The U.S. is a cool country. It’s full of people with innovative ideas and dreams of products and services to help fellow citizens in some way
or another. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how revolutionary that idea is if it doesn’t have the right strategy to grow from a startup to a booming business. Forbes recently reported that only about 10 percent of startups are successful in their endeavors. That’s right – starting a business has a 90 percent failure rate.
At this point you’re reading this as one of two people: One of you has started to reconsider your future as an entrepreneur, and the other is overly-confident you’re in the 10 percent. Truthfully, it’s not advantageous to be either of these people. Instead, you want to be someone who approaches the start of your business with a smart, level head. Many times a business does not fail because it has a bad product or service, but instead because it ignores even the most standard of business processes. Therefore, believe it or not, your human resources team is the key to your success.
Consider these tips on how to make your startup succeed:
Follow rules and regulations
The government is constantly passing rules and regulations based on the size of your company or on federal and local levels and somehow, it’s your job to stay on top of it all. But remaining compliant is no easy task, and many businesses find themselves in such a state of confusion that their best idea is to ignore the problem. This move is ill-advised however.
“HR outsourcing services can help you decipher what is best for your company.”
Just Works blog explained that the Affordable Care Act is one of the biggest headaches for businesses of all sizes, but the solution is simple: offer health insurance. Of course, there’s a little more to it than that, there are tons of packages and policies to sift through. However, your HR professionals, or HR outsourcing services organization, can help you decipher what is best for your company.
Rules and regulations also fall under spaces such as: proper interviewing techniques, payroll, anti-discrimination laws and administrative paper work.
Don’t undervalue benefits packages or culture
Inc.com spoke with Christopher Thierry, president of Etelesolv who explained that many companies don’t build a proper HR department – the outcome is usually something more like a psychiatric service for office feuds. Don’t let this be your company. Your HR team should be devoted to building culture as much as it is the master of the latest rules and regulations mentioned above. This will help keep employees on board with your company for the long haul. Retention of employees is crucial for startups because the churn and burn style of employment means lost time and resources, which could be well spent in other areas of a business. It’s your HR department’s duty to drive culture and design benefits packages based on the needs of your employees – so give the people what they want!
Take the headache out of running your new business by employing an HR outsourcing service.Clearly define roles and goals
Overall, you need to ensure everyone in your company knows their position and its expectations. It can be hectic when you first start building a business, so giving everyone proper guidance will help smooth out the process by showing who is accountable for what. Transparency should be your motto throughout the entire company as well. Founder and CEO of Six Dimensions, Tejune Kang explained to Inc.com that an HR team is crucial to helping maintain relationships.
“Our department was able to help me better understand the personal side of employees and gave me better exposure to them and their needs. As the organization increased in size, the direct contact with employees decreased, and human resources became invaluable in bridging relationships within the organization,” said Kang.
Now – assuming you’ve done your due-diligence on analyzing your product or service for the market – you should be well on your way to a successful startup.