People issues in start-ups: challenges and solutions
| Date | 14 August 2017 |
| Published date | 14 August 2017 |
| Pages | 194-196 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-09-2016-0081 |
| Author | Satyendra C. Pandey,Pinaki Nandan Pattnaik |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Employee behaviour |
People issues in start-ups: challenges and
solutions
Satyendra C. Pandey and Pinaki Nandan Pattnaik
Satyendra C. Pandey is Assistant
Professor at the Centre for
Management Studies, NALSAR
University of Law, Hyderabad,
India. Pinaki Nandan Pattnaik is
based at the Centre for
Management Studies, NALSAR
University of Law, Hyderabad,
India.
Competitive advantage is a
primary success factor in
today’s highly competitive
market (Grant, 1991). Access to
resources, resources themselves
and even translation of resources to
end products have been competitive
advantages for businesses. Then
came “technology”. It transformed
the way businesses conducted
themselves and consumers created
access to availabilities. The only
challenge was, all of the above were
imitable. Can imitable functions be
of any advantage? The answer lies
in people, the only inimitable
resource of all (reference). Large
businesses ensured that people, i.e.
employees complement other
resources of the firm. Small
businesses and, more recently,
start-ups are still grappling to find a
balance between equipping
themselves with all other resources
versus staffing their firms with the
talent that can give them sustainable
competitive advantage.
With investors pumping cash into
the start-up businesses coupled with
competition to hire the best,
start-ups often forget to create a
proper human resource (HR)
strategy to manage people. Time
and time again, we have seen this
happen. Start-up founders quote
“there is hardly any company that
doesn’t make a mistake”. But, if the
cost of the mistake is too high, such
as losing customers or competitive
advantage of the firm to the
competition, concern for businesses
and investors becomes obvious. The
same is not the case with people.
To begin with, it is difficult to identify
what makes people leave an
organization for another, and, on top
of that, it is even more difficult to
understand what measures may be
adopted at an organizational level to
retain individuals of worth. This
paper makes an attempt to identify
the root of this problem and
suggests possible solutions.
India has seen an upward surge in
the number of start-ups and so has
been the case in the purge of
employees. A select list includes
some of the best-known names of
the start-up community like TinyOwl,
Zomato, Housing, Ola and
Spoonjoy. Recently, TinyOwl
(November, 2015) faced a serious
crisis of lack of trust in the company
leadership when a group of
employees held the founder hostage
in its Pune, India, office. Same has
been the case with Housing, where
employees lost trust in the company.
Some of the common reasons for
such occurrences can be
highlighted as:
Lack of experience of founders
Technological breakthrough,
commercialization and taste of early
success make young and
just-out-of-college graduates to start
a company on their own. A Harvard
How to...
PAGE 194 STRATEGIC HR REVIEW VOL. 16 NO. 4 2017, pp. 194-196, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1475-4398 DOI 10.1108/SHR-09-2016-0081
To continue reading
Request your trial