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This episode is sponsored by MJ Insurance.

In episode 91 of “The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast.” JoDee and Susan discuss the HR component of business start-ups with Grady White, Head of Growth for Vivante Health, and Dawn Lively, COO at FullStack PEO. Topics include the people issues that surface in early stages, at what point in a company’s growth you should consider hiring an HR person, the services PEOs provide to start-ups, and the differences in the HR approach with start-up staff.

JoDee and Susan share some data on startups, including why people decide to start businesses and the most common reasons startups fail. Grady White joins the conversation and discusses the uncertainty that can come with startups and how it affects people issues. Startup employees are often stretched to take on responsibilities they don’t have a lot of experience with, and startup leaders can struggle with knowing who to hire when. Grady also shares the factors he’s used to decide at what point a startup business needs to hire an HR person, and how to make HR decisions before there’s an HR person on staff. Ultimately, startups are hard work, but you can get a lot out of it!

Dawn Lively calls in to discuss Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs), which handle transactional HR, like benefits, employment taxes, and payroll, for small to mid sized companies who don’t want to invest in an HR person or department. Dawn discusses when companies move their HR functions in house versus using PEOs and the unique people issues that come from a company that’s just starting out and in survival mode. She suggests managing to the many, not the few, and being deliberate about new policies and procedures.

In this episode’s listener mail, listeners ask about activities to hold people’s interest in meetings and how to control difficult to control participants. In the news, a Wall Street Journal article shared Glassdoor research saying that younger workers are more likely to accept job offers after enduring difficult interview and pre-employment screenings.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Purple Ink
• Susan Tinder White Consulting
• Episode sponsor MJ Insurance
• “STARTUP STATISTICS – The Numbers You Need to Know”
• Vivante Health
• Parachute Health
• Snapchat
• Uber
• Spaw
• AngelList
• Glassdoor
• FullStack PEO
• Episode 23, “SHRM Credit: Meeting Skills”
• “Tough Interview Process Is Linked to a Higher Job Acceptance Rate”

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