

The number one challenge organizations struggle with as they grow is the management of employee expectations—especially when it comes to how roles are likely to change. One key point that often comes up, for example, is that employees are unlikely to have the same access to company executives that they once did.

The more you can do to set accurate expectations from day one—and communicate that company growth equals shared success—the better prepared your employees will be to accept the inevitability of change.

5. Commit to properly training your managers

No matter what company culture you create—and which employee perks you offer—staff will stay or go based on who their manager is, and how successful they are at engaging their team.

Many fast-growing companies in emerging markets feel their people don’t have the time (read: it’s not a priority) to commit to manager training. But if there’s one thing we see over and over with similar clients, it’s that a small training investment upfront can save hundreds of wasted hours down the road.

Managers who’ve learned how to produce great results through others contribute to higher retention rates, greater clarity and alignment within teams, and more effective execution of work.

Looking for an approach to HR planning that’s as modern as your business? A Modern Way To Work was founded as an antidote to outdated thinking!

Get in touch and find out how our manager training, recruitment, and fractional HR can help set your business up for success.