There’s no great hack to recruiting and retaining staff

Many startups dismiss basic HR principles, largely due to a lack of resources or time. However, there’s no great hack to a good HR team and successfully hiring and retaining staff. It’s a combination of factors that make this successful. The Entrepreneur Handbook does point out that:

'Team disharmony is repeatedly cited as one of the biggest reasons why startups fail, which is hardly a surprise. Most new startups don’t have a designated HR manager, and most CEOs lack the proper HR training. Instead, they rely on the company’s grandiose vision or founder’s social skills to compensate for the lack of basic procedures. That typically works well enough the first few months, and then the dust begins to settle, and operational holes become evident. If you live by the hype, you die by the hype.

There’s a reason why startup accelerators prefer teams with a long history of working together, preferably across multiple projects. It shows they’re less likely to just get in a fight one day, pack up their laptop and leave everything behind. On the other hand, you can be sure that investors look at employee retention rate as a sign of your CEO prowess. Bottom line: you can hack industry standards. You can’t hack people.'

With this in mind, the Entrepreneur Handbook has put together some great advice for startups on recruiting new staff and retaining staff. This advice can be viewed here.