Are You Doing HR on Purpose — or by Accident?
Most startups don’t start with an HR team — and that’s okay.
What’s not okay? Waiting until something goes wrong to start thinking about HR at all.
At Reverb, we often meet companies at a crossroads: they’ve grown quickly, built scrappy systems that worked "for now," and suddenly find themselves facing growing pains — employee relations issues, unclear expectations, reactive processes, or even legal risks. That’s what we call accidental HR.
And it’s more common than you think.
What Accidental HR Looks Like
HR is owned by… no one (or everyone).
Onboarding is “shadow someone for a few days.”
Performance feedback is saved for when something’s wrong.
Raises and titles happen because someone asked — not because there’s a system.
Culture? It’s whatever’s happening in Slack this week.
In the early days, this can feel flexible and efficient. But it becomes a problem fast — people get frustrated, expectations get misaligned, and leaders end up in reaction mode all the time.
So What’s Intentional HR?
Intentional HR is what happens when you pause and say, “Let’s actually design this.” It’s not corporate. It’s not complicated. It’s just on purpose. Things like:
Defining what great looks like — and how you talk about performance
Creating a hiring process that reflects your values
Writing policies that are simple, fair, and actually used
Making decisions about pay, titles, and feedback based on a clear framework — not gut feel
Intentional HR gives your team structure without bureaucracy. It builds trust. It saves you time. And it helps you scale without reinventing the wheel every time something comes up.