It is more important than anything else for the success of your startup to establish a human resource (HR) strategy that is aligned with your business strategy. Even though talent management seems obvious when faced with such a multitude of great business challenges, the reality is that it is often neglected when faced with these challenges. Allen Woo, an expert in business operations and personnel development, discusses how startups can deal with and overcome human resource challenges.

Explains Woo, “As a company develops, it has to deal with two major problems: developing its product or service and finding its first customers. As a result, developing a team can be difficult.”

There are many instances in which the skills of people are neglected and not addressed adequately, which can result in problems. There is no doubt that the skills and skill sets needed to operate a business are different for a company with five employees, 25 employees or 250 employees. It becomes more challenging as well as requires an ever-changing approach to management as the organization grows.

The most valuable assets of a company are its people, which is why those businesses that believe that people are the most valuable assets have to develop an HR strategy right from the beginning. It is important to consider what feedback to provide, how to plan for growth, how to assist employees with their career paths, and how to deal with performance issues, as well as how to deal with performance problems.

It’s easier to get started during the early stages of a company than to face all the obstacles that a company will face as it grows over time. Most startups do not have an HR person on board at the beginning, so their CEO or vice president of marketing or engineering has other responsibilities and cannot think about skill development and development. As a matter of fact, most startups do not have an HR person on board.

Regardless of the fact that it is natural for us to take care of HR matters on a daily basis, it is imperative that people in any organization are regularly trained and developed. It is the responsibility of every organization to make sure that its employees are continuously educated about the technology of the day, and that any changes made will keep them up-to-date.

Developing talent that is already present in an organization is much less expensive than replacing someone who has become a liability to that organization. Therefore, if an organization wants to continue to learn, it needs to take existing talent and enhance it rather than replacing them.

Taking into account the speed at which problems are emerging today, businesses should consider their people’s long-term growth and the medium-term growth of the company in order to survive in today’s fast-paced environment.

There is a need to ask executives when a company grows and scales whether employees will have the ability to both maintain the current position and take on the next two positions as the company grows and scales.

I believe that regardless of whether you are managing startups or large organizations, it is important to understand the hopes, dreams, and career aspirations of your team. In order to motivate your team to perform at the highest level, you must understand their hopes, goals, and career goals, so that you can assign them positions and roles that will motivate them to do so.

Those with a leadership mindset with a medium-term vision of people’s development rather than a transactional vision of people’s development need to ask themselves a very basic question about what their team’s goals are, and how they can provide them with the support they need to achieve them.

A leader needs to be able to constantly push themselves outside of their comfort zone as a leader in order to succeed. Even when things are going well for a leader, he or she may be able to raise the bar even further.

In addition to providing specific skill-building tools, such as workshops, leaders also need to challenge and push their employees, as well. In startups, communication, fostering links between colleagues, motivating employees, and developing talent are all things that must be promoted above all else.