Flat as a Board 🪵
In 2013, e-retailer Zappos famously adopted a flat org structure called Holacracy, which eliminated managers and job titles. Everyone was equal. Everyone was on the same level. It’s an idea that has been trendy in startups for the past decade, and something I’ve experienced a few times at different companies.
Typically, as a company scales, it’s harder to pull off a flat structure. When you’re 12 people in a room, it’s easy to point to accountability and job responsibilities. When that number balloons to 150, things become infinitely more complicated.
Without managers, who will be responsible for evaluating an employee’s performance, crucial for how contributors are measured for comp increases each year?
How will new employees, brought onboard and expected to jump right in, know who to go to for specific issues and information, if everyone is just ‘Steve in the back corner’ and not titled with something descriptive?
In my experience, the flat lifecycle typically taps out as you grow, right around the time that your org adopts stricter product methodologies and swim lanes. What I don’t see talked about nearly enough is the lasting impact of flat structure on individual employees: without a job title, it’s harder to market yourself, carve out a niche, or prove your career path to future employers.
Your Resume Tells a Story 📖
It’s unrealistic, in this economy but especially in startups, to expect that an employee will be with your company for 20 years. Funding contractions, layoffs, COVID… it’s been an interesting time for tech workers. When they leave your company and start to apply to other jobs, they’ll frequently be evaluated by recruiters (and, in 2024, their burgeoning AI counterparts).
One of my previous startups had very little cash, and liked to compensate by giving everyone increasingly lofty job titles. Three years in, my salary was the same, but suddenly I was a director. My job duties were overwhelming. At first I thought it was a good sign, that I was being rewarded for my hard work and dedication.
Fast forward to the advent of the COVID labor market. I was applying to jobs that fit my duties and aspirations, but didn’t necessarily have director in the title, and received rejection after rejection. I chalked it up to strange times until one kindly recruiter told me on the screening call ‘…you’re a director. Why would you want to go backwards? You’d just leave us when something better came along.’ I was floored. The salary would have been a decent pay bump, the benefits an improvement. But my title told a story on my resume that was actually closing doors, instead of opening them. I tweaked my title, applied for the next round of positions, and started getting callbacks right away, all for jobs that paid much more than my ‘director’ salary.
Desired Verbiage as a Hidden Employee Benefit 💰
As a founder or leader, one of the kindest hidden benefits you can offer your candidates and new employees is flexibility in their job title. If you’re asking them for manager level work but haven’t put manager in the title, ask yourself if you have a good reason not to. If someone suggests a more descriptive or inclusive title, granting that request makes their expertise clearer to their coworkers, and to whichever HR professional you inevitably hire and entrust with people organization after you surpass the 100 headcount.
Proper titling also sets employees up for success in five years when you’re acquired and everyone parts ways. You might be thinking ‘Can’t they just call themselves whatever they want when the job hunt?’ Your company might not have required a background check as part of your conditions for employment, but other employers certainly do. It’s a bureaucratic process that involves a third party checking service calling and asking for verification of exact words, dates, and and locations. You’re building a paper trail that allows them to truthfully speak to their experience and prove that they are who they claim to be.
And to think, offering that benefit doesn’t cost you a dime. 🪙
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