People basics for founders who never wanted to do HR.

Almost every founder we meet in HR practice has the same private confession: they don't know what HR actually is, they suspect it's mostly paperwork, and they're quietly terrified of getting sued. Then they hire their fifth person, someone quits weirdly, and they realise the thing they've been avoiding is now the thing slowing the company down.

You don't need to become a People expert. You need a working model — a short list of things that, if you get them roughly right, will protect your company and your team until you can hire someone better than you to run it. Here's that list.

The five things 'HR' actually is (and only one is paperwork)

When founders say 'HR,' they usually mean a fog of compliance, complaints, and feelings. Pull it apart and it's five distinct jobs. You will do all of them — badly at first — until you hire for them.

• Hiring — how people get in: sourcing, interviewing, offers, references.
• Onboarding — how they become productive: access, context, first wins in 30 days.
• Performance — how you tell them how they're doing: 1:1s, feedback, reviews.
• Comp & benefits — how you pay them and what they get: salary, equity, leave, insurance.
• Compliance & ops — the paperwork: contracts, payroll, tax, terminations, records.

The psychology you're actually managing: psychological safety

Amy Edmondson's research at Harvard found that the single biggest predictor of team performance isn't talent density or process — it's whether people feel safe to say 'I don't know,' 'I made a mistake,' or 'I disagree.' Google's Project Aristotle replicated the finding across 180 teams. As a founder, you set this temperature in the first 90 seconds of every meeting. If you react to bad news with blame, you'll get less news. Then you'll get blindsided.

The four founder reflexes that quietly create HR problems

The 80/20 founder operating rhythm

• Weekly 30-minute 1:1 with every direct report. Same time, no cancellations. Their agenda first.
• Monthly: a 10-minute 'pulse' question — 'On a scale of 1-10, how excited are you to work here? What would move it up one point?'
• Quarterly: a written, two-page performance check-in. No ratings. Just: what's working, what's not, what we'll do about it.
• Annually: comp review against the market. Even a rough Levels.fyi check beats nothing.
• Always: write down every people decision in a private doc. You will forget. You will need it.

When to hire someone to do this for you

Two signals. First, you're spending more than 8 hours a week on people work — interviews, conflicts, comp questions, onboarding. Second, you're starting to make decisions that affect people without writing them down. Both mean it's time. Start with a fractional Head of People (2 days a week, $4-8K/month) before you hire full-time. They'll tell you what shape the full-time role should take.

“You don't need to love HR. You need to respect that people work compounds — every shortcut you take in year one becomes a lawsuit, a resignation, or a culture problem in year three.”

Take this home — the founder's people checklist

• Pick the one broken function (of the five) and fix it this month.
• Book recurring 1:1s with every direct report this week. Never skip them.
• Pay an employment lawyer once for: offer letter, IP assignment, termination letter templates.
• Write down rough comp bands for every role you'll hire in the next 12 months.
• Decide your 'how we work' values in one page. Share it with every candidate.
• Audit your last five people decisions. Were any of them undocumented? Fix that today.