Notes from Rusty Rueff – An HR Master

I had the privilege a while back of sitting through a presentation from Rusty Rueff, who is one of the best-known experts on human resources in Silicon Valley. He talked for about 20 minutes, and I took about 4 pages of notes. It’s all relevant for the company you’re building right now.

Below are my raw notes, combined with some explanations in bold where needed.

  • HR begins on day one of your company
  • You need to teach yourself how to manage, and make sure you know what you’re doing. This is your #1 job
  • From day one you have to think about culture
    • They create themselves through the people you hire and bring onto the team
    • Culture is nothing but a collection of stories
  • Clearly communicate your values and principles
  • Answer the question “What kind of company are we going to be?” very early on with your founding team. Do not punt this till later. If the founding team does not think it’s worth spending time on this, they shouldn’t be on the founding team.
  • Teach everyone in your organization how to hire, measure and fire
  • Answer the question “What kind of CEO do I want to be?” before you start
  • Four tools you need in place before you hire an HR leader
    • Establish and communicate a roadmap for the company
    • Get a listening tool – Something like Waggl.it
    • Be held accountable – Encourage your employees to use Glassdoor and regularly monitor it
    • Find a goals and objectives package like Workboard
  • You should hire an HR manager when you hit 40 people and / or you’re growing at 200% a year
  • Employees are increasingly bringing their own way to work. Your company needs to adapt to this new landscape
    • “People walk around from company to company with their own tools” – Companies no longer provide all of the gear and tools for their employees. 
  • Companies are like refrigerators
    • You decide what shelves
    • You decide what should go in, and what should come out
  • The HR leader of the future will be a:
    • Data scientist
    • Agile people leader (as in Agile software practices)
    • Personal trainer
  • How to fire:
    • People are more like milk than wine. They will get more spoiled over time
    • No one should ever be surprised that they’re being fired
    • Everyone should have a chance to improve. Depending on their job, this can be a very short time or an extended time
    • Golden rule: Treat people like you want to be treated
    • The organization has already terminated the person. They’re waiting for the CEO to do their job
  • A quality to look for in an HR manager: Can you close the door and tell them you don’t know what you’re doing and have them not freak out
  • Some cool ideas for employees:
    • Let them keep their employee #. One company even put them up on the wall permanently.
    • “You’ll always be employee #7, and you’re always welcome back”. You want people to leave and talk about how awesome a place it was to work

There’s a lot to digest here. I would encourage you to read through this list multiple times (I’ve read through my notes probably 10 times already since the meeting). Pick out the things you’re not doing well or areas where you might need to get working, and get to it.

I also encourage you to read Rusty’s blog. It’s remarkably good.