When building a business we not only develop a product or service but also we develop a team. The team or employee is very crucial in our business that we need to manage properly in a term of achieving the company’s objective. Many problems happen that come from problems in our team and impact our business. 

Talking about this issue, the Entrepreneurship study program through the Human Resource and Organization course invited Nova Ariyanto Jono as a guest lecture to share about Human Resource Management in business especially startup. 

Nova Ariyanto Jono has a background in psychology and worked in syariah bank for 5+ years as HR and Corporate Strategy in Retail, Mikro, and Commercial. He also has experience working for 1+ years as HR Management Consultant and then collecting 5 years working in startups with fields in fintech lending and content technology. 

Nova explained that, to simplify the startups have three phases, growing, mature, and declining. In the growing phase, it is essential to build a current team and for the recruitment it is important to get the right team. “Based on the analysis of 101 startups Post-Mortems, not the right team  takes the third place why the startups fail.”, said Nova.

In the growing phase the first thing we should know is, should we hire team permanent, contract, or partner?. In general, Nova suggests that, for the core position like manager we should hire permanent employees. For projects with a 3 years timeline and new product development we can hire contract employees for example in position: desk collector, field collector, and data entry. And the last, for partners or outsourcing, we can hire employees in a field of not core in our business for example ride hailing and sales for insurance. This model of hire is useful so our business can focus on developing the core. “You have to hire the employee that is needed and appropriate with the positions in your business, looking for he/she talent not their appearance.”

For selecting the employee, the point that we should look for during the interview is competency, value, mission, and vision. Competency means implementing the steps (idea, solution, method) to improve the result and process or work. And make sure that the employee has value, mission, and vision match with the company. ”There are people who work in a company that has a very good performance, but if working in another company with the same position does not work too well, it could be due to cultural or value differences. So this aspect must also be considered.”

Another important thing when selecting the employee is we should arrange the agreement. The agreement consists of employee’s right and obligation during working in the company. And the last, both sides (company and employee) should sign the agreement together.

The next phase is mature. Companies should set the rules. The regulation must contain,do’s and don’ts for employer and employee, working conditions, rules of conduct (SP1,SP2,SP3 terms and conditions) and validity period (2 years + 1). In this phase we need reward and punishment, because the company is getting big and the employees are hard to control. HR division should make KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for employees and set the target. The employee who achieves the target may get bonuses and the opposite will get a warning letter.

The last phase is declining as the company’s profit is going down. For this condition, the company should work hard and do all strategies to improve their performances. Closing the guest lecture, Nova suggested we seek experience first then develop our own business. And the important thing is we should select a co-founder or employee in detail.

Written by Student Reporter, Deo Fernando (Entrepreneurship 2021)