You’d think that a company that managed to scale to eight figures in five years, hire 400 employees, and launch 10 brick-and-mortar locations would know a thing or two about scaling, right?

A while back, I worked with a discount clothing retailer that launched in 2010 and went on an astronomical tear in the following five years.

But despite their rapid growth, the company was on the brink of collapse.

Like many ambitious startups, this client staffed its team with scrappy, hungry employees – whether or not they had direct experience in their roles. This included their HR department, which learned through trial and error and quickly fell behind the increasing employee demands.

The result? A revolving door of talent with an average tenure of six months.

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Something needed to change

With no time to waste, I knew that I needed to take a step back to look at the bigger picture.

First, I ran a thorough assessment of the company from top to bottom. I looked at their recruiting practices, how they interviewed, how they managed their team, and how they handled promotions.

I found an HR department that was so bogged down with administrative tasks and tied up in spreadsheets that they couldn’t address the glaring issues in the company. What’s more, there was no strategy. They tried everything: posting jobs across the web, increasing the salary ranges, and more, but they still couldn’t find the right hires to take the company to the next level.

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How we fixed it

This was far from a lost cause.

First things first, they needed to ditch the 1990s way of managing employee data and select an HRIS. I helped them choose a platform and guided them through digitizing their entire workflow. Voilà. Goodbye manual data entry, hello hours of time saved.

Next, we restructured the entire HR department. I redefined job roles, created new positions, and helped staff their HR org with the right people to operate like a well-oiled machine.

Finally, we needed a recruitment strategy that brought the right people in and not just anyone. To do that, we worked with short-term and long-term actions to build a distinctive and attractive employer brand. We then built a new recruitment process around that brand, which included a posting strategy to source candidates and a new way to evaluate and onboard new employees.

The result?

Turnover dropped 15%, and the cost per hire dropped over 50% in the first six months. I worked with them for another 18 months to help them transition to new HR leadership, who took the reins to lead the team.
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Want to learn the secret to HR?

There are no secrets or hacks to the processes I use for HR.

All you need is a good strategy, the fundamentals to put your employees in a position to succeed, and a belief that HR can be a growth engine and difference-maker for your company.

If you can attract and retain the right talent for your company, there’s no stopping your growth. Great products, marketing, or even millions in funding cannot save you from poor HR practices.

That’s why I’m developing a course to teach you everything I know about setting up an HR function in your company that will equip it for hyper-growth. I’m launching later this summer, but you can join the waitlist for an extra-special earlybird price before the official launch.

Podcast Summaries Not enough time to listen? No problem! Find focused summaries of each episode’s key learning points on my podcast page. Take me there Startup HR Survival Guide Navigate the complexities of HR in the startup world. I’ve distilled over 15 years of experience to help you get HR right the first time. Get the guide ​

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