sharkitect-solutions/hr-people-ops

HR & People Operations for SMBs

File Index

| File | Load When | Do NOT Load | |------|-----------|-------------| | references/hiring-pipeline.md | Writing job descriptions, designing interview loops, building offer letters, sourcing strategy, candidate evaluation | Performance reviews, onboarding, team restructuring | | references/performance-framework.md | Setting up review cycles, writing PIPs, calibration sessions, goal-setting frameworks, merit/promotion decisions | Hiring, onboarding, job descriptions | | references/onboarding-playbook.md | Building onboarding plans, pre-boarding checklists, 30-60-90 day milestones, remote onboarding | Hiring pipeline, performance reviews, compensation planning |

Scope Boundary

| This Skill Handles | This Skill Does NOT Handle | |--------------------|---------------------------| | Operational HR for SMBs (1-200 employees) | Enterprise HRIS implementation (Workday, SAP SuccessFactors) | | Job descriptions, hiring, onboarding, reviews | Benefits administration platform configuration | | Compensation framework design and band structure | Labor law litigation or legal advice | | Employee handbook essentials and policy drafting | Immigration law (H-1B, PERM, visa sponsorship) | | PIP process, offboarding, team structure | Union negotiations or collective bargaining | | Compliance awareness (at-will, FLSA, I-9, EEO) | Payroll tax compliance or multi-state tax filing |

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Job Description Framework

Role Clarity Architecture

Write every job description with four structural sections. Missing any section produces misaligned candidates.

Section 1 -- Role Summary (3-4 sentences). State the business problem this role solves, who the role reports to, and the team context. Avoid aspirational language ("rock star," "ninja"). The summary answers: "Why does this role exist right now?"

Section 2 -- Responsibilities (5-8 bullets). Use action verbs. Each bullet describes an observable output, not an activity. Bad: "Manage social media." Good: "Publish 15 social posts per week across LinkedIn and Instagram, maintaining a 3% minimum engagement rate." Responsibilities are ranked by time allocation -- the first bullet is the highest-priority duty.

Section 3 -- Requirements (split into Must-Have and Nice-to-Have). Must-Have: hard skills and experience thresholds that are genuinely non-negotiable. Cap at 5 items. Every additional must-have requirement reduces the applicant pool by 10-15%. Nice-to-Have: skills that accelerate ramp-up but can be trained. Label them explicitly so candidates self-select correctly.

Section 4 -- Compensation and Logistics. Include salary range. Postings with salary ranges receive 30% more applications and 40% more qualified applicants. State location (remote/hybrid/onsite), travel requirements, and reporting structure.

Leveling and Title Conventions

Use a consistent leveling framework across all roles. A common SMB ladder:

| Level | IC Track | Management Track | Typical Experience | |-------|----------|------------------|--------------------| | L1 | Associate / Junior | -- | 0-2 years | | L2 | Mid-level | -- | 2-5 years | | L3 | Senior | Team Lead | 5-8 years | | L4 | Staff / Principal | Manager | 8-12 years | | L5 | Distinguished | Director | 12+ years |

Map every role to a level before posting. This prevents The Title Inflation anti-pattern (see below) and ensures internal equity.

Inclusive Language Rules

Remove gendered language, unnecessary jargon, and superlatives. Tools like Textio or Gender Decoder flag biased phrasing. Replace "he/she" with "they." Replace "aggressive targets" with "ambitious targets." Remove "young and energetic" (age bias). Replace "cultural fit" with "values alignment."

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Structured Hiring Pipeline

A structured pipeline has seven stages. Skipping stages correlates with mis-hires.

1. Sourcing -- Activate three channels minimum: job board, referral program, direct outreach. Referrals produce hires 55% faster with 25% lower cost-per-hire, but over-relying on referrals creates homogeneity. Balance referrals at 30-40% of pipeline.
2. Application Review -- Score resumes against Must-Have requirements only. Reject candidates missing any must-have. Time target: 48 hours from application to first response.
3. Phone Screen (15 min) -- Validate role understanding, compensation alignment, availability. This is a filter, not an evaluation. Pass/fail only.
4. Structured Interview (45-60 min) -- Behavioral and technical questions mapped to role competencies. Scorecard with predetermined criteria. Same questions for same role.
5. Work Sample / Assessment -- Realistic task mirroring actual work. Cap at 2-4 hours. Compensate candidates for take-home assessments exceeding 2 hours.
6. Debrief -- All interviewers submit written scorecards BEFORE the meeting. Verbal-first debriefs suffer from anchoring bias. Use structured go/no-go voting.
7. Offer and Close -- Verbal offer within 24 hours of debrief. Written offer within 48 hours. Every day of delay increases decline risk by 5-10%.

See references/hiring-pipeline.md for sourcing strategy details, interview question banks, and offer negotiation playbook.

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Structured Interview Design

Competency Mapping

Before writing questions, define 4-6 core competencies for the role. Map 2 questions per competency. Example competency map for a Product Manager:

| Competency | Question Focus | Interviewer | |-----------|---------------|-------------| | Strategic thinking | Market analysis, prioritization | Hiring manager | | Execution | Shipping cadence, obstacle removal | Cross-functional peer | | Communication | Stakeholder alignment, documentation | Skip-level manager | | Technical fluency | API understanding, data literacy | Engineering partner |

Question Types

Behavioral (STAR format): "Tell me about a time when [situation]. What did you do, and what was the result?" Behavioral questions predict future performance 2x better than hypothetical questions. Target past behavior in contexts similar to the open role.

Situational: "Imagine you discover your team's sprint velocity has dropped 40% over two quarters. Walk me through your first 48 hours." Use when candidates lack directly relevant past experience (career changers, new graduates).

Technical: Assess the specific hard skills listed in the Must-Have requirements. For engineering: live problem-solving or system design. For marketing: campaign analysis or copy critique. For sales: mock discovery call or deal review.

Culture-Add Evaluation (NOT Culture-Fit)

The Culture Fit Trap is the most common hiring anti-pattern. "Culture fit" becomes a proxy for "people like us," which produces homogeneous teams that miss blind spots. Replace culture-fit with culture-add: "What perspective, experience, or working style does this candidate bring that our team currently lacks?"

Evaluate candidates against documented company values using behavioral evidence, never gut feeling.

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Scorecard Methodology

Every interviewer completes a scorecard immediately after each interview session. The scorecard structure:

| Competency | Rating (1-4) | Evidence (specific quote or example) | |-----------|-------------|--------------------------------------| | [Competency 1] | | | | [Competency 2] | | |

Use a 4-point scale: 1 = Does not meet, 2 = Partially meets, 3 = Meets, 4 = Exceeds. A 4-point scale eliminates the "3 out of 5" lazy middle that plagues 5-point scales. Require written evidence for every rating -- no number without a justification. This is the antidote to The Missing Scorecard anti-pattern.

Hiring decision rule: no candidate advances with any competency rated 1. Two or more ratings of 2 require a strong counterbalance in other competencies plus hiring manager justification.

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Compensation Framework

Market Benchmarking

Use three data sources minimum for benchmarking: one broad survey (Radford, Mercer, Carta for startups), one peer-network source (Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, Pave), and one recruiter-validated source (conversations with agency recruiters who see real offers). Single-source benchmarking produces 15-20% variance from actual market rates.

Band Design

Structure compensation bands with a 20-25% spread from minimum to maximum. A narrower band constrains growth; a wider band creates internal equity problems.

| Component | Approach | |-----------|----------| | Base salary | Target the 50th-65th percentile for competitive positioning. 75th+ for critical roles. | | Equity (startups) | Use a published equity band per level. Vest over 4 years with 1-year cliff. Refresh grants annually. | | Variable / Bonus | Tie to measurable outcomes. Sales: quota attainment. Engineering: ship dates. Company-wide: revenue targets. | | Signing bonus | Use to bridge gaps when base is at band max. Amortize with 1-year clawback. |

Pay Equity Audits

Run a pay equity audit annually. Compare compensation across gender, race, and tenure for equivalent roles and levels. Fix disparities proactively -- waiting for complaints creates legal exposure and attrition.

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Onboarding Architecture

Effective onboarding follows a tiered milestone structure. Companies with structured onboarding achieve 62% greater new-hire productivity and 50% higher retention.

Pre-boarding (offer accepted to Day 1): Ship equipment, provision accounts, assign an onboarding buddy, send a welcome packet with company handbook, team directory, and first-week agenda. Pre-boarding reduces Day 1 anxiety and eliminates 2-3 hours of setup time.

Day 1: Orientation (company mission, values, product overview), team introductions, tools and systems setup, first small win assignment. The first small win is critical -- it builds confidence and signals the new hire's contribution matters immediately.

Week 1: Shadow key workflows, review core documentation, meet cross-functional stakeholders, complete compliance training (sexual harassment prevention, data security, workplace safety).

30-60-90 Day Milestones: See references/onboarding-playbook.md for detailed milestone templates, metrics, and remote onboarding adaptations.

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Performance Management Cycle

Cycle Structure

Run a lightweight quarterly check-in (30 min, 1-page template) plus a comprehensive annual review. The quarterly cadence prevents surprises at annual review time. Annual reviews that contain surprises indicate a broken feedback culture.

Goal Setting

Use OKRs for strategic alignment (leadership and cross-functional teams) and KPIs for operational roles (support, sales, operations). Set 3-5 goals per quarter maximum. More than 5 goals means no priorities. Each goal follows SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.

Feedback Mechanisms

1:1 meetings: Weekly or biweekly, 30 minutes. Manager asks: "What's going well? What's blocking you? How can I help?" The employee owns the agenda. The manager listens, unblocks, and coaches.

Skip-level meetings: Quarterly. The manager's manager meets directly with individual contributors. Surfaces issues that don't travel up the chain. Builds trust across levels.

360 reviews: Annual. Collect feedback from peers, direct reports, and cross-functional partners. Use for development only, never for compensation decisions -- mixing the two destroys psychological safety.

See references/performance-framework.md for rating scales, calibration process, PIP structure, and manager training frameworks.

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Difficult Conversations Framework

PIP Process

A Performance Improvement Plan is a genuine improvement tool, not a termination preamble. The Perpetual PIP anti-pattern uses PIPs as documentation theater -- the outcome is predetermined, and the PIP exists only to satisfy legal review. If the decision to terminate is already made, terminate. Don't waste 60-90 days of everyone's time performing improvement theater.

A genuine PIP includes: specific behaviors or outcomes that must change, measurable targets with deadlines, resources and support the company commits to providing (training, mentoring, reduced workload), and a clear consequence statement. Duration: 30-60-90 days depending on role complexity. Check in weekly during the PIP period.

Termination Checklist

Confirm documentation is current (PIP, warnings, performance records). Review with legal counsel. Prepare final paycheck, COBRA info, and severance terms. Plan the conversation: direct, compassionate, factual -- lead with the decision, not the reasoning ("We've decided to end your employment, effective today"). Conduct the meeting with two company representatives. Collect company property and revoke system access simultaneously. Communicate to the team within 24 hours: "X is no longer with the company. We wish them well." Do not share details.

Offboarding

Conduct an exit interview (HR, not the direct manager). Ask: What would you change? What worked well? Would you recommend us as an employer? Exit interview data aggregated over 12 months reveals systemic issues that engagement surveys miss.

Team Structure Design

Span of Control

Optimal span of control for SMBs: 5-8 direct reports per manager. Below 5 indicates over-management (too many layers). Above 10 indicates under-management (insufficient coaching time).

Add a management layer when: a team exceeds 8 people AND the work requires meaningful coordination AND the current manager spends more than 60% of time on people management instead of individual contribution.

Reporting Lines

Every employee has exactly one manager. Matrix reporting (dotted lines) creates accountability gaps. If cross-functional collaboration is needed, use project-based structures with clear RACI matrices rather than dual reporting.

When to Hire vs Promote

Promote when the candidate demonstrates 70%+ of next-level competencies already. Hire externally when the role requires skills not present on the team, or when promoting would leave a critical gap that cannot be backfilled. Communicate the rationale transparently -- unexplained external hires when internal candidates exist destroy morale.

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Compliance Essentials

At-Will Doctrine

Most US states operate under at-will employment: either party can end the relationship at any time, for any lawful reason. Exceptions: implied contracts (employee handbooks that promise progressive discipline create contractual obligations), public policy violations, discrimination. Review handbook language with legal counsel to avoid inadvertent contract creation.

FLSA Classification

The Fair Labor Standards Act requires correct classification of employees as exempt (salaried, no overtime) or non-exempt (hourly, overtime-eligible). Misclassification triggers back-pay liability plus penalties. The three tests: salary basis ($684/week minimum for exempt), salary level, and duties test (executive, administrative, professional, or computer employee). When in doubt, classify as non-exempt -- it is the safer default.

I-9 and E-Verify

Complete Form I-9 within 3 business days of the employee's start date. Verify documents from the acceptable documents list. Do not specify which documents to present -- that constitutes document abuse (a form of discrimination). E-Verify is mandatory in some states and for federal contractors. Check state requirements.

EEO Basics

Equal Employment Opportunity laws prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity), national origin, age (40+), disability, and genetic information. Train all hiring managers on lawful interview questions. Prohibited: "Do you have children?" "What year did you graduate?" "Where are you originally from?" Lawful: "Can you meet the travel requirements of this role?" "Are you authorized to work in the US?"

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Rationalization Table

| Situation | What You Think You Need | What You Actually Need | Why | |-----------|------------------------|----------------------|-----| | "We need to hire fast, skip the process" | Speed | The Urgency Hire anti-pattern produces 3x mis-hire rate. A structured fast-track (condensed timeline, same rigor) beats an unstructured sprint. | Mis-hires cost 1.5-3x annual salary in replacement costs, lost productivity, and team disruption | | "Let's promote our best IC to manager" | Reward top performers | An assessment of management aptitude separate from IC performance. Great ICs often make reluctant managers. Offer a Staff/Principal IC track instead. | Peter Principle: promoting to incompetence destroys two roles (the IC work they leave and the management work they struggle with) | | "We can't afford market rate" | Lower compensation expectations | A transparent total compensation story. Equity, flexibility, learning opportunities, and mission can offset 10-15% base salary gaps -- but only if communicated explicitly. | Candidates who accept below-market offers without offsetting value leave within 12 months, creating higher net cost | | "We need a detailed employee handbook" | A 100-page legal document | A 15-20 page handbook covering: at-will statement, anti-harassment policy, PTO policy, expense policy, code of conduct, and complaint procedure. Add policies as situations arise. | Over-engineered handbooks create compliance traps (every policy is a promise). Start lean, expand deliberately. | | "Let's do annual reviews only" | Less process overhead | Quarterly lightweight check-ins (30 min, 1-page). Annual-only reviews guarantee surprises, resentment, and recency bias. | By the time you discover a performance problem annually, 9 months of productivity and morale are already lost | | "We need to fire this person but want to avoid risk" | A PIP as legal cover | Honest assessment: is this a performance issue (PIP appropriate) or a role-fit issue (transition appropriate)? PIPs for role-fit problems are The Perpetual PIP -- everyone knows the outcome. | Role-fit separations handled with dignity (severance, references, transition time) produce zero lawsuits. Adversarial PIPs produce resentful ex-employees. |

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Red Flags Checklist

• [ ] No written job description exists for the role being hired. Hiring without a written JD means every interviewer evaluates against their own mental model. Alignment is impossible.
• [ ] Interview questions vary by candidate. Inconsistent questions make comparison invalid and create legal exposure for discrimination claims.
• [ ] No scorecard or structured evaluation is used in debriefs. Gut-feel debriefs are dominated by whoever speaks first and loudest (anchoring bias).
• [ ] Compensation bands do not exist or are not documented. Without bands, every offer is negotiated from scratch, creating pay inequity that compounds over time.
• [ ] Onboarding consists only of "shadow someone for a week." Unstructured onboarding extends time-to-productivity by 2-3 months and doubles 90-day attrition risk.
• [ ] Performance feedback occurs only during annual reviews. Issues fester for months. Employees disengage. Top performers leave for environments with better feedback cultures.
• [ ] PIPs are used exclusively as termination paperwork. When every PIP ends in termination, employees view PIPs as death sentences, not improvement opportunities. Trust collapses.
• [ ] The company has no at-will disclaimer in its handbook. Handbook language promising "progressive discipline" can create an implied contract, limiting the company's ability to terminate at will.

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Named Anti-Patterns

| Anti-Pattern | Signal | Impact | Fix | |-------------|--------|--------|-----| | The Culture Fit Trap | Rejecting candidates who "don't feel like a fit" without citing behavioral evidence against documented values | Homogeneous teams that share blind spots, miss market segments, lack cognitive diversity | Replace "culture fit" with "culture add" -- ask what unique perspective this candidate contributes that the team currently lacks | | The Urgency Hire | Hiring manager demands shortcuts because the role is "critical": skip screens, combine rounds, waive assessments | Mis-hire rate triples. The "urgent" hire underperforms, gets managed out in 6 months, reopening the role 9 months behind | Create a fast-track pipeline (same rigor, compressed timeline) instead of a no-track pipeline | | The Title Inflation | Offering inflated titles (VP of Marketing for a team of one) instead of raising compensation to market rate | Titles without scope create unmet expectations. Real VPs won't report to a nominal VP. Employee discovers the gap and leaves | Use a published leveling framework. Titles reflect scope and responsibility, not negotiation leverage | | The Missing Scorecard | Interviewers enter debriefs without written evaluations. Discussion defaults to "I liked them" or "Something felt off" | Anchoring bias dominates. The loudest voice wins. Quieter interviewers defer. Structured evaluation disappears | Require written scorecards submitted before the debrief meeting. No scorecard, no vote | | The Perpetual PIP | Management decides to terminate but HR requires a PIP first. Targets are unachievable or irrelevant. Outcome is predetermined | 60-90 days of wasted productivity, destroyed morale, legal risk if employee demonstrates the PIP was pretextual | Distinguish performance problems (genuine PIP) from role-fit problems (dignified transition with severance). If the decision is made, execute honestly |