Startup job design is a step into the unknown

Subscribe:

It takes a village to build a company. As a startup grows, entrepreneurs must think about roles, routines, and organizational structures that will support their firm’s long-term development. Otherwise, founders risk overextending themselves and burning out, bottlenecking their productivity, or making mistakes that are fatal to the company.

“[Startups] can’t grow if you can’t create new jobs and bring people in to do those jobs,” said Lisa Cohen on the McGill Delve podcast. She’s a Professor of Organizational Behaviour at McGill University and an expert on job creation in startups.

In a recent paper, she documents how startups approach the issues of job creation, job retention, and hiring new employees. Her findings help paint a picture of how startups can grow out of the chaos that’s so common among young companies.

Proto-ideas and job creation

Before you can create a job for your startup, you first need to brainstorm what you want the job to look like. Cohen calls this the “proto-ideas” phase of job creation. This is the process through which founders and other company leaders assess their needs, create roles that can fulfil them, and assign those roles specific tasks and responsibilities.

“There are many sources from which you can draw for those proto-ideas,” said Cohen.

As one might expect, founders are crucial to the development of proto-ideas in startups. They draw on their own experiences and expertise to create jobs that meet the needs of their company.  In some cases, they might copy another company’s model for a job. For example, if a new tech founder previously worked at an established tech firm, she might create similar roles to those of her previous company. Alternatively, she might remove elements she thought were inefficient or unhelpful. She may even reject traditional job designs altogether.

A founder might turn to her investors for guidance, as well. Funders have a vested interest in helping their portfolio companies succeed and often bring with them a wealth of experience in helping companies grow. These individuals can bring valuable insights when it comes to job design, which can be invaluable to a first-time company founder.

The person maketh the job

Once a job is created, it rarely remains static. It usually evolves over time due to any number of internal and external factors.

“It’s really messy in the world of startups,” said Cohen. “Things change in ways that you might not predict that they change.”

Newly hired employees, for example, bring with them their own expertise and experiences. As they acclimatize to a role, they might redefine their responsibilities, with support from their superiors, to better play to their strengths.

Alternatively, the company’s needs might change over time, requiring different skills and contributions from an employee. In these cases, the startup might alter the role in question or remove it entirely. Or, if the startup retains the employee, that worker may end up leaving anyway. The job is now too different; it’s not what they signed up for.

Getting it right

At the beginning of a startup’s life, every new hire has a tremendous impact on the company compared to larger firms, explained Cohen.

“Think about it. If you’re hiring employee number five, that’s 20 per cent of your workforce,” said Cohen.

These new hires can heavily influence company culture, help choose who to hire next, or influence strategic decisions.  So how do you know if you got it right?

“You never know if you got it right,” said Cohen.

By nature, startups operate in a state of continual flux and unpredictability, which makes it hard to create jobs that stand the test of time. Founders have to continuously assess the needs of the startup to redefine responsibilities, while employees may have to undertake tasks and responsibilities that they didn’t sign up for. Company leaders have to be ready to adapt.

To learn more about the challenges of job designing and job creation in the fast-paced and dynamic world of startups, listen to Professor Cohen’s full interview on the McGill Delve podcast. Listen here or download “McGill Delve” wherever you download podcasts.