New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

Responding to a resume sent to you is far too much of an “opportunistic” hire, rather than a “strategic” hire.  There are a few key items to think through at this stage:

Hiring plan – In order to hire more strategically, I would recommend that you sit down and do the following prior to hiring anyone:

1. Plan all the key positions that the company needs
2. Create a bullet point list of responsibilities for each key position\
3. Think deeply about the ideal profiles for each of the candidates for each position
4. Create a proper compensation plan for each key position (see more on this below)
5. Prioritize each position so that the first (or next) hire is the most critical hire based upon what you can afford and what the company needs

Culture – what kind of culture do you want to shape and nurture with your new company?  Every employee you hire will need to be acculturated into that culture, so think through that and be intentional about what you are creating.  Everything from work hours, how you hold meetings, how often you meet, how you hold employees accountable, degrees of freedom for employees, fun vs. hard work, prayer at the beginning of each day or meeting, etc. needs to be thought through, otherwise the employees will just make it up on their own.  A big part of managing culture is the employee handbook that clearly spells out all of the key info including such things as your expectation of work hours, dress code, etc.  But don’t waste your time writing one, there are plenty available as packaged software.  You can download a Word-based employee manual here for a nominal fee.

Compensation – be sure to spend time thinking through all of the compensation plans for all of the key positions so that at the end of the day, everything you do makes sense and is fair-minded.  Assume that all employees will compare notes on compensation (even though they shouldn’t).  Your compensation plan should be viewed as fair, but also be something your young company can afford and sustain as it grows.  You can download an example company-wide compensation plan here and download a deferred bonus plan here.

Employment Agreements – for key positions, you should consider spelling things out very clearly in an employment agreement.  These can range for a few pages with bullet points or a detailed, lawyerly document that reaches 20 pages long, but the important thing is to cover all of the key issues and not leave the door open to misunderstanding and mutiny further down the line.  Of particular importance is any equity participation by the key employees, which needs to be very clear to avoid issues.  You should at the very least consider a non-compete and confidentiality agreement for each employee.  Several different types of agreements can be found here (be sure to have them reviewed by your attorney):

• Employee Offer Letter
• Employee Confidentiality Agreement
• Employee Non-Compete Agreement
• Executive Term Sheet - Initial
• Executive Term Sheet - Final
• Executive Employment Agreement