No matter who the founder, a company’s success depends majorly on its employees. A founder, a CTO or a CEO is eventually the decision maker of an organisation, and it boils down to the company’s employees to deliver what a company promises.
Most entrepreneurs often tend to focus on hiring the best decision maker, however often fail to find the right leader who can lead the team, keep them motivated and bring out their real potential. A chief people officer in such scenarios can be of great help. He can help your company whether it’s a startup or not in the following ways:
1. They Will Help Settle Chaos
Anyone who is familiar with the startup culture understands that the initial few years often are spent holding tiger by the tail. There are many issues which arise initially, there are challenges with the employees, and finally, there are relationships between founders which are affected. A chief people officer in such a scenario can be of great help given he can help establish culture and order amongst the employees.
He will help establish policies with regards to employee engagement and retention plan and would not be someone who fires away employees who cause chaos.
2. He Removes the ‘I’ and Bring in ‘ We’
No successful business owner will tell you that he has built the business from scratch all by himself. Every leader needs a right hand while bootstrapping a business or creating something big You need someone who can help take control of the team, someone who can track the team’s performances, maintain a balance between leaves and holidays and as mentioned before can interact with the team and help solve their problems.
Further, a chief people officer would be responsible for keeping up the morale, while at the same time ensuring that each member can achieve personal growth while working alongside their peers.
3. Helps Founders Focus on Growth
While employees practically run the company, they are just part of the machine. Founders have other tasks, which include marketing the company, bringing in new clients, securing investments etc. Having a chief people officer in such scenarios tends to be a viable solution for businesses owners as the people officer will manage the team, leaving them to devise tactics for companies to proliferate.
4. Guiding and Assisting in Developing Company Infrastructure
A CPO can further help the founders and aid them in developing company infrastructure. They can lay down rules, help employees understand targets while at the same time defining scalable solutions, which tend to improve the overall efficiency of the company as well as individual employees.
Who Is an Ideal CPO?
An ideal CPO is someone who understands your company’s vision and is a good manager and a strategist. Chief People Officer role often is a mixture of management as well as operations/consultation. A good fit for this role needs to possess a manager’s confidence combined with emotional intelligence so that he/she can get tasks done from the employee, while at the same time isn’t too empathetic to put the company’s future in jeopardy.
What do you think are ideal traits of a CPO? Do let us know in the comment section below.
