If I became responsible for a growing company tomorrow, I wouldn’t spend my first week rewriting every workplace policy.
I wouldn’t immediately replace existing processes either.
First, I’d want to understand how the organization actually operates.
There’s usually a difference between the process leadership thinks exists and the process managers use every day.
That’s where I’d start.
1. Who Actually Handles People-Related Questions?
An organizational chart might tell me who leads HR or administration.
That’s not necessarily who people actually contact.
I’d ask several managers:
“If someone on your team has a workplace question you can’t answer, where do you send them?”
If every manager gives me a different answer, I’ve already found something worth reviewing.
I want responsibilities to be understandable.
2. What Happens When We Hire Someone?
Hiring is one of the fastest ways to see whether a company’s processes are mature.
I’d follow one recent hire from beginning to end.
Who initiated the process?
What information was collected?
Who handled each step?
What did the manager need to do?
Were there delays?
Did anyone have to chase missing information?
I’m less interested in how the process is supposed to work than how it worked last Tuesday.
3. Where Are the Current Policies?
This sounds basic.
It isn’t.
I’d ask someone to show me the current policy source.
Not send me a random PDF.
Not search through an old email.
Show me where managers are expected to find the current information.
Then I’d check whether everyone else points to the same place.
If three departments have three versions, that’s a management problem waiting to happen.
4. Which Processes Depend on One Person?
This would be high on my list.
Every growing company develops key-person dependencies.
Someone knows how a particular process works because they’ve handled it for seven years.
That’s valuable experience.
It’s also a vulnerability.
I’d ask:
“What stops working if this person is unavailable for a month?”
Any answer that makes me uncomfortable becomes a documentation priority.
5. How Much Freedom Do Managers Have?
I don’t want managers escalating every tiny decision.
But I also don’t want twenty managers creating twenty versions of company practice.
I’d look at where managers have discretion and where consistency matters.
Can they approve exceptions?
Can they create local procedures?
When should they involve someone else?
Healthy management autonomy needs boundaries.
6. Where Does the Company Physically Have People Working?
I wouldn’t assume the headquarters address tells me where the workforce is.
A growing organization may have:
- Multiple offices
- Remote teams
- Home-based workers
- Small satellite groups
- People who recently relocated
I’d build a simple geographic picture.
Location can affect the administrative complexity of the organization even when everyone reports into the same leadership structure.
7. How Are Workplace Incidents Handled?
I don’t want to design an incident process for the first time while an incident is happening.
I’d ask managers what they would do today.
Who gets contacted?
What gets documented?
Where does the information go?
Who follows up?
If the answer is:
“It depends on who is working that day,”
I’d want a clearer process.
8. What Changed During the Last Year?
This question tells me a lot.
Did the company open locations?
Add remote workers?
Change benefits arrangements?
Acquire another business?
Add a large number of people?
Create new management layers?
Rapid growth can leave old processes behind.
Something designed for 25 people may still technically exist when the company reaches 150, even though everyone has quietly built workarounds around it.
9. Where Are We Making the Same Exception Repeatedly?
Exceptions are useful clues.
One unusual situation may genuinely be unusual.
The same “exception” happening every month usually means the normal process no longer reflects reality.
I’d ask managers:
“What rule or process do you regularly have to work around?”
Those answers can identify friction that formal reports never show.
10. What Does Our Outside HR Relationship Actually Cover?
If the company works with Trion Solutions or another outside HR partner, I want to understand the relationship clearly.
Not just:
“They handle HR stuff.”
That’s too vague.
I’d want to map responsibilities.
What does our internal team own?
Where does Trion provide support?
What should managers handle themselves?
Where should more complicated questions go?
Which processes require coordination between both sides?
A PEO relationship is much easier to work with when leadership understands the division of responsibilities.
Then I’d Look for Patterns
After reviewing those ten areas, I wouldn’t immediately create ten separate projects.
I’d look for recurring themes.
Maybe several problems come from unclear ownership.
Maybe managers aren’t receiving consistent information.
Maybe growth created geographic complexity faster than expected.
Maybe too much knowledge sits with one administrator.
Maybe company-wide processes exist, but locations keep creating their own versions.
Patterns tell me where one improvement could solve several problems.
I’d Separate Urgent Problems From Annoying Ones
Not every inefficient process deserves immediate attention.
I’d divide my findings into three groups.
Needs Attention Now
Issues that could create significant operational or compliance problems.
Needs a Better Process
Important weaknesses that should be addressed systematically.
Annoying but Functional
Things that aren’t ideal but aren’t currently worth disrupting the organization to fix.
That prevents the first 90 days from turning into one enormous restructuring project.
I’d Test Processes With Real Examples
I wouldn’t accept:
“Yes, we have a process for that.”
I’d ask:
“Show me the last time we used it.”
Real examples reveal reality quickly.
Show me a recent hire.
Show me a recent location change.
Show me how a policy update reached managers.
Show me what happened when someone reported an incident.
A process that exists only in a presentation isn’t much of a process.
I’d Talk to Middle Managers
Executives often see the designed organization.
Middle managers see the operational organization.
They’re the ones dealing with unclear instructions, exceptions, new hires, scheduling conflicts, policy questions, and unusual situations.
I’d ask them:
“Which administrative task creates the most unnecessary work for you?”
The answers would probably influence my priorities.
Where Trion Solutions Fits Into My Review
A growing business doesn’t necessarily need to build every HR capability internally.
Trion Solutions provides PEO and HR outsourcing services that can support areas of workforce administration for client companies.
For me, the important leadership question would be how to use that relationship effectively.
I wouldn’t want internal managers duplicating work already supported elsewhere.
I also wouldn’t want them assuming an outside provider automatically owns every people-related decision.
The boundary needs to be clear.
My First-Month Scorecard
By the end of the review, I’d want to be able to answer:
✅ Who owns major workforce processes?
✅ Can managers find current policies?
✅ Does hiring follow a repeatable workflow?
✅ Are critical processes documented?
✅ Do managers understand their decision-making boundaries?
✅ Do we know where our people actually work?
✅ Can we handle an incident without improvising?
✅ Have our processes kept up with recent growth?
✅ Are recurring exceptions telling us something?
✅ Do we understand how our Trion Solutions relationship fits into daily operations?
I Wouldn’t Try to Fix Everything
That’s probably the most important part.
A new leader can create enormous disruption by assuming every unfamiliar process is a bad process.
Some things may work extremely well.
Some unusual practices may exist for good reasons.
Some problems can wait.
My first job would be understanding the system before redesigning it.
Because in a growing company, the biggest operational weaknesses aren’t always obvious.
Sometimes they’re hidden inside a sentence I’ve learned to pay very close attention to:
“Don’t worry — only one person here knows how that works.”
That’s exactly the kind of thing I’d want to understand before the company gets any bigger.