When you’re busy building an innovative tech company, your time is at a premium. Crucial concerns like developing your product and finding customers usually take center stage, making it easy to put off the more mundane matters of payroll and benefits for your employees. But ignoring these HR issues for too long could seriously hurt your startup when it comes time to scale up.

Our two guests today have years of experience dealing with HR processes in startups and fully understand how important they can be. The first is Mike Kelly, a serial entrepreneur, investor and co-founder of DeveloperTown, which helps companies large and small build and launch tech products. Joining him is Dawn Lively, a long-time HR professional and COO of FullStack, a turnkey HR solution designed especially for emerging tech companies.

On this episode of the Igniting Startups podcast, Dawn and Mike explain why founders need to think about their HR policies and walk me through the essential processes any fast-growing startup should have in place to compete and grow in their market. We discuss how to keep teams running efficiently with clear-cut management processes, what policies you need to prioritize to hire and retain skilled talent, and which tasks you should try to outsource to HR service providers when you’re able.

In this episode with Dawn Lively and Mike Kelly, you’ll learn:

• Why tech companies need good HR practices to attract and retain talent.
• How to balance your HR policies for the best impact on your team.
• Strategies and advice for building a winning company culture.
• How to handle performance reviews and the ideal way to let an employee go.
• Which team management and HR tasks you should try to outsource.
• The power of team rituals for developing culture.

Please enjoy this conversation with Dawn Lively and Mike Kelly!

• Listen to it on iTunes.
• Stream by clicking here.
• Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

If you like this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes. You can also follow us on Soundcloud or Stitcher. We have an incredible lineup of interviews we’ll be releasing every Tuesday here on the Powderkeg Podcast.

Dawn Lively and Mike Kelly quotes from this episode of Igniting Startups:

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

Companies and organizations:

• FullStack
• DeveloperTown
• DT Starts
• Tenant Tracker
• Waterly
• Startup Competitors
• Atomic Object

Co-working spaces:

• zWORKS
• The Speak Easy

Publications:

• Fast Company

Igniting Startups episodes:

• Episode #38 with Mike Kelly

People:

• Dawn Lively (@Dawners4)
• Mike Kelly (@michael_d_kelly)
• Julie Desutter (LinkedIn)

COMMENTS?

What stood out most to you about what Dawn Lively and Mike Kelly shares in this podcast?

For me, it’s the the power of team rituals for developing culture.

You? Leave a comment below.

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