Startups & Scaling
When Does a Startup Need HR?
The honest answer isn't a headcount number. It's a set of symptoms — and most founders recognize at least three of them before they act.
5 min read
Symptoms, not headcount
The common advice — hire HR at 50 people — is a rule of thumb hiding a real question: what has the business started doing badly?
- Pay decisions are made case by case and people have started comparing.
- New managers are managing for the first time with no framework.
- The founder is handling employee relations issues personally.
- Onboarding depends on one person's memory.
- Nobody can answer what the company's performance expectations are.
- You are hiring faster than you are integrating.
This is People debt
Every one of these is cheap to fix at 30 employees and expensive at 100, because by then the bad pattern is precedent. Fixing precedent means changing something people already treat as a promise.
What to do first
Not a full HR department. A short structured build — compensation structure, manager expectations, hiring process, employment essentials and a system of record — followed by someone experienced owning it part-time until the volume justifies a full-time hire.
Next step
This is the kind of problem we build, operate and lead through with clients.
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