Every template is interactive — expand sections, copy clean Markdown, and the {{placeholders}} are highlighted so you know exactly what to edit.
A role-specific rubric signed off before the JD goes live. Forces evidence over vibes — the single biggest predictor of hiring quality (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998).
Structured interviews predict job performance roughly 2× better than unstructured ones. The scorecard is the contract between hiring manager, recruiter, and interviewers — written before you post the role, not after the loop.
Independent scores before discussion, evidence-mapped, decision in the room. Kills the 'culture fit' veto and the 'we'll think about it' delay.
Decisions delayed past 48 hours lose ~30% of offer accepts to competing processes (LinkedIn Talent Solutions, 2023). The debrief exists to make the call fast and defensibly.
Three variants — early funnel, post-interview, finalist. Respectful, specific where legal, fast. Highest-leverage employer-brand move you'll make.
72% of rejected candidates who got a personalized note would reapply or refer (LinkedIn Global Talent Trends). Generic 'pursue other candidates' templates burn brand goodwill at scale.
The verbal offer is where 80% of accepts are won. The written letter is the legal artifact. Both, with negotiation defaults.
Most companies lose finalists in the 72-hour gap between verbal yes and written offer. Run the verbal as a deliberate close, then send paper the same day.
Six questions that surface actual performance and risk. Most checks are useless because they're done by the candidate's friends.
Don't ask whether they were good. Ask the manager what context they'd thrive in, and what they'd put on the development plan. Then ask for one back-channel reference the candidate didn't name.
A weekly running doc both sides edit. Replaces status with real conversation. The single highest-leverage manager habit (Gallup, Grove).
Andy Grove called the 1:1 the highest-leverage activity a manager has — 'an hour of well-prepared 1:1 can enhance the quality of your subordinate's work for two weeks.' But only if it isn't a status meeting.
A new-hire ramp plan written as outcomes, not tasks. Co-authored in week one. Predicts retention better than any onboarding survey (Watkins).
Michael Watkins' research: new hires who hit a 'first win' in the first 90 days are 3× more likely to be successful at 12 months. The plan exists to define what that win looks like — together.
Quarterly 30-min skip-level with each report's reports. Surfaces things their manager will never tell you.
Skip-levels are the cheapest leadership-development tool a company has. Run them quarterly, structured, and never use them to bypass the manager.
Levels, behaviors, scope of impact — shared in a doc, not whispered in calibration. Reduces promotion politics by ~50% (per Pave & Lattice benchmarks).
Every dimension is observable behavior, not adjectives. 'Strong communicator' is a slogan; 'writes the doc that aligns ≥3 teams' is a behavior.
Agenda, decision log, action items, named decider. Use for any meeting >15 min. Cuts meeting count ~20% because no one calls a meeting they can't structure.
What every new manager needs in writing on day one. The unwritten rules are the most expensive ones — write them down.
GitLab's manager handbook is 80 pages and public. Yours doesn't have to be — but the gap between 'what we expect' and 'what people figure out' is where most management failures live.
Situation–Behavior–Impact–Intent. Delivered within 24 hours, in private. The model that doesn't require you to be Kim Scott to use it.
The Center for Creative Leadership's SBI model (and Sheila Heen's addition of Intent) is the lowest-overhead feedback structure that actually changes behavior. Practiced weekly, it shifts the whole feedback culture in a quarter.
Values without behaviors are slogans. Pair each value with: what it means, what it doesn't, one ritual that proves it, one decision it changes.
Patty McCord (ex-Netflix CHRO): 'Your culture is what people do when no one's watching, which is determined by what gets rewarded when people are watching.' Values are downstream of rituals, not the other way around.
Triangulated review with calibration prompts. Replaces 'recency bias × manager mood' with a structured artifact you can defend in any room.
Deloitte (2015) and Adobe (2012) both found traditional annual reviews consumed ~2M hours of manager time per 60k employees with measurable productivity loss. The fix isn't 'no reviews' — it's continuous feedback plus a structured review you actually use.
A real plan to help someone succeed, with a clear bar and a clear date — or a clean, dignified exit. Not a paper trail; an honest contract.
A PIP that's a surprise is a failure of the feedback system — fix that too. A PIP done well is a serious, time-boxed attempt to close a gap, with clarity on what success and failure both look like.
Pre-boarding through day 90 with HR, IT, manager, buddy roles assigned. The single biggest 90-day retention lever.
Companies with structured onboarding see 82% higher new-hire retention and 70% higher productivity (BambooHR, Glassdoor benchmarks). The cost of getting it wrong is 1.5–2× the salary of the role.
Six honest questions, aggregated quarterly to find systemic issues. Plus a 'stay interview' variant for the people you don't want to lose.
Exit interviews tell you what's broken too late. Run them anyway — but pair with stay interviews quarterly for top performers. Aggregate themes monthly; an N of one is a story, an N of three is a system.
Levels × locations × base/equity/bonus. The minimum infrastructure to stop one-off negotiations and to defend pay equity audits.
Pave, Radford, and Levels.fyi data show ~25% pay dispersion within the same level/location at companies without bands. With bands and a published philosophy, that gap closes to <10% — and stops growing with tenure.
The 6 policies every startup needs by 25 people. Lightweight, defensible, human. Pair each with the question it's actually answering.
Policy isn't bureaucracy — it's the answer to 'how do we handle this?' written down once so you don't re-decide every time. The risk isn't having policies; it's having them but not following them.
| Policy | Question it answers | Must include |
|---|---|---|
| Code of conduct | How do we treat each other and external parties? | Behaviors expected, examples of violations, reporting channel, no-retaliation clause |
| Anti-harassment & DEIB | What's the line, and what happens when it's crossed? | Definitions (with examples), reporting paths (manager + alt), investigation process, possible outcomes, training cadence |
| Leave policy | When can people not be at work? | PTO (accrual or unlimited), sick, parental (incl. non-birthing), bereavement, jury duty, sabbatical (if any), local statutory minimums |
| Remote / location policy | Where can people work, and when do they have to be where? | Default (remote/hybrid/in-office), expected in-office days, time-zone overlap, expense policy for home setup, traveling-while-working rules |
| Compensation philosophy | How do we decide what to pay? | Target percentile, band structure, refresh cadence, promotion comp logic, transparency level |
| Privacy / data policy | How do we handle employee and customer data? | What we collect, retention windows, access controls, employee monitoring (be explicit), incident response, GDPR/CCPA stance |
Employment law is jurisdictional. Have these reviewed by counsel in every country you employ in before publishing. The cost is <$10k; the cost of one misclassified contractor or wrongful-termination claim is 10-100×.
Every employee signs (digitally) that they've read each policy at hire + every material update. This is your audit trail.
The conversation most companies didn't have in 2020 and are paying for now. Make expectations explicit per role, per team, per person.
Hybrid 'figure it out' is the worst of both worlds — the cost of office + the friction of remote. Write the agreement down per team; let teams differ, but make every team explicit.
The minimum people infrastructure for each headcount stage. What to install now, what to install at the next inflection, what to wait on.
First Round, YC, and Latitud teach the same lesson: install the people system one stage before you need it. Crisis-installing HR at 40 people costs you the next 40 hires.
| Stage | Install now | Don't yet |
|---|---|---|
| 0–10 | Hiring scorecards · simple offer template · written values · founder 1:1s weekly | HRIS · formal review · career ladder · HRBP |
| 10–25 | Onboarding checklist · compensation bands v1 · code of conduct · payroll provider · PTO policy | Performance review cycle · L&D program · DEIB lead |
| 25–50 | Career ladder · light review cadence (quarterly check-ins) · first HR/People Ops hire · manager training | Formal calibration · HRBP per function · separate L&D budget |
| 50–100 | Bi-annual reviews · calibration · HRBP coverage · learning budget · DEIB measurement | VP People · separate TA / HRBP / L&D / Comp orgs |
| 100+ | VP People · org design reviews quarterly · talent planning · succession | Most things — you should now have specialists deciding |
The 12 metrics every CEO and HR lead should see monthly. Leading indicators, not vanity metrics.
Most people dashboards report headcount and attrition — both lagging. The point of analytics is to move attention upstream: who's likely to leave, where the hiring funnel is leaking, where managers need help.