Stop Treating HR as Overhead. It’s Your Operating System
A clean steel framework of a building, with warm light and a few small people figures working within it that conveys the right minimum structure for effectiveness
When I speak with clients, and to be fair with most people, the accepted view is that HR is compliance.So when they scale, most founders ignore one of the most important tools available to them because HR feels like added load.
$5NxBp70guUH[ZifuSThat might have been when HR was mostly compliance and contracts. But like most professions it’s evolved with time. Just like your CFO is your partner on finances. Your People leader should be your partner on how people work. This is why I dropped “HR” and now use “People”.
The main difference between “HR” and “People” is that People removes growth friction so the business can scale with less chaos. It becomes a growth lever for the business to establish ‘how we work together’ a.k.a the Culture.
People is the core infrastructure for your business. Especially since AI can now take over admin, contract and compliance. Culture Infrastructure provides a level of ownership and accountability that helps you catch issues early so disciplinaries become a rare exception.
As a founder, you have a choice: either give your team the most advanced OS out there and set it up for your specific team’s challenges or you saddle it with Windows XP.
There are a few companies out there that do this well and as a result have become giants in their field. One example is WD‑40.
WD‑40: Culture as a Performance System
WD‑40 is not a sexy SaaS. It’s that forgotten blue and yellow can in your garage. It regularly saves the day at the most unexpected moment. And under former CEO Garry Ridge, it became one of the strongest culture performance stories out there.
Garry Ridge changed the playbook:
He changed his job from hero problem solver to builder of people systems.
He defined culture as a formula: Culture = (Values + Behaviour) x Consistency.
He tied culture directly to business performance.
He rejected the business “family” idea and used the principles of a tribe instead (shared values, specific roles, mutual responsibility).
This works at any scale. Even at 10 people, you can treat culture as your operating system: Aligned on vision, clear expectations and consistent behaviours. That’s what lets your culture scale with the business.
What Changes when People Is Your Thought Partner
Here’s what happens in a scaling company when you treat your People leader as a thought partner:
1. Decisions Get Faster
Right now, in many startups:
People don’t know who can actually own what.
Founders get dragged into every minor issue “just in case.”
Teams wait for clarity that never comes, so they stall or guess.
With a strong People leader:
Decision rights are mapped and communicated.
Escalation paths and budget thresholds agreed.
Fewer ‘what do you think?’ Slacks, more time to execute for you.
2. Stop Burning Out Your Best People (And Yourself)
Founders love lean teams. Done well, lean teams are powerful. Done badly, they’re a train wreck in slow motion:
One or two people quietly carry the load of five.
The team plays catch up rather than improves the system.
The people you rely on most are the ones closest to burnout.
A strong culture infrastructure will:
Reassign workload where it belongs.
Redesign teams, scope and priorities so performance accelerates.
Free up time by removing communication and accountability frictions.
Clarity gives your team members the power to do what’s right and the bandwidth to do it when it matters.
3. Performance Management As Growth Engine
Most scaleups leaders:
Are slowed by lack of ownership and accountability.
Avoid the hard conversation for as long as possible.
Hope they leave by themselves and panic when they don’t.
With the right culture infrastructure:
Managers have simple ways to set expectations and give feedback.
They are coached through the first few difficult conversations.
Someone who can succeed has the means to do so and when there’s a poor fit, they exit with clarity and respect.
That reduces legal risk, yes. More importantly, it protects morale and clearly sets the standards for performance.
When There’s No People Infrastructure…
We’ve all seen versions of this:
Founders say “people are our most important asset,” but no one knows what good looks like and how they can be successful in this team.
People Ops is pulled in late to “fix” engagement or handle fallout.
Culture is a deck saved “somewhere” on drive but no one remembers where.
Managers ignore performance conversations in the hope they’ll go away (they don’t).
In that setup, People can only ever be defensive and reactive. It writes policies to plug holes and avoids (the best it can) litigation risks.
If the above sounds familiar, it sounds like you haven’t designed your Culture infrastructure deliberately and like tech debt accumulates in code, you accumulate People debt in how your team works.
How to Use People as an Accelerator
If you are a founder or senior leader, here is how to get real value from your People leader.
1. Invite Them in Early
Next time you plan a round of funding, extra headcount, or a new market expansion, have your People leader in the working sessions. Their job is to help you shape the strategy and fit the new pieces into your existing culture infrastructure.
2. Co-Create the Culture
Dive deep on the behaviours you want to see coming from your values. Make those behaviours non negotiable with your leaders so the team can internalise them. Write them down. Build them into hiring, feedback, and performance reviews.
3. Be Honest About Where You Need to Grow
The most powerful thing Ridge did at WD‑40 was admit he had to unlearn his own leadership style.
What I see most often in founders is either that they avoid conflict until it explodes. Or founders say ‘people first’, yet consistently sacrifice them to investor pressure.
This is the toughest. Your People leader can help you see patterns and experiment with new behaviours. Sadly they’re only a partner in the process. Most of the hard calls still remain yours (soz).
If You Take One Thing Away
Your business already has a People Operating System. With a strong People leader, you can shape it to make your business scale on a more solid base. If you don’t, you’ll keep paying for avoidable people problems with time, money and attention.
Treat People as overhead and you’ll get policies. Treat them as a thought partner and you’ll get a company that scales as you always dreamt it would.