One of my favorite parts of company ops is hiring and retention. How boring is that? It’s true though — since my skillset is largely ‘people’, I like to focus on the folks within as well as those without. In a flat org, that’s crucial. Without being able to promote to fancier titles, to give a clear ladder of progression, it’s hard to create a proper reward structure. Even if you can lure people in with promises of autonomy, ultimately, they need to know what to do with that power and responsibility. Otherwise, they’ll just end up spinning their wheels. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be posting my thoughts on hiring, onboarding, and retaining employees in a flat structure.
Valve’s handbook talks extensively about how hiring is everyone’s most important job, and how they try to hire ‘better’ than they currently are. It’s important to keep that in mind when hiring for your team too — in a traditional org, there are places for ‘entry level’ employees and managers to keep poor performing people in line. Flatness means we’re counting on drive and peer pressure to get results.
Flatvocate 