A pioneer in the field of digital communication was in the start-up phase. 150 employees (mostly software developers) were already on board. The plan was to grow to 400 employees. The HR structures were growing in the basic structures of contract management, payroll and recruiting. Beyond that, however, there were no processes and structures in place. Now the company wanted to offer more in the highly competitive IT labor market. The company hired the interim manager, who was experienced in the IT sector, as a project manager for the development of professional HR work with a particular focus on agility and personnel development.
Instruments for people development developed to match the corporate culture
The management team of the start-up had already collected initial ideas for people development in the company in a workshop prior to the assignment. These results were incorporated into the interim manager's work and formed a kind of checklist. For example, it was very important to the founders that their particular approach and the special character of the company were incorporated into the People Development structure. The aim of the interim manager was to create a coherent system of all instruments and processes. In order to meet the special requirements, the tools were not bought "off the shelf", but were developed to suit the very personal character of the company.
Iterative development of a job grading system and a competency model
In line with the corporate culture (IT start-up), the interim manager divided the process into iterative steps, test phases and sprints in accordance with agile principles. Together with the HR team and selected managers, this was the starting point:
- creating job descriptions, defining evaluation criteria, functional analysis of job requirements and deriving a job grading
- analyzing all personal, social and methodological requirements through critical incidents interviews with line managers and summarizing them in a competency model
Career models, career paths and salary bands create more transparency
All other processes and tools were developed on these two pillars. Career and succession planning, for example, was a major sub-project. In order to offer employees more transparency, the interim manager described career models (management, project management, expert) and exemplary career paths (including cross-functional ones). She backed these up with performance and potential management tools (probationary period, development and feedback interviews as well as potential rounds). She also defined salary levels and bands in comparison with external benchmarks.
Finally, the interim manager designed the tools for training planning and management as well as a basic model for a training academy to be implemented later with internal and external development opportunities.
Successful handover to HR team after six months
After six months, the interim manager handed over the individual topics to the internal HR team in a workshop. The investors commissioned the interim manager with a mandate at another company two years later.
