S2, Ep2: HR at Startups

In this episode of HR Peep Show, host AnnE Diemer kicks off a new series: HR is everywhere, which will explore how human resources actually works across wildly different industries by talking to real humans doing the work behind the scenes.

This episode features Kim Minnick, a fractional HR leader for VC-backed startups. 

HR is everywhere, and trust me, we're gonna find it in some weird places. Subscribe to see where we go next.

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Transcript

AnnE: Welcome to HR Peep Show, where we pull back the curtain on life and human resources in the United States. Today we're kicking off a new series. HR is everywhere. We'll be exploring how human resources actually works across wildly different industries by talking to real humans, doing the work behind the scenes.

Whether it's a Fortune 500 company, a political campaign, or your local zoo, HR shows up everywhere and the people doing it have stories worth hearing. Before we get into conversations with folks who have done HR in museums, hospitals, cannabis companies, I want to start here with someone who spent the last decade building HR infrastructure and VC funded startups.

To set a baseline for what HR looks like when you're literally building it from scratch. My guest today is a bit of a unicorn in the HR world. She actually chose HR as a career on purpose. She went back to school specifically to get a graduate degree in HR. Started out in recruiting, worked her way up to an HR generalist role at a newspaper tech company, and then in 2015 moved to San Francisco and dove headfirst into the startup world. Now she runs her own business focused on the parts of HR. She loves the most: performance management, compensation, and employee engagement. Her name is Kim Minnick, and I'm low-key, obsessed with her. Welcome to HR Peep Show, Kim.

Kim: Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. This is my first peep show. I'm, I'm really pumped to give peeps into our world, and what a great intro. Wow. I, I wish I was a unicorn. How fun. 

AnnE: You absolutely are a unicorn. We just had an episode that we put out about our, like HR origin stories and it was about how Claire, Kristen, and I, none of us intended to end up in HR, and yet here we are. But you did this on purpose. You? 

Kim: I did. 

AnnE: You wanted this. Why on earth did you choose HR?

Kim: I asked for this. Okay. I will preface this story with: I am my own main character, and I'm sure if you asked other parties in this story, they would tell you something different. But once upon a time, I was working at a theme park that was owned by Anheuser-Busch. And I had the coolest job in college of giving away free beer.

It was a really, it was a really great job. I loved it. The Anheuser-Busch sold off the theme parks and they decided that it was no longer a sustainable business model to give away free beer. So in that time, I was applying for different roles, trying to figure out what was next. I was graduating college with a degree in hospitality management and had found my way into the marketing department.

Uh, I was applying for a role and I get a call from HR. They say, HR says you lied on your resume. And I, I didn't lie on my resume. What happened was I was supposed to graduate, the last course of my undergraduate degree was a, like an internship course, and you had to attend two classes. I missed one of those classes because of the work at the theme park.

So I failed and had to retake the class, and I failed in between when I had applied for a job in the marketing department and when HR called me. Okay. And it was not a great experience. Uh, every stereotype that you can imagine about HR happened in that conversation. I left crying and I thought, “if we spend most of our lives at work, it shouldn't be like this.”

This wasn't, there was a thousand other ways we could have handled this, whether I got the job or not. I did not, I did not get the job. Um, but yeah, that really kicked off an interest in going back to school. Uh, when I met my now husband, he was like, oh. You should go back to school then if that's what you want.

And I did. I went back to school, got a graduate degree, uh, got two graduates degrees, one in HR management and one in management and leadership. And here we are today. 

AnnE: That's amazing. The two degrees sounds exhausting, but we'll get to that. But it all comes from that like center point of just like, workplaces should be better.  It doesn't have to be this way.

Kim: Yes. Yeah, it doesn't have to be this way. 

AnnE: Yeah, no. That's where like, that's how I got into HR too. I had a friend who was, uh, joining the tech industry. It was her first job, and on the first day, everyone kept asking her, she was a software engineer. Everyone kept asking her if she was gonna be the secretary.

Kim: awesome.

[00:05:00]

AnnE: And this was in 2013. Like, what? And her thing to me was just like, shouldn't it be someone's job to make sure this doesn't happen? And I was like, huh. Maybe, but I wasn't studying that at all. So I'm curious to hear from you, what did you learn in the like HR degree, in this leadership degree? And then the follow up question I'll just tell you in advance is gonna be, how is that different from what you actually do now that you're practicing it day to day? Is there a difference between those? 

Kim: Yeah, look, the degree, the degree program was, it was really cool. It was a lot of fun. learned about very old school HR. Jack Welch was a big feature. Uh, management by walking around was a big feature. Um, and I had some really, all of my professors were practicing HR executives. It was kind of like a night school sort of setup. Um, and one of them was like a leader in the healthcare field. He was like the head of HR for a healthcare field. Another one worked at a mortgage company. So whereas the learning themselves was really cool, having people who are doing this as their day job, was really neat.

One of them. I don't know if I'm allowed to tell this story, but one of the very first classes I had, uh, the professor titled the Lecture Mondays, Fridays and Full Moons, Why You Should Never Work in HR. He told this story about an employee that was colloquially known as the Mad Shatter, and it was somebody who, at this very professional company, was like smearing shit on the walls. No one knew who this person was until finally they figured it out. Identified the employee obviously terminated and then he goes to dinner at a, like at a restaurant and sees the Mad Shatter in in the kitchen. 

AnnE: Oh my God. Oh my God. No, no. 

Kim: And just, and from that lecture forward, I was obsessed like, what? What an incredible career field I get to work in. And also maybe it will benefit my safety. 

AnnE: Maybe it'll prevent me from ending up with norovirus tonight. What?

Kim:  I mean, you have to imagine you take the person out of the environment that they were acting out in that way they probably won't act that out.

AnnE: True, true. 

Kim: But what a like, and I'm sure every HR person has some wild story like that. I'm sure I do. Yeah. It's just what a career field. It is to be in. 

AnnE: Yeah. Yeah. Um, my career field I did before, this was a zookeeper. Um, and then there was more shit on the walls. Uh, with that one 

Kim: Lot of keeping zookeeping 

AnnE: that one was expected. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, not as much of this one, which I will, I will take as a win because man, the first class and you were in, I don't know if that would've made me excited about it. But it made you excited to do more of this? 

Kim: Yeah, and you know, throughout my program we learned about labor unions, we learned about instructional design, um, organizational design, like so much of that and it was cool. And if this segues into your next question about how it changes, I mean, I'm not referencing my old textbooks… 

AnnE: Totally.

Kim: I have my own issues with Jack Welch and his stale, pale and male approach. But you know, one of the learnings, listen to your employees. Like yeah. Find the balance between what's best for the company and what's best for the employees. Like that never changed. Yeah. so yeah, I think it was great that I got the degree on paper it gave me enough learnings and enough experience to sit for a certified HR course. Uh, I got my HR certification. I, all of these steps kind of led me to land the jobs that I landed, and I am forever thankful that that was my path.

And recognize like the path to HR is wide and varied, and how lucky is our profession because of it. 

AnnE: Absolutely. I think it's made better that we didn't all go to school for it. I'm glad some of us did and know that foundational infrastructure. I've gotten to learn from people who have that, and I'm so grateful for it and I think it really helps to have some people come in from ops. Some people come in from, you know, where, wherever else there's, there's so many different ways that people can come into HR but it's so rare that I like am getting to interview someone who did the right way and I'm glad it was helpful, but I also can see how it expands and it probably, you gotta update that curriculum a lot, I would imagine, because like I think about HR certification… and like the HR certification exam I took two years ago now, like half of that doesn't apply because of how laws have changed and stuff like that.

So. I think it's a good foundation, but it's definitely a job where you keep learning while you're doing it. 

[00:10:00] 

Kim: Absolutely. As laws change, as culture changes, as the climate that you're working in changes, you know, like you said, I spent a lot of time in VC funded startups. Yeah. And that work environment really pushed a more progressive approach to HR than maybe if I stayed at a newspaper technology company or, uh, I was living in Florida and there was a lot of government industry there. You know, that is a, it's a different approach because the priorities are different. So yeah, our world's wild. It's unique to every company, I think.

AnnE: Absolutely. Let's zero in on that uniqueness a little bit, and I would love to hear about a creative solution you've come up with to an HR challenge. Maybe something that's unique to startups, maybe something from different worlds that you've been in, and maybe it's something that's different from how the textbooks would've recommended or how the certifications would've recommended, but it's something that really worked well for your context.

Kim: Yeah. I think, and this is something that I'm doing a lot more in my business today, so I'm hesitant to say the companies. 

AnnE: Totally, 

Kim: and I don't know if it's a creative approach. More, more so than just a different approach. I'm really taking a stance against performance informed compensation. So, the typical process is, you know, you go through your performance review, you’re rated, whatever you're rated, and then you get a monetary increase based on that rating and the textbooks recommend that that's what we've been doing since the 1960s when World at Work made it a popular thing. Yeah. But if we take a step back and look at how society is treating work, we're all kind of running on that, that hamster wheel. We're all chasing the next big rays. Most people are working more than 40 hours a week in pursuit of that next big raise.

And yeah, I was fortunate to work with a company recently. They were exploring various compensation strategies. They were building a new leveling guide. It was super, super fun work, and they were thinking about implementing salary ranges. Because they wanted to reward folks based on performance. And I said, “well, hold on, before we take that route, let's think about how is your tenure looking.”

They had very strong tenures, very high retention. Their employee happiness scores were pretty high, like, in most companies would be envious of it. It just really felt like this was going to create such a huge cultural shift in the company mm-hmm. That I was like, “Hey, maybe, maybe don't, like, maybe actually stay with these, point-based targets.”

And as I have been on, you know, my loudspeaker about it, on my soapbox, I've met more folks who have either done that same strategy, implemented it, uh, there's a great, uh, a gem of a human named James. He wrote a book about it, uh, that I don't. Have around me. Um, I think it's the cost of pay. Anyway. 

AnnE: We'll put it in the notes.

Kim: We'll put it in the notes. It's a really, this is probably one of my more creative strategies outside of like, you know, let's build something for the company instead of using performance ratings. (2, 3, 4, 5.) Let's use performance sentiments. Uh, instead of a three, call it nailing it instead of a four call it outperforming your role. You know, let's start talking like humans instead of HR. 

I'm going off on, on the, off the rails here, but yeah, I think like creativity is actually essential to our role. 

AnnE: Yes. I think that's because there's so many things I like about that, but just starting with the talking like a human part of it. It does feel like sometimes HR speaks a different language than everyone else.

Kim: God, we're like legal light, you know? 

AnnE: Yeah. And I'm like, I get why no one wants to talk to us. Why are we using all of these acronyms? Why are we numbering performance? I love the idea of saying, outperforming your role, like you're making the implicit, explicit there of like. What does this actually look like? Instead of it just being a giant question mark to folks that they only have to think about twice a year during their performance reviews. 

Kim: Yeah. And I think when we say something like exceeding expectations, gosh, that is such a loaded, yeah, just a loaded sort of phrase because you know, we are, most of us are working our tails off.

AnnE: Yes. 

Kim: And we start thinking like, I, me personally, am exceeding my boss's expectation of the work that I, me personally should be doing. But performance reviews are based off of the expectations of the role. Yes. So, you know, I think, I think we have an opportunity to update our language. I think that if people read a handbook, it should be engaging.

It should be fun to read. Uh. 

AnnE: Absolutely 

Kim: You shouldn't have to struggle through it. Nope. And that requires, 

[00:15:00]

AnnE: you should just be able to ask about your benefits. Like even if it's not open enrollment, ask the questions you need to about health insurance. You don't remember what premium means. That's okay. There's weird words or co-insurance. That's the one that I will just like. Always say no, just ask me. Don't even try to understand it because it's a whole different world. 

Kim: Yeah, and we can write all this down in a way. Instead of copy pasting from whatever template you're using, use the language that your business uses, infuse your values into that language. Use this as an opportunity to reinforce things and like take a minute to flex your creative writing skills. 

AnnE: Yeah, absolutely. I could work on my creative writing skills, but we'll, we'll add that to the list. So we've talked about, you know, things like HR using real human language, not just what we are told to use what we find in a SHRM handbook, and honestly, that could be an HR Hill I would die on. There's actually quite a few. I'm curious, what is your HR Hill that you'll die on? You can do a hot take. That's fine. Or you can do like a very lukewarm take, like just speak like a human. Either way works for me.

Kim: I mean, I am ready for the mob to show up at my door for this one. 

AnnE: Okay. 

Kim: Performance improvement plans are good. They are necessary. They, I like a performance improvement plan. Now there's a, there's a ton of caveats there. Absolutely. It, it can't be like a C-Y-A document that you're putting in place when you already know the outcome you want. Like, that's not it. 

AnnE: Yes. No, 

Kim: They need to be designed. With the employee's success in mind

AnnE: yes. 

Kim: They need to be a living document that managers and the employee can update, can seek support, can seek resources in. but man, I love a PIP. 

AnnE: I love that hot take. I had a friend who was put on a PIP a couple years ago, or was told they had a PIP option or they had a take the cash and leave option. And my question for them, their option was, yeah, absolutely great option. My question for them was, “read the pip, do you think it sets you up for success? Like do you think you can achieve that?” And they're like, absolutely not. And I was like, then take that money and leave because. Most pip, not most pips, I shouldn't say that, but there are, there's a stereotype of pips that they're not going to set you up for success, that they're just trying to make it okay to fire you. But there is a way to help people improve their performance and put it into a plan, which is what a PIP kind of should be. That doesn't have to feel like that. But you have to, you have to be looking for the right one. And you're right, it definitely has to be collaborative. 

Kim: Definitely collaborative. It's something that your HR partner should be deeply involved in. 

AnnE: Yes. 

Kim: As an objective third party. Um, again, there needs to be a section for what support's being offered, how the manager is going to support them. There needs to be additional, you know, one-on-ones to check in on that, to make sure that the support is being offered and received well. Look, there's a ton of things here, but I think that's true with anything, right? Like, not every piece of paper is great in every situation. but yeah, I, I like a PIP. I like a PIP. 

AnnE: I love that. Unless this gives away too much of your secret sauce, I would love for us to paint a little bit more of a picture of like what this looks like for folks and from you as like you're an HR consultant, you work with startups. Are you having a conversation with the manager and the employee separately and then bringing it together, or like what does that process look like that you can, you know, make it feel collaborative and make it help the employee know you're trying to set them up for success. 

Kim: Yeah, absolutely. There. It's not a secret sauce. I'm happy to share, uh, anything about it. I wrote a whole playbook on it called Suck This Pip. Uh, it's just as cheeky. It's as cheeky as it sounds…

AnnE: HR Peep Show!

Kim: HR Peep show, suck this PIP. Um, but yeah, I mean, yes, it is a, I'm talking to the manager. I'm talking to the employee. We are all talking together. I'm again, trying to operate as, as much as I can as that objective third party who is familiar with the role expectations, familiar with the manager’s strength and weaknesses, familiar with the employee’s strength and weaknesses, being able to hear when they're talking past each other. These are emotionally charged conversations, right? Like your job is on the line. That is stressful. Like how can I help bring that temperature down? How can I get all of us, literally and figuratively on the same page? yeah. So it's a lot of conversations. Not shockingly, it's a lot of documentation. Not just the pip, but like in advance of like, what, what are the role expectations? Do we have a leveling guide? Do we have a philosophy in how our values and behaviors show up? 'cause it's not just what you do, it's how you do it. Yes. Um. If all of that isn't in place, look, the PIP’s just destined for failure. So it's a lot of, a lot of work upfront. Ideally you can avoid a formal PIP. There are a lot of breadcrumbs that happen, and depending on how busy your HR team is, you may or may not be able to pick up those breadcrumbs. And then, yeah, it's, it's a lot of check-ins. Oftentimes I'm going to the manager's manager of like, “Hey, you know, we're, we're in a PIP process. Yeah. Here's what I'm seeing. Here's what I'm hearing. You know, where am I, what, what else should I know?” There's a lot of curiosity, in this, and there's a lot of holding mirrors up just to reflect things back and hopefully, like, you know, the person succeeds, graduates, whatever from the PIP. We're back to a level of sustained performance.

That's the ultimate goal. It's way cheaper to do it that way than it is to, you know, to give a severance, which again, I think that's a great option to give.

AnnE: absolutely. 

Kim: To rehire for a role to re onboard somebody. Like that's a, that's a lot of time and a lot of expense. So if we can avoid that, that's great for everyone.

[00:20:00]

AnnE: Absolutely. You know, that sounded like a hot take at the beginning, and then you draw it out for us a little bit and I'm like, wow. When you approach it with this kind of thoughtfulness. Not as much of a hot take, actually 

Kim: not as spicy. 

AnnE: Very reasonable. 

Kim: I'm a pretty, I'm a pretty mild human. Uh, I'm not that spicy. I like to phrase things in spicy ways. I'm like that salsa jar that says hot, and then you're like, this isn't that hot. That's me.

AnnE: I feel like you're the perfect amount of spicy. That's, that's what I would give for you. Now I'm trying to think of the exact right. Hot sauce to attach. No, we don't need to.

Kim: Like Taco Bell Hot. You know? 

AnnE: Taco Bell Hot. Amazing. Like nods it hot, but like not really. 

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. The LaCroix of hot. 

AnnE: The LaCroix of hot. Oh my God. Amazing. Okay. Whew. Focusing in, because we have to do something very important. We're gonna do the lightning round. This is where HR is everywhere is gonna really come to life because I'm gonna ask the same questions to every person who I talk to, and we're gonna see how HR looks, depending on the organization, depending on the person, depending on the employees that they're serving. There's no right answers. I'm just curious what works in your world. I will say you can do a small caveat after I ask you the question, you can say which one you prefer. But then if you need to add a small caveat, you can, but not too many because we're trying to keep this quick and efficient. Does that sound good?

Kim: Yeah, I'm in. Let's do it. 

AnnE: Okay, let's go. First one, most common worker classification that you're working with. Exempt, non-exempt, or contractors? 

Kim: exempt, but I am seeing a lot more contractors come up. 

AnnE: Right? A lot more right now. I'm worried about people's health insurance. That's another episode. Okay. Union or non-union? 

Kim: Ooh, okay. In my world, non-union, but I do love a union. 

AnnE: I love a union. Okay. Performance reviews, good one for the expert. Annual, quarterly, continuous, or never?

Kim: Ooh. I like a biannual. Most of my, most of my organizations do a biannual. With complemented, with continuous feedback. 

AnnE: Love it. Perfect. Onboarding week, long process or longer. Or Sink and swim. Just throw 'em in there. 

Kim: Ooh. Week long process. Or longer. 

AnnE: Yeah, me too. Yeah. Exit interviews. Essential or a waste of time.

Kim: Waste of time. 

AnnE: Yeah. Can you think of someone you fired, who you would rehire? You don't have to say who. 

Kim: Yes. So many. 

AnnE: Me too. So many. Mm-hmm. Uh, vacation time. Unlimited. PTO or accrued PTO. 

Kim: My preference or what I see more of? 

AnnE: Tell us each. 

Kim: Oh man, it's tough. Okay. So I, I see more unlimited PTO, open and respectful PTO. It's never unlimited. Mm-hmm. I go back and forth. I think accrued PTO has a lot of benefits. Uh, what I would really love to see is more minimum PTOs, you must take. 

AnnE: Yes, completely agree with you there. Uh, time tracking, do you have folks filling out time sheets or is it kind of a YOLO situation? 

Kim: I do have folks filling out time sheets. I have some salaried non-exempt teams. Very interesting. Uh, but yeah, they fill out time sheets every week. 

AnnE: Awesome. Background checks. Standard, extensive or industry specific? 

Kim: Standard

AnnE: yeah. I would agree with that. Dress code an interesting one in this like remote hybrid world that we're in, uh, formal business casual or anything goes? 

Kim: anything goes

AnnE: anything goes. I like my soft pants. I need soft pants. 

[00:25:00]

Kim: I once, well, way before our, uh, remote work was so popular, had an incredible engineer show up for an interview in like sweatpants and like a cat sweatshirt. Like a, like a weird cat sweatshirt.

AnnE: Amazing,

Kim: incredible engineer. And you know what? Nailed the interview, rejected our offer. Uh, but yeah, what you, what you wear is not what you think. 

AnnE: No, absolutely. Let's talk tools. Slack teams, Gchat, signal? 

Kim: slack baby, all day, every day. 

AnnE: Absolutely Slack. And last one, honestly, a hard one in this country. What is your favorite state to deal with from an HR perspective? 

Kim: Ooh, I'm a California girl. I love it. I love, we're weird. We're, uh, employee forward. I started my career in Florida, which is the Wild West. It's very employer friendly. Um, and have really loved. Hanging out in California, dealing with our laws. 

AnnE: Amazing. Well, you're in the right place then. Well, that is the lightning round. Kim, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. Where can people find out more about you, your really helpful guides, or how they can work with you? 

Kim: Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. I am. We'll link it down in the comments. I'm just gonna say it. 

AnnE: Yes. we will! 

Kim: I'm pretty loud on LinkedIn. I post almost every day. I try and give helpful tips around performance, employee engagement, or general HR shenanigans. Uh, you can also check out my website. It's code traveler hr.com. Traveler has two Ls in it. Uh, yeah. Or the flip side. 

AnnE: Or the flip side, but we'll link everything below because you know, let's do it sooner than that. Thank you for listening to HR Peep Show. HR is everywhere, and trust me, we're gonna find it in some weird places. Subscribe to see where we go next.