HR Challenges - Leadership, Hiring Co-founders, Retaining employees

Shailja Dutt (MD Stellar Search), initiated the discussion by mentioning that while recruiting one should exactly know, what kind of person you are looking for. She mentioned that high salary should not be the main criteria for a candidate to select your company, rather that candidate shall believe in the product and your vision. She further added that great companies are the places where next generation entrepreneurs are born, to which panel shared examples where people working in their companies moved out to start their own ventures which worked as a re-assurance, that the culture and the environment of their company fostered entrepreneurship and gave immense learning to the employees.
Gaurav Bhatnagar (Co Founder & CTO, Travel Boutique Online) said that the startups must try to create charisma around the organization by taking part in various events like TiE, attract developers and showcase themselves as a tech savvy organization. He said that whenever there is change in organization, there is change in roles but if the change is not communicated well enough, it could have a drastic effect on the company itself.

He also added that right idea must be executed by the right people or it won’t be fruitful to the organization/company.

Nandini Vaidyanathan (Mentor-Promoter, Startups), joining the discussion said one must look for “First who, Then what”. The Entrepreneur’s vision should match with that of the aspirants. If there is a mismatch, the chances are that he/she will leave the company or can create bigger problems for the company.

She also mentioned that “Entrepreneurs are very possessive for their idea and a lot of times they want to do all the things themselves, which perhaps is not the best thing to do. It is always better to do tasks you are good at and pass on the tasks/work to the people who are best fit for them”

She added saying “it’s very difficult for an entrepreneur to share his position with other person he/she hired”. Many times entrepreneurs themselves become a hindrance to the development of the company by not allowing a professional person to run the company, to which panelists shared how in their respective companies they made room for a professional to take up and also suggested alternate roles which founder(s) can take up, in such situations.