A strong culture means people want to get up in the morning, sit at their desks, work through challenges together, and see projects through to the end.
Being the first HR person at a newly established startup is both exhilarating and daunting. You’re tasked with building the HR function from the ground up, often with limited resources and support.
To explore the ups and downs of navigating this journey, I spoke to Lauren Stein, Chief of Staff at GrowthLoop, about her experience in setting up the HR infrastructure and building a value-driven, people-first culture that doesn’t just preach but demonstrates these values in action.
Q: Can you tell us about your first couple of weeks, as an HR professional who just joined a startup? What was going through your mind, and what helped you navigate through those initial days?
Lauren: Being the solo HR person at a growing company can feel daunting and overwhelming, but with the right resources, plan, and support, it can also be a significant opportunity for career growth. Reflecting on my experience, my first few days at GrowthLoop were quite challenging. I was the first non-engineering hire, which meant I had to handle a wide array of tasks outside of traditional HR duties.
Thankfully, I had a supportive manager who understood the learning curve and was available to help. We also used comprehensive HRIS systems that provided quick answers to many questions. The scariest part was navigating the unknown and figuring out where to find information. However, once I understood the layout and knew whom to approach for specific questions, things became much more manageable.
The key takeaway is the importance of quickly learning who to go to for various issues. This helps streamline your work and avoids repeatedly asking the same person for directions. Once I had that under control, everything else fell into place, making the experience much smoother.
Q: In your opinion, what do you think truly defines a company’s culture, especially in a startup or a growing company?
I think people often get blinded by perks like cold brew on tap and free pizza and assume these perks equate to a great company culture. However, what’s truly important goes much deeper.
Lauren: When you’re working at a growing company, there’s so much change, so many ups and downs, and it can be quite challenging. It takes a lot of grit and perseverance to navigate through these times. The most crucial element, I believe, is operating under the same mission and values. That’s why hiring value-driven people is so essential in a growing company. Hiring for soft skills and values over technical skills ensures that as the company grows, the culture remains strong and cohesive.
A strong culture means people want to get up in the morning, sit at their desks, work through challenges together, and see projects through to the end. At a growing company, whether it’s landing your first few clients, building a product with numerous bugs, or dealing with customer issues, it’s the shared mission and values that keep the team motivated and aligned.
The most underestimated aspect of culture is the shared value system and operating under the same company mission. Our mission at GrowthLoop is to help enterprise companies grow by unifying their teams around first-party data. We all operate with this mission in mind, allowing us to have a significantly greater and faster impact with the companies we work with.
As the company evolves, it’s important to revisit and sometimes revise these values and missions to ensure they still make sense for the business. It’s okay to change them every few years if needed, and doing so ceremoniously with the current team can reinforce the new value system, ensuring everyone continues to operate cohesively.
Q: At our company, we use recognition to reinforce our values. Do you also use recognitions, or is there a different approach that you take to reinforce company values?
Lauren: A few things, actually, and I love that you brought that up.
Value-Based Recognitions
We use 15Five, which is a similar engagement platform, and it allows us to give shout-outs where we can attach a value to the recognition. This makes it very specific and peer-to-peer based.
Highlighting Core Values on Slack
In addition to that, we also highlight our core values on Slack throughout the week. Whenever someone does something that aligns with our values, we make sure to recognize it publicly. For instance, if we close a big deal or achieve something significant with a customer, we tag a value to it when we highlight it on Slack.
Public Recognition and “Living Our Values”
Moreover, during our company-wide meetings every Friday, we have a section called “Living Our Values.” In these meetings, we highlight instances where individuals exemplified our core values in a significant way. This goes beyond just Slack recognition; it’s about publicly acknowledging and celebrating those values across the entire company. This shared recognition helps to maintain a consistent understanding and reinforcement of our values throughout the organization.
For example, one of our core values centers around customers: “Our love for our customers drives us to go the extra mile and build the best products for them.” This core value lives in every team — not just our customer success team. It translates to customer-requested product features on the engineering team, in-person workshops with solutions architects on the data team, and thoughtful interviews with both purchasers and product users on the marketing team.
Creating “Drum Beats”
We also love creating “drumbeats” at GrowthLoop – whether it’s launching a new AI audience tool or re-launching our company values (which we did at our first full company retreat). . Drumbeats get people excited and keep important messages top-of-mind. When we updated our values in 2024, it was crucial to make sure everyone appreciated and understood them. So, we built this drumbeat where we continuously talk about our values and highlight how they make sense for our business.
15-minute rule
We have a 15-minute rule at our company as part of our core values: If you’re still stuck after 15 minutes, reach out for help. We emphasize this during onboarding, making it clear that it’s not just encouraged but required. While there are no repercussions if you don’t ask for help, we stress the importance of this practice because it aligns with our value system of teamwork and mutual support.
This rule helps prevent prolonged frustration and inefficiency. It’s all about fostering a collaborative environment where we all operate under the same mission and values.
Q: What were some of the initial challenges you faced in your early days as the only HR person at your company, and how did you address them?
Lauren: In the beginning, my biggest challenge was the sheer volume of tasks and the need to quickly get up to speed. The CEO, who had been handling many of these tasks, needed to scale himself out to focus on larger strategic issues as the business grew and the number of customers increased.
Challenge: There was a lot to learn and not much time to do it. This included learning new systems and processes that were unfamiliar to me, which was both exciting and daunting.
Solution: To address these challenges, I embarked on what I call a “listening tour.” During my first few weeks, I met with every single person in the company—thankfully, there were only about 15 people at the time. I asked specific questions about
- their roles
- what they liked and didn’t like
- how I could add value, and
- how different roles could support each other
Impact: This approach allowed me to quickly connect the dots and understand the company’s needs from the ground up. I then presented my findings to my manager, highlighting key areas that needed attention based on team feedback. This not only helped prioritize tasks but also showed the team that I was there to support them, building trust early on. This continuous feedback loop and focus on building relationships have remained central to my approach as we’ve grown.
Q: Can you share an example of the impact of the approach of a continuous feedback loop?
Lauren: One great example that came from these conversations was addressing the issue of fragmented work time due to constant meetings. Employees, especially on the data and analytics teams, mentioned that it was hard to get focused work done because their time was frequently interrupted by meetings. They would start a project, then get pulled into a meeting, and it was hard to regain that focus.
To solve this, we worked with our customers and created “deep work blocks” in the mornings. This meant all meetings were scheduled in the afternoons, allowing our teams to have uninterrupted time for focused work in the mornings. This simple change was well-received because it respected their most productive time of day and allowed them to work more efficiently.
Q: How did you go about implementing policies and processes at a startup?
Lauren: Implementing policies and processes in a growing company can feel bureaucratic, especially for those used to a more flexible environment. To ease this transition, I introduced changes in phases.
For example, when I started, expense submissions were done informally via Slack. As we grew, I implemented a more structured process through a platform that required approvals from finance. This was done gradually to avoid overwhelming the team.
Another challenge was participating in RFPs (Request for Proposals). Initially, I handled each questionnaire manually, but as the volume increased, this became unsustainable. I worked with the sales engineering team to create an RFP resource database, as well as an internal RFP tool that has helped streamline the RFP process. Most enterprise companies we work with use RFPs to collaborate so it was important to come up with an efficient and effective way to work with prospects on their RFPs. I worked with the sales engineering team to create a repository of answers and introduced an RFP tool that automated much of the process. This phased approach helped the team transition smoothly and feel empowered to self-serve.
Overall, my strategy has been to identify bottlenecks, implement changes gradually, and ensure that processes have a clear purpose. By doing so, we’ve been able to build a robust infrastructure without overwhelming the team.
Q: Are there specific policies required by law that companies need to establish immediately? How did you approach this at your company? Did you handle it yourself or rely on your legal team?
Lauren: We approach this in a few different ways.
- Ask your vendor for support: First, we use Justworks for our HRIS platform, which has been incredibly helpful. They offer 24-hour support with knowledgeable staff and HR consultants. Often, I call them and say, “Hey, we’re a growing company. What do you think we should have in place?” They were always ready to provide guidance.
When you start hiring in multiple states, it’s crucial to have a people system that can operate across all states. Justworks acts as a PEO, handling unemployment tax, insurance, and compliance across all 50 states. They take care of the necessary paperwork and send us detailed instructions for any compliance actions we need to take.
- Ask employees what they need: Apart from that, we try to keep up with market trends by asking what employees want and need. I often talk to HR peers to learn about effective policies they’ve implemented.
For example, we introduced strong parental leave policies, including maternity and paternity leave, and support for medical needs. Every year, during health insurance renewals, we survey our team to understand which benefits they value most. While we can’t promise everything, we’re always open to exploring new options.
Currently, IVF support is a popular request, and we’re considering it because it not only makes us a competitive employer but also has a positive impact on our employees’ lives.
Overall, it’s about listening and learning to find a balance between what employees need and what the business can support.
Q: How do you balance hiring for skills and experience with hiring for culture fit? What strategies have worked for you?
Lauren: Hiring for culture fit is probably the most important thing at our business. We value individuals with grit, determination, and a willingness to learn quickly. It takes a certain kind of person to embrace failure, learn from it fast, and then try again. Often, these individuals may not have all the skill sets listed in typical job descriptions.
To address this, we focus on a few non-negotiable skills rather than an extensive list.
For example, we might require specific years of experience in a particular area or specific skills relevant to the role. This approach allows us to prioritize culture fit during the hiring process. We ask ourselves: Will people enjoy working with this person? Will this person be a team player? Will they prioritize the company’s success over their own?
Our recruiting team is excellent at screening for these qualities upfront. We’ve had candidates who were perfect on paper but weren’t a culture fit based on their responses to specific questions and their overall attitude. Conversely, we’ve hired people who seemed perfect for the role but didn’t mesh well with the team, and we’ve had to let them go.
Q: What are some tools and platforms, especially AI platforms, that you have used when you first started off?
Lauren: I’ve used Justworks at pretty much every company I’ve worked at, and I highly recommend it. Beyond that, there are a few other tools that have been incredibly helpful.
- First, an engagement and performance management platform. Initially, we were using Google Docs for everything, which was incredibly messy and disorganized. Moving to an engagement platform was a game-changer. It integrated performance reviews with shout-outs, allowing managers to see all the recognition an employee had received alongside their performance review.
- Another essential tool is an AI search tool. We use Notion for our company wiki, which now includes a search bar with AI capabilities. Tools like Springworks (Albus) and Glean are also excellent. They integrate with various platforms like Slack, Google Drive, and Notion, enabling complex searches to access information quickly. This is especially helpful for implementing processes and creating a self-serve system for the team, particularly when information is scattered across different tools.
- Additionally, AI tools with note-taking and action item capabilities are incredibly useful, especially for managing cross-functional meetings.
Q: How do you decide what tools and processes are needed and when? Did their implementation depend on the company goals?
Lauren: It depended on a few factors:
- company goals,
- employee feedback, and
- budget
This is how we go about it:
- We conduct employee surveys twice a year—in June/July and at the end of the year.
- We ask what would be helpful in their roles and what improvements they’d like to see.
- When we received this feedback and knew we had the budget, we decided it was time to implement an engagement tool. We carefully selected the right tool based on our team’s needs.
Similarly, when we hired a recruiting team, they found our manual process in Notion cumbersome and requested an applicant tracking system (ATS) to improve efficiency and candidate experience. After evaluating a few options, we implemented an ATS, which significantly enhanced our hiring process and overall candidate experience.
Our approach involves listening to employee needs, assessing our budget, and then finding the best tools to meet those needs.
Q: As a company grows, the people function evolves and faces new challenges. At what point did you start building your HR team, and how did you address those challenges while maintaining the company culture?
When I started, I made sure to meet everyone on the team. Thankfully, we were only 15 people, so it was easy to connect with each person. As we’ve grown, and as more people have joined my team or have been associated with my team, I’ve tried to maintain that small-team feel.
I’ve noticed that people often fear losing access to someone they trust during times of change. Here’s how you can address this fear:
- Throughout these transitions, I remain very high-touch, checking in frequently to ensure things are going smoothly. I ask if there are any issues and offer support. This approach helps maintain trust and shows that I’m still present and involved, even as new team members take on responsibilities.
- By reassuring them that I’m still available and framing the addition of new team members as a positive step for everyone’s growth, we can manage change more effectively.
- Emphasizing that new hires are here to support and enhance our work helps ease anxieties and fosters a collaborative environment.
