No one wants to hear about misconduct at work, especially personal mistreatment through any form of prejudice.
What’s currently happening at Uber is scary, but it also allows us to peek further into office dynamics that we don’t talk publicly about enough.
My foray into the HR industry has me pointing my magnifying glass at issues like this to hone in on the root of the problem. It goes without saying that a startup like Uber is going to hit speed bumps. It’s inevitable when you hire dozens of new workers every week.
But without the right infrastructure, the right training, and the right processes, you’ll find almost every company bursting at the seams – whether the issues become public or not.
So what have I seen work and what do I recommend for this in general?
Here are some things you can do to increase the chances that your operation and the way you treat your people will be a force for good, instead of a risk for bad, for your organization:
- Hire a leader of people as soon as possible. This doesn’t mean just hire an HR Manager. It means hire someone that can truly manage people from the C-level. This holds someone accountable for enacting policies, building the culture, and interacting with the frontlines — all while being able to liaison with the leaders of the company in real-time.
- Any HR Managers underneath the C-Level “People Officer” should report to the Officer AT LEAST once a week. It will always be important to talk about new hires, problem areas, refine policies, complete internal documents, and simply get ahead of the many points of concern that will pop up within a fast-growth company.
- Similarly, the CEO should hold a “Culture” meeting no less than monthly, whether it be with the Officer or the HR lead. The CEO should always be in the know, and should always be buying into the concept behind putting their “people first” as the company grows.
- Open up a method of communication that allows for both sides of the coin. Employees can speak to their Managers directly in-person OR issue a concern anonymously. This type of structure is rarely abused and establishes an open line of communication without risk. This can and should be facilitated with HR tools that are already available on the market.
- Do make your HR organization about culture and leadership first and foremost. I have heard many HR leaders called “Culture Controllers.” That’s a good way to empower them to worry about morale and aligning everybody with the company’s core values and path to success.
- Always have a company handbook that lays out the rules of behavior in the workforce. You can never do this too early. You set the tone early and it propagates. It is great if you can start with your values, clearly laid out for everyone, and then lay out the rules and what happens if they are not followed.
- Build a robust and thorough employee onboarding process. Each new hire should almost feel overwhelmed (in a good way) by the amount of learning they’d have to do initially. At the same time, however, they should be paced accordingly and not expected to dive in any earlier than after a few weeks of shadowing and meeting everybody they will be interacting with. Onboarding is far more than “here’s your laptop, here’s your desk, here’s your boss.” It needs to be a few weeks of getting ingrained in the values, culture, systems, processes, and rules. It should be learning about every part of the organization, the current operating plan, strategic priorities, management team, and more.
There are far more “rules” to live by, but I’ll digress to the aforementioned few (for now). We haven’t even begun to scratch the service on offering the right employee benefits to heighten morale and culture.
It’s critical that you talk about all of this stuff in your all hands meetings regularly and often. Use the current Uber controversy to spearhead an internal initiative to enact some of these best practices and empower leaders in your organization to take ownership of your culture.
If you don’t prioritize this stuff, you’ll never find the time to do it correctly. Proceed with care. Your employees are watching you.