HR Questions for _gtz_

gistfile1.md

• What exactly, would you say it is that HR does, here? I think, as far as I can understand from the Wikipedia article, it's:
  • Providing a fair, unbiased mediation process for employees experiencing conflict, particularly the kind of conflict that can end in costly lawsuits or negative media attention. (Sexual harassment, discrimination, accusations of nepotism...)
  • Preventive maintenance, so that (Sexual harassment, discrimination, nepotism...) is less likely to occur.
  • Recruitment, analysis of such. (How many people are applying here? Why so few techies? Is something scaring them off?)
  • Retention, analysis of such. (What's churn? Why are so many people leaving?)
  • Hiring, analysis of such. (More anti-sexual-harassment/discrimination/nepotism layers here)
  • If there's a union, Dealing With Union Bullshit (generally ignored in software)
  • If there's government regulation dealing with employment law, making sure those regulations are being followed. (generally ignored in software)
  • Have I missed anything really important?
• Especially in the early stages, companies need all-hands-on-deck. Recruitment, retention, diversity, and conflict management are all the sort of things that matter to a growing company or a medium-sized company, but not as much to a team of 3 people who don't intend to hire or fire anybody. At what point does a startup need to seriously think about HR? Is it employee one? Employee five? As soon as you start hiring people who are afraid of taking problems to the CEO? After getting VC and deciding it's time to hire 10 new people?
• Before startups can afford a HR person, what are some Good HR Patterns they can follow?
• Software companies have basically taken hiring right out of HR's hands - because HR can't accurately evaluate software developer skill, software guys have veto power over new hires, which has given them laissez-faire to make a cottage industry out of their own hiring voodoo, be it coding tests, pairing exams, "culture fit" questions, or boys-club bullshit. How do we get HR and Software to stop, collaborate and listen? Ice is back...
• "Standardization of a fair, unbiased process" also reads as "the sort of bureaucracy you created a startup to escape from" to software developers. Is this fair? Are there ways to make this less intrusive, or sell the benefits more effectively?