'Social Media Has Democratized Hiring & That's Awesome for Entrepreneurs' People Don't Come to Office to Work, They Come to Win Says This Entrepreneur.
By Aashika Jain
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
The Spanish girl who came to India in 2004 to pursue her masters in business administration now has a business in India.
As luck would have it, she met her soulmate as a professional at one of India's biggest multinational firms and both partners decided to start their entrepreneurial journey in the country.
Featured #3 on the 2016 LinkedIn Top Voices List, Ester Martinez is a woman with a voice, which she is extending to Indian businesses to find the right voices with the help of her media tool People Matters.
"I think when I decided to become an entrepreneur; I did a lot of research. After some time I realized you really need to choose something which is your intrinsic desire, what is it that you really want to do. And how do you turn that into a business is a separate story," says Martinez.
She believes there is a huge gap today from both sides in understanding how meaningful the HR function is to business. "My question was why is it so difficult for companies to align businesses and to make the best of the talent that they have."
Martinez says her organization's purpose is to influence a community to enable change. The media unit includes print or online and events. Her belief is that social media has democratized hiring and that's the awesome thing for entrepreneurs.
In a conversation with Entrepreneur, Martinez spoke about what businesses should do to hire right and why they should take up the task of hiring seriously.
Winning Team
It is clear that all of us come to work with great intent to do great work. No one comes to work saying today I am going to make sure I will not contribute. Somehow, somewhere we are not able to extract that from people.
"I think the starting point of any scale; the first step is about having clarity of where we are going. We have a lot of entrepreneurs in that stage where they don't know where they are going. That's the starting point for a successful strategy for scaling up. Really narrowing down and making it very sharp and focused is crucial," says Martinez.
Finding out what we do and also finding out what we don't want to do is important is crucial.
"You will need a product which is distinct, because if your product is not distinct, you will not have competitive advantage. You will need customers who love you so much that they are loyal, they will not shift. You will need clear business metrics that are important and you will need passionate people to reach your destination. That will be your winning team," says Martinez.
The winning team starts with the hiring. Once you compromise on hiring, you have created a problem at the source. The amount of discipline you need in your hiring is needed because it determines where you are going.
Is Everyone Moving The Ball Forward?
The second piece is really aligning different people for the more successful part of the job. So having clarity on structure and creating a structure that works for you is what show if everyone is moving the ball forward.
When I look at structure, there is horizontal. You are hiring people, you need to give them a structure believes Martinez.
"Your assets, your employees and your investors and what you sell and then keeping the record and making sure we are on the right track, so there are only six bubbles in running a business. So who is doing what? What will the flow of work look like? A lot of entrepreneurs only look at the hierarchical structure," says Martinez.
Create a Rhythm
We have got the right people, we have got the right structure; that's still is not enough. We need to find a way to create a rhthym for all of us to synergise.
"We need to talk to each other, update each other. A daily huddle helps clean up. The objective is to move the ball forward. Monthly meets are for learning and development," says Martinez.