How HR Plays Into Online Business

When I started in the workforce 12 years ago, bright eyed and bushy tailed, I never thought I would end up on the Human Resources side of business development. Honestly, the HR people were scary policy police that I didn’t want anything to do with as a cold call sales representative. When I started working with online businesses, I was faced with a new question: how does HR play into the online business industry?

Why does HR matter?

So how did we get here? It’s a tale as old as time: sales burnout turns into data analytics and training development lateral move, turns into corporate business restructure, turns to damaging patriarchal male management, turns into convincing your 3 best friends to quit said ‘job’ and flee to Europe with a few thousand dollars and only the unemployment line waiting for us on return.

All that is to say, as a high performer, I genuinely wanted to be successful and believed in the company’s mission, and time after time I was hurt, tossed aside, treated like a number, and discarded. All these interractions and microagressions add up over time, and as the company’s culture diminished, so did my productivity.

After our collective escape to Europe, my friends and I came back to the US with one mission: get a job because we spent all our money. I still remember the last cuppa tea and chocolate pastry I had in London before boarding the flight back to the US with $12 in my bank account.

I learned so much working for that company, I met my husband and some of my best friends. I had my graduate degree paid for. I participated in a leadership program where I discovered my passion for helping others lead teams. And I am #blessed with these experiences to look critically at the things that we are told to accept without question in the workplace.

I am grateful for this experience, because I learned what not to do.

Can HR really be fun?

Over the past 9 years, I have realized that by finding and mentoring exceptional people, work can be fun, and that service based businesses are truly powered by the people who work for them.

At Paradigm, we flip leadership on it’s head, and we work and serve those under us on the good old org chart. We teach business owners to cultivate relationships with their teams that are real and authentic so that work can be fun for the CEOs and the team. #butmakeitfun 🙂

Human Resources is not what it once was. HR traditionally sits on the 10th floor, rubbing elbows with the C Suite, and prioritizing the safety of the company. Over the past decade, HR professionals who were trained to protect a company, while bullshi**ing with the teams on the floor, have been put in an impossible position, giving us all a bad name! HR has been the middleman, cultivating uncertainty, mistrust, and an all around crappy, fear driven culture.

So what does this mean to you?

Online business is different. Since the pandemic, HR professionals have taken the brunt of ever changing legislation created to keep teams safe. We have become infectious disease specialists, public health professionals (Hey Dan at the San Diego Department of Health! It’s me again!), therapists, counselors, and remote work IT professionals.

Suddenly, everyone wants remote work. Online business has always been here. The rest of the world is just catching up to this innovation. However, HR has not been a key player in the online business model. We have built businesses on the back of contract and gig workers. We have toed the line of legality and ethics, and now that we know the future of work is turning into the online business model, it is time to get competitive with our candidate and employee experience.

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Paradigm People Operations Consulting™ has built a new type of HR compliance just for remote teams.

We use traditional HR practices to do the ‘supposed to’ parts, new theories and technology, and modern leadership practices to become your partner in managing and cultivating your team.

Are you ready to turn your business into a company?

So, how do you know if your company is ready to build a kick-ass, people centered culture and set the standard of our industry?

1. You have gone from freelancer to solopreneur.
2. You wonder “Are contractors are really considered your team.” (Spoiler Alert – they are not)
3. You have a proven business model, and you know where your next dollar is coming from.
4. You think that maybe having support is worth it, but you might be sabotaging your growth because you don’t know where to start.
5. It’s scary to know if you can afford to hire a team.

The fact of the matter is, traditional HR functions are now easily automated. But managing and leading your people cannot. There are infinite ways to structure your company so that you can ensure your growth and lean into doing what you love.

So, two things are true. You have to have HR and you want to have People Operations (cuz that’s the fun part!) and you have the chance to get ahead of the curve in the online business space and set yourself apart as a brand that provides quality services and products, and attracts the BEST talent.

Feeling this post? Get in contact with us and let’s get you a magical growth plan that is actually fun!

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