Foundation 5: How to hire, retain, and train the right people
The lesson
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The transcript
“The thing that I've learned over more than a decade of teaching journalism and over three decades of doing journalism is that it's more important to bring your students up to speed on why to do journalism rather than just how to do journalism.
The craft and skills of reporting and writing can be taught in a newsroom over a period of a month or so. Whereas the real reason why we do journalism, the public service element of media — that needs to be really ingrained in a student in their outlook towards life and career.”
—Kunda Dixit
Rishad: That was Kunda Dixit, publisher of Nepali Times. Many of us got into journalism because we wanted to make a difference — to change policies, to keep the powerful in check, to shape opinion.
The mission of journalism hasn't changed. However, you now have more ways to do journalism than ever before.
I’m Rishad from Splice.
Alan: And I’m Alan, also from Splice.
A: Doing journalism in 2021 is a complex beast, but it’s also much easier. You now have tools at your disposal, more ways to connect with and serve your community and constituents, and to work with some of the best talents all around you.
School of School works like this. You can listen to all of this in one go. But you might also want to break it up. Hit pause whenever and come back later.
Some of this stuff is pretty easy, so you can lean back, or take the dog out for a walk. Or just wash those dishes.
Other bits require more involvement — like if we're suggesting you write your thoughts down. So you'll need a notebook and pen. 📔✍️ And coffee. ☕️
R: Welcome to the fifth Foundation lesson from the School of Splice. In this, we'll talk about ways of framing how you hire, retain, and train people.
Like we said in our last lesson, there are no people problems — only process problems. If you have the right structure, right workflows, and the right processes in place, you'll be able to build a strong and effective team.
A: Profit is just a by-product of that process. If you're able to make the right hire for the right job requirements, revenue and profit will work out.
We asked our friend and mentor Ross Settles, who teaches at the University of Hong Kong, about hiring a team.
“If you're trying to start a new media company today, the most important advice I can give you is the team that you work with. Don't assume you have to do everything yourself. Look around for people that have complementary skills and the same vision.
Building a team is probably the most important thing you can do from day one.”
—Ross Settles
R: It is the most important thing to do from day one, like Ross says. But how do you get that right? By first figuring out what not to do.
As a young media startup, throw out all your notions of job titles. Focus on the tasks to be done first, not job titles.
We've seen this a lot — newsrooms hiring for titles, not tasks. Titles may matter when you're a 100 member-strong team and you have nothing better to do than beef up your LinkedIn profile.
A: But when you're starting up, you need as much flexibility as possible. There are going to be a LOT more tasks than people to actually do them — and that's where the flexibility comes in.
Think about it this way. If you're doing it right, you'll be revamping your job scopes and job descriptions within two years.
R: It's like software. You don't get married to your first tech stack — because if you're doing it right by testing and adapting as you go, the first tech stack that you thought you needed won't be the same stack you'll need for your subsequent years.
It's the same with job titles — you may think you want a marketing manager right now, but if you're growing and adapting, you'll see that what you need is different from what your initial ideas were.
A: As a startup founder, you need the flexibility to test ideas, throw out the ones that don't work, and pivot as needed.
If you can pin your hiring needs to your mission or roadmap, you'll be able to stay close to viability.
R: Let’s translate that. Hiring is like saying “Hey, we need a website.” But let’s examine what it is you actually want when you say that. Do you need a website, or do you actually need a way to display what you do to people who would find it relevant? Or do you need a place for people to sign up to your podcast? Or a way for them to share your reporting? THAT’S when you start to build a process to get that result, and that process could involve…building a website, because now you know specifically what you want that website to do.
And that’s a good way to think about hiring a person. When you start with what outcome you want — let’s say, “I want to get this product in the hands of as many people that would say “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY”, then you hire for someone who can manage a process towards that outcome, instead of saying “I want to hire a Marketing Manager.”
And for that, skills flexibility matters. So how do you plan for that?
By the way, we have loads more in another lesson about how to hire a website in the same way you hire a person, but that is for another time.
A: It all begins with you and what you want to get out of this journey.
If you're the founder, do you even want to be CEO? Do you have to? And if you do, how long do you want to stay in that role?
Here's Padma Priya from Suno India.
I realised that when you start your own company working on your own terms means you're just working much more harder than the usual, say nine to eight or nine to seven job, you know, which is how it was for me for many, many years and as a journalist, you don't have timings. And I've been somebody like that. And yeah, I was a self-proclaimed workaholic.
— Padma Priya
R: Ask yourself — what do you do best? Again, this isn't a title or a designation that you put on LinkedIn — it's got to do with how you bring value to your mission.
Are you really the best person to take this forward — at this stage in your evolution?
Maybe you're good at money. Or perhaps you're better with web design and audio production. Could you do both? Hey, you might be the best design-producer-accountant the world has ever seen!
A: Does the company need ideas at this stage... or execution... or investment... or sales? These are all different skills and you're probably not going to find it all in one person.
R: Hey Alan, that said, one of the best newsroom product managers we came across recently is our friend who told us she was a journalist and that she didn't know how to do — and I quote: "all that marketing stuff like newsletters". She has gone on to become one of the best product managers of a newsroom that I’ve ever seen.
Here's Roby Alampay who started Puma Podcast in the Philippines.
“I think the point is that you need somebody to really be more clinical and deliberate about the systems side. So you need to look for that person. You need to accept that it's not necessarily you.
You may do the best journalism. You may be the best journalist in the world, but you are likely going to start off as the worst businessman and organisational manager in the world. So you look for somebody and you partner with that someone, and you show that someone the value that they will have, and they have in your organisation and you let them lead.”
— Roby Alampay
R: Hit pause and spend a few minutes now thinking about what you need done in the first 6 months of your nascent startup.
Step 1: Make a column with a list of all the things you're great at.
Step 2. From that column, circle all the things you love doing. This matters because starting up is a long journey. If you're not finding joy in most of your tasks, it'll wear you out.
Go ahead and do that right now. You'll find a downloadable worksheet on this Foundation lesson website page on schoolofsplice.com. We'll wait.
A: So now you've got a list of things that you're good at — and that you love doing. This is the foundation of your team.
Now it's time to think about the other TASKS that need to be done — remember, it's about tasks, not roles.
At this point of starting up, you want to avoid hiring a full-time employee. As we said earlier in this lesson, the skills you think you need at the start will be very different from what's needed a year or two down the track.
R: So as much as possible, commission people to do very specific things for you. This is an important way for you to stress-test your operations and workflow.
If you need someone to write up a case study, commission that. If you need someone to put together a TikTok video, commission that too.
You'll find folks through word of mouth, but also look at sites like Fiverr and Upwork — these will open the doors to competitive talent from all around the world.
You'll find UI/UX people. Newsletter writers. Podcast producers. Logo creators. Even grant application writers.
A: Get moving on these because the sooner you commission, the sooner you'll figure out whether your company will work operationally. Flexibility is critical at this stage, so adjust as you go.
So how do you decide when you need to hire? Having the money is always good, but spending it wisely on making good strategic hiring decisions is even better.
Here are some questions you should be asking yourself:
Do I have a definitive job description for what needs to be done?
Does that job description include the expected outcome of those tasks?
Is there enough work in there to justify a full-time or part-time hire? (The last thing I want to do is to have to look for ways to justify a salary...cart before the horse and all that)
Is this something that couldn't or shouldn't be done by a freelancer — or perhaps it's possible to automate this with software?
Do I have the financial runway to pay that person fairly and on time?
And finally, am I able to create a conducive environment to help that person succeed?
Hit pause... and think through those questions — you'll find them in your worksheet.
R: As a founder, you don't have the time to create work for the sake of creating work. So make sure you have a clear jobs-to-be-done scope of work. At this stage, failure is when you don't have clear expectations of the role, and therefore you're making it impossible for your employee to succeed.
So hold back until these points are clear in your head. At this point in time, you're not meant to be building the perfect team — you're meant to test your way to a viable media company.
A: And this is something we've learned at Splice. We've kept things super simple — in fact, you're listening to one hundred per cent of the company right now.
We're a two-person team and we commission for a lot of the tasks we need done. For everything else, we've found a way to force ourselves to learn — everything from sales, to community management, to podcasting, to bookkeeping. And that's how we stay nimble and able to keep testing new formats and ideas. It's something we've also heard from other media startups as well.
“ The one thing I wish I had known when starting this or thinking about the whole concept is basically how to be more focused on scaling impact rather than scaling organisation. For a lot of time, for me, this has been mutual. But later on, I learned and discovered that actually growing the organisation may damage your impact. So for a year, or maybe slightly over a year right now, I focused solely on scaling impact, and only this.”
R: When you ARE ready to hire that first person, we strongly suggest that that person represents the needs of your audience in order to build products that serve them. After all, if you're doing this right, your media organisation should be built around the people you're making media for. This is usually a generalist who isn't afraid to keep making mistakes and learning. Again, the title doesn't matter — you can call them whatever you like, as long as it's polite.
Our friend Jane Mahoney, who runs reader revenue at Crikey in Australia, calls this person a product manager.
“What all product managers have in common, particularly in newsrooms, is that they're an advocate for the audience. We know that the business model in a lot of news orgs has changed. Over the last 10 years, people are moving more and more away from advertising revenue towards reader revenue, subscriptions, memberships. Even if they’re not quite there yet, there is this sort of pressure and onus on a lot of newsrooms to deepen their relationship with their readers. And the product manager is the person who advocates for that. They're the ones who need to make sure that the journalism being produced is accessible that it's valuable and viable.
And they do that essentially through, not the journalism itself, but the product and the vehicle for that journalism, which is absolutely essential because whether readers are consciously aware of it or not, they're comparing our product to every other online experience that they're having, whether that's provided by an organisation that has, you know, millions of millions of dollars in their budget or one that only has a few thousand.
It's on the product managers to try and deliver the best experience possible and make sure that the journalism we're producing has the audience first and foremost in mind, and is super accessible to them. And the product manager is essentially like the linchpin holding together all the different departments across a news organisation. Once upon a time, those departments might've been pretty siloed, but more and more in successful news organisations we're seeing teamwork between them and the product manager is generally the one who's helping to orchestrate that. So they’re incredibly important in every newsroom.”
— Jane Mahoney
A: Let's talk about DIVERSITY, ACCESS, INCLUSION, and REPRESENTATION
A: Is your newsroom representative of your audience? Diversity is vital. Having a diverse newsroom isn't just for the Team page on your website; you need your newsroom to be as diverse as possible because you want to be solving problems or addressing issues for as diverse a community as possible. In other words, it's also good for business.
But what does diversity and representation actually mean? How does it manifest itself? The best way to describe diversity from a media point of view is that you want to make sure you have a point of view that is inclusive and just.
R: Empathy is more than just a design thinking buzzword. It needs to be an important operating principle when you're building a media business. Your most solid media products will be the ones that solve specific problems for your audiences, and what better way to solve a problem than to begin with empathy?
A great way to do that is to make it a daily part of your operating principles, rather than a box you check as an afterthought. Remind the people you're working with WHY you make certain decisions. Always ask: Why are we doing this? How does it help our end user? What's in it for them? How will we find out if this is even useful for them? Make empathy a team sport.
A: The same operating principles will apply internally. You want to build your work culture around principles that allow your people to do their best work.
You're working with them because they have the skills you need. So ask yourself every day — how do I help everyone win today? How do I help them succeed at work — and at home... because as you know, there's a very thin line between work and home, professional and personal these days.
R: Success at home often means success at work... and vice versa.
So find ways to help them win.
Here's Yan Oak, who runs a fantastic data visualisation team at Thibi.
“Take really good care of your team. I find that frequent one-on-ones with every single team member is essential. Let your team members set the agenda for these meetings and really make it about them.
Listen, don't talk and then act on their feedback to show that you really listened. If word spreads that being on your team means being cared for hiring will become easier too.”
— Yan Oak
A: People want to be heard. And this is especially so with younger employees... which is what Khalil Majeed at Faqcheck Lab in Malaysia learned when he hired a small team of very young people straight out of uni.
"Honest feedback is important as well as autonomy. We want them to be heard and to hear the ideas, we allow them to experiment and apply the ideas through sessions and meetings and include them in every discussion. They are after all our team and deserve to know what's happening."
— Khalil Majeed
R: I know, that's a lot for a lesson.
But here's one final thing about hiring: Hire someone whom you can learn from. Someone who inspires you. Someone who not just grows your company — but grows you as a person.
Find people you can be honest with — and who will do the same for you. It's too much work if you're not comfortable with your team.
Running a startup is hard. Reflection and vulnerability need to be regular parts of your work.
As a small media startup entrepreneur, your ability to grow and learn greatly depends on the people you spend hours of your day with — that's where you'll derive energy, ideas, new perspectives. So make it count.
“Hi, my name is Ian Yee. I'm an investigative journalist, documentary producer, as well as co-founder of The Fourth, which is an investigative and impact media social enterprise based in Malaysia.
I think the best way to grow and nurture a young team of journalists is to really focus on the positive attributes that particular demographic has. I think every demographic in a way kind of has pros and cons, right? Strengths and weaknesses. And a lot of has been said about the weaknesses of this particular generation of young people — they're too idealistic or whatever.
But I think in general, if you focus on the strengths that they have, the agility that they bring to the table, the optimism, that they have, I think that helps you much more, and that's helped me personally as well. I have a team that has been in general, very, very young, and that's helped a lot because they're always bringing in new types of technology, bringing in new systems and new points of view. And you're not really stuck in their ways.”
We'll end this one here with the thought that as a leader growing your business, your job is to hire the best people you can find and then get out of their way.
We hope you found this useful.
Go check out the other lessons from this foundation course.
If you have questions, send us an email here, and we'll get right back to you.