How should startups recruit & retain top talents in Hong Kong (Part 2 of 2)
Part 2. Retaining Talents
This is part 2 of the series about retaining talents. You can find part one about recruitment here.
So you have already recruited a suicide squad and things started to work out. But that’s where the pain originates : your talents are leaving. I couldn’t emphasize more on the negative impacts on the company when a talent is leaving (despite any reason). Based on my personal experience and observation in Hong Kong, below are some pitfalls & tips on how to keep your talents staying around for a long time.
Good Gatekeeping on Recruitment & Onboarding
When your startup is growing bigger, it’s a norm that employees are not that close to each other, and emotional bonding does not have effect on people joining the company at later stage. As employees, they care a lot about whom they work with, if they are up to the standard and whether they have a good fit to the team. A wrong hire will easily endanger the team’s morale. So before you or your HR department decide to hire someone, make arrange for the candidate to meet with their potential teammates and make sure there’s a good fit. Be extra careful when hiring graduates or candidates having a lost history working in corporate . For fresh graduates, they definitely have the passion, but they might need a lot of help from the team, so make sure that team has the time and mindset to coach. If not, both parties will ended up being disappointed. For those from the corporate, they usually understand how the role works, but make sure they have a cultural fit. There was a case I encountered that the new hire had a misfit with the team even his performance was up to standard. This wrong hire ended up causing half of his teammates leaving (and the hire also left not long after).
Onboarding
Onboarding is an issue usually underestimated by Hong Kong startups. It’s right that HK employees tend to have the work hard attitude, but you couldn’t just assume they could join the startup for couple weeks and know everything without help. It’s quite unfortunate to see startups putting so much resources on recruitment while losing a talent just because they wouldn’t spend 10% of that resources organizing onboarding programme.
When a new recruit first joins the company, it’s the most exciting but also the most fragile moment. They have entered a brand new environment and the early signals they receive will shape their feelings towards the company. There are two aspects that should be done, and first is to be professional. It’s your duty to guide them through the job duty formally, give them as much guide & support as possible, and make sure what they know to do day to day during the probation period. Let them know the goal of the company, the team and so as the expectation towards them. Don’t let them to find out what they need to do, that simply does not work.
On a personal level, try to let them having the warmest welcome as much as possible, and even trivial things matter. As the team leader, you should personally greet him, and introduce him to the team. If you have offices around the globe, at least introduce the new teammate on Slack and make sure everyone knows their presence. Getting all their gears ready is also a sign of welcome towards new joiners, you don’t want to let them feeling that you are unprepared on their big day. My friend Paprika works at Canva, and during her first day her desk was already decorated, with all the necessities she needed (macbook, notebook, mouse, keyboard, mug…etc). She ended up posting this awesome experience on Facebook and all her friends definitely would have a good feeling towards the company. She still works there happily. If you are interested in the subject on systematic onboarding process, I recommend you to read this article from First Round Review.
As Transparent as Possible
When the startup is grows bigger, there will definitely be more workflows and procedures, and it’s simply not realistic to keep 100% transparency to your employees (um..unless you are from Buffer?). However, a rule of thumb is that you should be as transparent as possible, or at least let your employees feel that you have tried. I doubt that those working in a startup will enjoy hierarchy, and they work for your startup because they want to have an ownership towards the startup, so they wouldn’t have such feeling if there’s no transparency to company’s information. When I worked in GoGoVan, founders organized GoGoVan 101 from time to time to personally greet the new recruits and walk them through the vision and company prospects, so everyone in the company could be on the same page (at least on high level aspects). And even GoGoVan has offices across Asia, founders will host Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) on Slack regularly to answer all (if not, most) questions that their employees raised. This is a sign of faith and transparency that will definitely motivate the team and give them the sense of belonging.
They work for your startup because they want to have an ownership towards the startup, and they wouldn’t have such feeling if there’s no transparency to company’s information.
Be Careful with Titles & “B” Players
At early stage, startups tend to give out attractive titles to obtain talents. That sounds sensible in early recruitment but might cause major legacy issues. For example, if you issue a COO title to a someone at the beginning and couple years later, when you need to go global and realize you should hire someone more experienced, but the C level title is already issues, you will get stuck. Should you ask the experienced one to have a VP title and work for the less experienced COO? I bet that’s not going to work. So during the early days, be careful with the title you issue, be smart on having a good balance between a sexy title and the organizational debt.
Using the example just now, I would suggest that COO as a “B” class player. I would define “B” class players as those who are capable but don’t aim to grow and couldn’t catch up with growing pace, as fast as the company. In many scenarios when the startup is growing bigger, you started to hire more people and promote the old employees, but you also realize some of them just couldn’t catch up. It might not seems to be a problem to you, afterall they have been working with you since the beginning, they are nice and understand their job well. But from the stand point of employees, that might be a different case. First, If they are in a role that they are not capable of, not only would they be occupying a position that could be someone else, they also could not bring synergy to the team. And all the “A” class players would simply leave the team because no one wants to work for a boss or teammate that’s not up to the standard. If they are the team leaders, it would be even more problematic, as they just couldn’t coach or lead the team. So be careful when dealing with “B” class employees, make sure they are up to the bar. If not, you should have a honest chat with them, and in worst case just let go of them. Maybe they are just not the employees that you need at this stage, that’s nobody’s fault.
“A” players would only recruit “A” players, while “B” players would just recruit “C” players.
Educate Them, Show Them Their Career Path
Allocating resources to employees’ education are expensive, but inevitable. Your employees are your most valuable asset, and if you don’t invest in them, how could you convince your investors to invest in your company? Thus be certain you are sparing enough resources to invest in the team, and make sure they are continuously learning. You don’t need to send them to Dale Carnegie’s course, all you need to do is let them go to conferences and workshops (give them a day off or something!), allow budgets to buy books that they want to read, have a food-for-thought channel to share knowledges with other colleagues (I still enjoy learning from others in this channel no matter where I am). When the time is right, you will realize the ROI of this investment is much higher than you could have expected.
Once a founder asked his mentor: “What if I invest in my employees and they leave?”, and his mentor answered: “What if you don’t and they stay?”
Another part is about showing them their career path. I guess the biggest advantage of working in a startup is the fast growing environment, and employees also expect the same velocity in their career path. It’s not uncommon to promote an employee once a year if they are capable, afterall it’s not corporate which you promote them base on the years they have spent with the company. So make sure you have a crystal clear KPI (or OKR) to set with each employee. Have the HR department cooperate with the team leaders and tailor made performance review KPI for each staff. Moreover, don’t just wait till the end of the year to review with them. You should do it quarterly (if not every 6 months) to discuss with them, make sure they are on progress, and help them out if they are having a roadblock.
More importantly, you need to reward / promote them according to the KPI. You should never just ignore their performance and not rewarding them even they have met their KPI. I think this is the main reason why talents get disappointed — they are not being mentally or monetary rewarded for their job well done.
Be Nice & Stay Connected With Those who Left
My last advise might not be that common, but that happens especially in Hong Kong all the time. People come and go, that’s life and nothing you could do about it. No matter for what reason your employees decide to leave, you should always treat them with respect and be nice to them. As the founder or team leader, try to have a chat with them and seek for their feedbacks. Show them that you value them and care about their opinions. Hong Kong is a small place, and the startup scene is even smaller. I always hear stories that before people decided to join a startup, they asked around for opinions and it’s usually people who left that company black mouthed that startup. Those candidates ended up deciding not to join, and also told their friends about it. Be careful about the collateral damage it could get.
When I left GoGoVan, I had a long chat with the founder Steven and he was very honest with me. Even after I left, we would still keep contact and he’s still a very good mentor to me. Similarly in OneSky (my first startup), most of my ex-colleagues are still good friend of mine, and I would still occasionally hit their office and chit chat with them. When my friends ask for my advise on jobs in Hong Kong startups, I would alway s recommend those 2 without any doubt (but of course Klook is the best! By the way we are hiring!). You will never know one day when your ex-employees will come back and work for you again :)
Your Thoughts?
Hope you enjoyed the article! Please comment below and let me know your thoughts! And if you want to connect, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or Twitter! Happy to grab a coffee and chit chat!
