Organizing Your Management Team
- Lesson Materials Organizing Your Management Team Worksheet
- Completion time About 30 minutes
Your business playbook is ready. Now it's time to put your team together. So where do you start? By this point you've put thought into who you need to hire right away and who you hope to hire later down the road. But it's time to put a little more thought into who the actual players are, where you can find them, and what you can pay them.
We'll cover these topics and more in this session.
Building Your Core Team
As in any sport, your dream team starts with your captains. In this case, it's your management team. Your management team will not only play a big role in your company's performance, but they will also be fundamental in shaping your company's culture.
When it comes to drafting your management team, a few positions to consider filling include:
- Chief Executive Officer / President (CEO): in charge of all business operations and the direct line to the board of directors.
- Board of Directors: elected or appointed members who oversee a business. Depending on how your business is structured, you might not need one.
- Chief Financial Officer (CFO): handles all the company's numbers, including financial data, financial performance, budgeting, and costs.
- Chief Operating Officer / Vice President (COO): runs the day-to-day operations of the company and works closely with the CEO.
- Chief Technology Officer (CTO): responsible for company's technology operations.
- Chief Marketing Officer (CMO): responsible for company's marketing operations.
No matter how many employees you have, someone needs to be responsible for human resources tasks, whether it's an in-house employee or third party service provider. Important HR responsibilities that can't be neglected include:
- Handling employee files
- Creating and enforcing company policies
- Managing employee benefits
Depending on how many employees you have, certain software and apps can actually take care of HR duties, such as payroll, accounting and bookkeeping, and more.
Skills
When you're starting a business, it's tempting to hire your best friend. But does your best friend actually have the skillset to be your Chief Technology Officer? Do they actually have the qualifications?
Just because you're friends with someone, doesn't mean you would work well together – let alone successfully run a company. When hiring employees, here are a few tips:
Job description
- Write a clear job description that includes the skills and expertise you're looking for.
- Share the job description with everyone – friends, colleagues, family, and job websites.
- Research every candidate's background. Don't waste your valuable time on people who aren't qualified
Interview
- Be honest about the challenges and expectations this role might have.
- Give the candidate a real-life situation to complete to see how they would get the job done; this could indicate if their work style will mesh with other employees.
- Be mindful of their personality and attitude. Particularly in a new business, it's essential that they’re hardworking and passionate about what they do.
Employee Salary
When you're starting a new business, you may not have the funds to pay a CMO what they would typically earn. As a result, before you make any big hires, consider a few other options:
- Contractors/freelancers
- Seasonal employees
- Interns
Working with contractors or freelancers gives you the flexibility to get help from someone who already knows what they're doing. Often, independent contractors are self-employed, so you don't have to worry about payroll and taxes.
Likewise, if you're hesitant about hiring someone full-time with a yearly salary, consider hiring a seasonal employee for a specific job instead. For instance, if your business is in retail, you've probably estimated that the holiday season will be busy. It would be a shame to miss out on business because you don't have the budget to hire additional staff. Instead, plan head and save for the additional budget of hiring someone during the busy months.
Interns are another great option as they're cheap, eager to learn and contribute, and flexible. If an internship isn't working out, you're not committed to hiring them. However, if you've hired an intern that you would like to keep full-time, you have the option to offer them a position.
We go into more detail on how to hire the right employees in our JUMP Guide.
If you've found your dream team and know that you want to offer them full-time positions, but still aren’t sure how to work out salary, equity compensation is a great option for startups.
Equity compensation is when employers offer a share of the company's future profits in exchange for lower (or sometimes zero) salaries up front. The four major types of equity small businesses can choose from are:
- Common stock
- Preferred stock
- Issuing shares
- Warrants
We get into detail on how equity compensation works and the pros and cons for both employees and employers in our Business Equity for Entrepreneurs guide.
Now it's your turn! Download the attached worksheet and start putting your dream team together.
- Lesson Materials Organizing Your Management Team Worksheet
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