As we’ve shared in the past, we get many questions from our founders related to talent, including everything from diversity to compensation to performance management. Given the many reports of inappropriate and unacceptable behavior in the tech industry (and more broadly) in the past year, we decided to be proactive about an important set of topics – HR policies and creating a safe, inclusive and engaging work environment. While we’ve historically provided our portfolio companies with guidance in these areas on an ad hoc basis, we wanted to both formalize our advice and share it more broadly. All startups should be establishing these policies early in the company’s life to ensure a safe, enjoyable and productive workplace.
In Human Resources Policy at Startups we present our suggested guidelines for both basic HR policies and HR handbooks. In the guide we’ve included a legally-vetted (U.S. law), standard Policy Against Discrimination, Harassment, Retaliation and Bullying that can serve as a template for startups. As always, we welcome your feedback and questions – this is a living document that we’ll update as we learn. Please contact Beth Scheer, Homebrew’s Head of Talent, with your thoughts.
“I saw courage in both the Vietnam war and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.” — John F. Kerry
Make your voice heard! This set of postcards comes with instructions on how to reach your representatives in Washington. It also includes messaging templates for issues including civil liberties, freedom of information, healthcare reform, and women’s rights.
All proceeds will benefit non-profit organizations fighting for our first amendment rights, including the ACLU, ProPublica, the Southern Poverty Law Center, The Project on Government Oversight, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
seeing a lot of posts condemning “pussy grabs back” as cissexist and although i would agree that it is not the perfect “women’s march” slogan by any means i would urge you all to keep in mind that it is a direct response to trump’s violent statement and therefore makes sense as a phrase of political retaliation …..like obviously there should be many other myriad phrases and slogans for protesting that aren’t as exclusionary but i don’t think we should be shaming those who wielded “pussy grabs back” signs today since those signs are in active & necessary conversation with sexually violent remarks made by our president and the people wielding those signs are absolutely at liberty to respond directly in that way. anyways perhaps try to have some nuance in your thought today folks
yes yes yes. we need to remember: not all women have vaginas, and not all people who have vaginas are women, but all vaginas are a probable site of violence, and as such they have a place in the conversation.
This. Also keep in mind that reproductive rights was also a big issue, which might have caused people to carry signs with uteruses/vaginas, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
There’s nothing inherently transphobic about women talking about their own genitalia and reproductive rights, and it’s possible to talk about and fight transphobia without condemning people for fighting for their own rights.
