What is one way to organize business processes in a developing startup?

To help business leaders structure their operations, we asked CEOs and company executives this question for their best advice. From developing an organizational structure to considering automation solutions, there are several strategies that may help you plan business processes for your startup now and as you scale. 

Here are eight tactics to organizing business processes in a growing startup: 

• Make Room for Revision
• Plan for Scalable Resources
• Develop an Organizational Structure
• Create an Audit of Your Supplies
• Consider Automation Solutions
• Define Business Goals
• Review Workspace Needs
• Keep Your Team Motivated

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Make Room for Revision 

Organizing your business processes in a developing startup requires, in some part, a place to reflect and revise processes. Create a place in the workflow that is all about feedback or allows for pivoting. Processes may evolve as your startup grows, so be prepared to revise. Successful entrepreneurs do not shy away from introspection and reflection on their business goals and direction. Being afraid of that may limit you and create stagnation. 

Vanessa Molica, The Lash Professional

Plan for Scalable Resources 

When you’re organizing your business during the developing stages, make sure that your business plan also includes the types of insurances you’ll need. You may not think it’s important now, but it’s going to be largely important to the human resources department. And even with only a few employees, knowing what your plans look like now, from business to health and dental insurance, can help you in case things expand and your company grows. You want to make sure you have all the appropriate resources already built into your plan from the start. 

Brandon K. Berglund, Berglund Insurance

Develop an Organizational Structure 

When it comes to organizing your business processes in a developing startup, knowing your organizational structure is going to be key. Depending on the type of company you’re building, cross-departmental activity may be more necessary than others. Knowing the goals of each department can help you map out a better business strategy when it comes to learning how best to create a fully aligned business and creating proper channels to ensure the success of your business. 

David Wachs, Handwrytten

Create an Audit of Your Supplies

Take an assessment of the material resources that you’ll need to do your job. A lot of technology is changing the way we handle customers and our own back-end process management. But the truth of it all, in some regards, is you might need something technology can’t quite fix. For us, as a rental RV service, we know that we might need certain supplies for our rental kits. Things like towels and brooms are necessary. By having an assessment of what things you’ll need, you can help to find a way to leverage technology to best fit your needs — whether it’s automation check-in and checkout or something simple like a to-do list that helps you remember when to stock up on your essentials.  

Randall Smalley II, Cruise America

Consider Automation Solutions 

As startups mature, streamlining business processes is an essential task. Hone in on your ideal tech stack that will improve common pain points such as productivity and communication. Consider a digital transformation of some work processes using solutions that leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence. For example, a startup could incorporate email automation to save time or implement an AI-powered text predictive service to increase productivity.

Guy Katabi, Lightkey

Define Business Goals 

When initiating your business venture, establishing unique contribution goals at those early onset stages is key. This consists of clearly defining what products and services you aim to provide for your consumers and how you plan to give that positive experience in a way that sets you apart from competitors in the industry. At AVANA, we promote growth within our business by defining how our desire to help the community relates to who we can best support. The entrepreneurial process can be a challenging business opportunity, but stating the relationship between your actionable goals and customers from the beginning will ultimately serve as an advantage for your business.

Allan J. Switalski, AVANA Capital

Review Workspace Needs 

When you’re organizing your business startup, don’t forget about workspace needs. Even if your plan, for now, is to stay relatively small, realize that there are a plethora of options available to you when it comes to the location of your business and what space needs you require. Shared workspace is a field that’s only going to continue to grow as more businesses crop up. So, looking into one now can save you a lot of time and headache in the future. This can also be a budget-friendly option to your financial plan, as being able to get out of leases and contracts can be trickier if you’re renting solo and you need more space or less space than you initially thought. There’s flexibility in these kinds of options that can’t be beaten. 

Kyle McIntosh, MAC6

Keep Your Team Motivated

When a business is growing, it’s critical that your employees are motivated so that processes and plans keep progressing. We help our employees reach their full potential by helping them create and follow through on quarterly goals that align not only with our agency’s goals but with their personal growth, as well. When planning for the quarter, we use SMART criteria to guide the preparation and conversation. We find motivation comes from the team’s desire for personal growth along with a fun bonus for the successful achievement of their SMART goals. 

Jenn Christie, Markitors

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What is one tip you have for HR professionals to reduce bias in the hiring process?

To help HR professionals decrease bias when seeking new talent, we asked business consultants and HR experts this question for their best advice. From focusing on qualifications to conducting skills tests, there are several considerations that may help you minimize bias as you recruit new candidates. 

Here are 10 ways to help lessen bias in the recruiting process:

• Focus on Candidate’s Qualifications
• Implement Blind Hiring Practices
• Stretch Outside of Your Network
• Diversify Hiring Staff and Panels
• Integrate AI Into Recruiting Programs
• Reevaluate Your Job Descriptions 
• Use Standardized Interview Questions
• Define Your Expectations Clearly 
• Conduct a Phone Interview 
• Give a Practice Skills Tests 

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Focus on Candidate’s Qualifications

When you’re working through the resume review process, you can decrease biased decisions by keeping your attention on professional experience and skills instead of demographic information. Standardizing interview questions is also a great way to prioritize qualifications and ensure all candidates have an equal interview experience. Choose the right candidate for the job based on who you genuinely think has the professional skills and experience needed to help the company reach its goals. 

Josh Secrest, Paradox

Implement Blind Hiring Practices 

The hiring process already feels a bit mysterious and daunting for both sides of the equation. But when it comes to HR and hiring, falling into biases happens easier than one might think. One way to reduce any unconscious biases from creeping into the hiring process is to implement blind hiring. Any information that might give way to a bias, such as a name, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, is all removed by blind hiring software. This leaves you with the qualifications of each candidate and an identifying number in the system. Anyone can use these kinds of software, from small businesses to an executive search firm, to aid in diversity efforts and create more equitable hiring practices.

Ryan Nouis, TruPath

Stretch Outside of Your Network 

Don’t simply rely on your immediate network for hiring. For organizations that already struggle with a lack of diversity, relying on your immediate network for prospective candidates will only help to exacerbate the problem. Also, consider recruiting for cultural additions and how to stretch your company instead of solely relying on cultural fit. These two things can make all the difference in reducing bias in the hiring process for any organization, big or small.  

Rronniba Pemberton, Markitors

Diversify Hiring Staff and Panels

Affinity bias makes the interviewee favor certain candidates they feel a connection with or share similarities. To prevent it, gather multiple people from varied backgrounds to interview potential candidates during the interview stage. Our company uses diversity panels to reduce unconscious bias. Our hiring panel must have two women and individuals from the BIPOC community. We have managed to improve the diversity of our workforce by 15% in just two years.

Katherine Brown, Spyic

Integrate AI Into Recruiting Processes 

Reduce hiring bias by using AI for recruiting. AI can run a pre-screen where it asks objective qualifying questions related to the specific role. It is great because it cuts out biases based on names, ages, genders, sexuality, first appearance, and more. It is simply an AI system that directly questions candidates about their ability to successfully perform the job in question.

Alex Czarnecki, Cottage

Reevaluate Your Job Descriptions 

Reduce biases during the hiring process by reworking your job descriptions. A job listing is super important to the hiring process as it provides the first impression of a company’s culture. Every word choice has an impact on the application pool. Using masculine language can deter women from applying and vice versa. It is best to go through the job description and take out any gendered language. Replace the gendered words with more neutral terms.

Tri Nguyen, Network Capital

Use Standardized Interview Questions

It’s hard to completely avoid bias when hiring a new employee, but using a structured interview style can help. With a structured interview, pre-decided questions are used so that it’s easier to compare candidates’ responses. This can reduce the risk of choosing to hire someone only based on your initial impression of them.

Camille Brouard, Myhrtoolkit

Define Your Expectations Clearly

If the preliminary work is done properly, HR and the hiring manager will have clearly identified what the role is and defined what they want in metrics: education, experience, soft skills, temperament, etc. Metrics take the emotion and bias out of the equation and allow searches to find the right candidate regardless of age, sex, race, or any other factor.

Lorraine Bossé-Smith, Concept One LLC

Conduct a Phone Interview 

For the first round of interviews, I recommend holding phone interviews. You are unable to see what the other person looks like, and it lessens a bias. Also, you are able to ask a lot more questions about the position than in person since it is more difficult to have a flowing conversation.

Kiran Gollakota, Waltham Clinic

Give a Practice Skills Tests 

While there are a lot of ways a resume and cover letter can make us subconsciously start liking or disliking a candidate, blind skills tests remain one of our favorite ways to minimize hiring bias. By administering knowledge tests, we’re truly able to compare apples to apples. This gives us a two-fold advantage by ensuring that the candidate is indeed capable of handling their day-to-day duties. Secondly, we’re taking the most objective and data-driven approach when selecting them for the interview stage. This strategy has been an excellent time-saver for all parties involved, and I can highly recommend it to all hiring managers and recruiters out there.

Anna Berkolec, ResumeLab

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.