1. People Matters captures
the 2016 talent agenda
of leaders; the talent
'big rocks' that they will
look at accomplishing and
their biggest priority in
planned talent initiatives
TALENT
AGENDA
2016
BIG INTERVIEW
Josh Bersin
SUPPLEMENT
Total Rewards
SPECIAL STORY
India Skills Report 2015
VOLVII/ISSUE1/JANUARY2016

2. |january 201690
GUESTCOLUMN
rohit hasteer
A baby growing up
The challenges of Start-ups in the phase where they are propelling from
infancy to adolescence are almost common, but there are some things
for HR to keep in mind in this phase
I
n the first half of FY 2015, VCs
invested over $3.5 billion through
more than 200 deals into startups
at various stages of their existence,
right from Angel round to series I. A
combination of global economic factors,
a huge consumer base, cheap telecommu-
nications and a rich pool of ideators and
IT engineers have given a strong fillip
to people to increasingly choose entrep-
reneurship over employment and in the
process also further creating employment
opportunities. As more and more nascent
startups find their footing and get funding,
we are seeing a frenzied pace of growth
from nascent to adolescent.
This frenzied growth reminds me of
those Amitabh Bachchan movies from the
70s where the opening shot has a scene of
a child running and by the time the scene
ends, you basically have your grown up
hero. Well that probably sums up how
startups grow up. Not all, however, manage
this growth well and we’ve seen how quite
a few falter and stumble.
One can appreciate that this phase of
growth is quite challenging one and among
other things given the sheer pace at which
this needs to be done. Getting it right then
is both a science and art. It is not just about
increasing headcount, it is also about buil-
ding the organization, bringing in quality
talent, developing a common purpose and
culture, and then driving performance.
We’ve been going through a similar phase
having grown from a few hundred to a
thousand plus, tripling our size in under
one year. This article shares some of the
challenges, learnings and things we are
still working on and learning as we go.
Always one person short: A startup is
a place where you’ll always be one person
short. There are just so many things to do.
Hence, functional managers typically keep
requesting for additional roles and additio-
nal headcount. When business is expan-
ding (and funded), the temptation to go out
and immediately hire is immense. But we
took a call to always check for alternatives
first, making the hiring manager think for
options such as automation, role enhan-
cement, empowerment etc. Ensuring due
thought was given to “need” of the role/
headcount, we then get the hiring mana-
gers spell out the “purpose” of the role in a
Job Description (JD), making them clearly
articulate what is the value add that this
role brings to the organization, their expe-
ctations and the kind of profile that would
be able to do justice to the role. It has been
found that a thorough effort at this stage
has had a positive impact on hiring cycle
time and results in quicker conversions.
These two steps have worked to ensure that
talent growth is planned and aligned to
long-term vision for the organization and
not under short-term workload pressures.
Hire in hurry but not in a rush: Any
manager can tell the cost of delayed hiring
Getting it right is
both a science and
art — it is not just
about increasing
headcount, but
about building
the organization,
bringing in quality
talent, developing a
common purpose
and culture,
and driving
performance

3. january 2016 | 91
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but the cost of a bad hire is something that
the entire organization feels. But when
you’ve got to triple the headcount, how do
you ensure that there are no short cuts
on quality and yet hiring speed is main-
tained. We used the bootstrap mode of
RPOs while we built our HR team. A key to
maintaining quality was investing time and
energies explaining the JD to the recrui-
ters (in-house or consultants) in detail, to
provide them clarity on aspects such as
where the role sits in the organization, what
would be its challenges, what makes the
role exciting, or what kind of profiles would
most likely be able to do justice to this role.
A recruiter who has clarity of these is an
effective recruiter.As we built internal team
strength, we also discovered another magic
key to quality and speed both – employee
referrals! It has been found by experience
that quality of referral hires on an average
has been delightfully good. For this reason,
we have designed a very lucrative referral
program, along with some governance
to ensure a referral is someone the team
knows personally and is not just any
resume being forwarded. This has helped
referrals as a part of our sourcing mix to be
as high as 40 percent and something we are
looking to drive up further.
The first impression: Getting the
impression right on the day of the joining
has a direct correlation on employee
tenure and to a quite an extent also on
performance. Startups being a high churn
industry, retaining those who join is thus
crucial for growth, otherwise all you get is
a leaky bucket that empties as fast it fills.
That is why employee onboarding has been
one area where our HR team has spent and
continues to spend the most of its energies
in constantly evolving the on-boarding
process. Our onboarding process gets
activated much before a candidate joins
with multiple personal interactions on
call and email before joining to the joining
day where they find all the little things
pre-arranged for (from laptops and tabs that
are ready to go to visiting cards and work
stations all setup.). Other than that, based
on role and grade, customized interaction
programs jointly owned by HR and business
are created to ensure that the newbie gets
familiar with the relevant stakeholders.
Build talent: Both as a responsibility
towards theemployees and also as a need of
the hour, it is important to ensure that we
help our talent to constantly reinvent them-
selves. For our frontline sales, the onbo-
arding process itself gets extended into
training and certification so that our people
become quickly enabled and empowered to
deliver on the ground. This also allows us
to then reach out to sales talent pool outside
our industry thus enabling us to get the
best without being constrained by industry
experience. Similarly, in other functions
especially in Technology where we have
campus hires, they get to learn new tech-
nologies as well as get cracking on Proof
of Concept projects with project mentors
to coach and guide them. There’s also a
culture of sharing knowledge with the
seniors holding open house sessions and
sharing their experiences and knowledge.
Most startups give stupendous salaries, it’s
not a strong differentiator anymore. The
value add in terms of the skill growth has
helped us to have a different conversation
with our potential talent pool, one that they
find holds well when they check and vali-
date from their friends working with us.
Honest Performance Conversati-
ons: Two things that are highly espoused
as part of our culture are performance
and transparency. We’ve found that what
employees appreciate is an honest conver-
sation. Hence, we are building systems and
processes that drive that intent. Our goal
setting exercise ensures that new joiners
work with their managers within the first
fortnight of joining and freeze upon expe-
ctations for the year. In frontline functions
like sales, that are metrics driven, updates
on performance are shared with the entire
sales team fortnightly. This allows the
members to not only see how they are
faring but also how everyone else is doing.
This kind of openness helps build trust and
Rohit Hasteer is the Chief Human Resource
Officer at PropTiger
About the author
an atmosphere of honesty and transparency
and both avoids bias as well as a perceived
feeling of being biased against. For those
performing well they also find that the orga-
nization rewards them handsomely with an
incentive scheme that gets more aggressive
at higher level. The Reward and Recognition
program also aids in this with our ethos of
public felicitation and recognition of those
who perform. Who is getting recognized and
what kind of performance and behaviors
are getting recognized then become a
transparent message to all. We’ve extended
this transparent conversation even to team
members’ families in the form of commen-
dation letters.
Each startup also has its own unique
story, something that connects with both
customers and employees. Through various
touch points, be it our careers page, our
recruiters, social media, JDs, we constantly
try and engage with the talent pool to ensure
that they understand and get excited about
our raison d'être, the kind of people we are
and the kind of environment, work and
culture they can expect to find once they
join in. This avoids any surprises or heart-
burns post joining.While some of these may
sound basic but we’ve found executing them
well has the most impact.
Getting the impression right on the day
of the joining has a direct correlation
on employee tenure and to quite an
extent also on performance