Firing people + managing parental leave, with HR expert Lexi Kantor
Lexi Kantor, Head of People at MatrixSpace.
Welcome to another episode of From Founder to Leader: The Human Stories Behind Bio and Climate Tech Startups. In this podcast episode, we are demystifying what it looks like to build a hard tech startup from the ground up by sharing the real human stories behind the headlines from the people driving innovation. In today's episode, we'll be talking with Lexi Kantor, who is currently the head of people at Matrix Space. Lexi, thank you so much for joining us.
Lexi: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Jaye: Lexi, we're going to talk about your background a little bit, but one of the big reasons I wanted to invite you to this podcast is that I'm always sending my clients to you for help with a couple of very clear human resource challenges. One is firing people. It's always a big, stressful thing for new founders to know how to do. And the other is parental leave. Teams are often struggling with those two things. So let's start first with a little bit about you and your background.
Lexi: Yes. So I like to say that I grew up in startups. I graduated from Babson College with an undergrad degree in business, and was really lucky to be hired into a startup as their first HR person. So I got thrown into the deep end and had to figure it out on my own and just be super scrappy. And I ended up loving that environment where I was actively building and helping something scale. I've been in various versions of tech startups for the last ten years, doing exactly that: building, scaling, and advising a lot of, in many cases, recent postdocs who maybe have never even been in a company before. So not only advising on HR, but also a little bit on business operations and how to think about scaling and growing.
Jaye: I love that you are my go-to for these kinds of questions. So let's start at the beginning: at what point do early stage startups in our ecosystem actually bring on a full-time HR person?
Lexi: It varies based on the leader, for sure. I'm typically brought in anywhere between 30 and 40 employees. MatrixSpace interestingly brought me in a tad later than that, and some companies have brought me in a tad earlier. But that seems to be the sweet spot where you start bringing in people who aren't your immediate core team, and they're not up for anything anymore. They start to speak their mind, HR issues start to arise, someone has a baby, you need to fire someone, and then it sort of snowballs and they need to bring in someone full time.
Jaye: But what do the early teams — those under 30 employees — typically do in the interim between having no one and having someone full time?
Lexi: A lot of them will find a consultant they can pull in ad hoc when they need. I've done that for multiple very early stage companies — 2 or 3 people who just need to, say, write a parental policy because the CEO is having a baby. Very ad hoc, hourly work. Also, I have to say, ChatGPT has been really helpful for those types of things. If you have something that doesn't require a lot of legal finesse or compliance and you just need to spitball with someone, ChatGPT can be really helpful.
Jaye: I love that. How do you find a fractional HR person? What would you advise people to do to find someone good?
Lexi: Talk to your peers. Peer companies at similar stages have usually already found someone or know several people. The Engine has a really good ecosystem of people like that, or they can send you to them. I think it mostly comes down to networking and asking around. Feel free to reach out to me — I'll be happy to help or point you in the right direction. There are also consulting companies you could go to. Those tend to be a little more expensive than an individual fractional person, but the benefit is that they offer a full-service experience with legal experts, compliance experts, and hiring experts. It kind of just depends on what you're looking for.
Jaye: Let's get right into the messy, hard stuff. Let's talk about firing, which is always the topic that folks come to me about as a coach. They're like, "I have this problem situation, what do I do?" Walk us through the process from knowing someone has to go to them being offboarded. What would you advise someone who's never had to fire anyone before?
Lexi: The first thing I always say is that firing somebody goes against every human instinct you have, and it feels horrible. There's no way to make it feel less horrible. So you just have to do it in the most respectful, humane way you can, rip the bandaid off, and move through it. A lot of times when I advise people, they're like, "What if we did it this way? What if we did it that way?" It's going to feel crappy the whole time no matter what. So the first thing is to just accept that it is business. That makes it maybe a little easier. Then I would say the other overarching thing, where I get into the details, is this: I'm a big proponent of acting early. A week at a startup is like a year, and you don't have time to sit around, wait for it to get better, coach them, and put them on a PIP. A PIP when you're three people is just not going to work.
Jaye: For our listeners — what is a PIP, just to make sure?
Lexi: A PIP is a Performance Improvement Plan. It typically looks like 3 to 6 months of outlining exactly where the problem areas are, coaching the person on how to get there, and measuring their progress. By the end of the PIP, you reassess. That may work well in a larger company, and it can also be helpful when you're worried about potential legal repercussions — if the person is in a protected class, or if the situation hasn't been handled well from the beginning. But in general, I'm pretty against PIPs because I think they draw out the inevitable, especially in teams as small as the ones we're talking about.
When you start to feel that little tingle of "maybe this isn't working out," start documenting everything. Write down what isn't working and when, with examples. Talk directly to the person and say, "Can I give you some feedback here?" Then follow up with an email summarizing that feedback. So you want everything written down and you want to make sure you've spoken to this person about your concerns.
If that's not working after a couple of weeks, start thinking more seriously about a termination conversation. What that looks like is a ten-minute max conversation that takes a lot more planning than it does time to actually conduct. Prior to going into the conversation, you'll want to make sure there's redundancy in access to everything that person has access to, and that someone else holds the majority of their knowledge — ensuring continuity. If you don't have an HR person on staff, talk to an HR person or your legal counsel, just to make sure there's nothing about the situation that could put you in trouble. Some examples: this person recently told you they need a medical leave, or this person is in a protected class based on race, gender, age, etc. If this person is pregnant — you know, catch my drift.
Then plan the communication around the termination. And I'll come back to what I said before — all of this goes against your human instincts. So what you're going to want to do is get them in a room, say maybe two sentences, and then send them on their way.
Jaye: What do those sentences sound like? Can you model it for us?
Lexi: Yes. It typically sounds something like: "Thanks for coming in today. Unfortunately, I have to let you know that today will be your last day at the company." Or: "We're giving you two weeks' notice. Here's what that's going to look like." Then: "It's unfortunate that it didn't work out. We wish you the best. Here's your severance package."
Those are other details you can get into — when and why to offer a severance package, for example. Legal counsel can always help with that. But it really is just a two-sentence thing.
The two things I always advise: don't get into the weeds and details. They're going to ask you why. They're going to start citing examples. They're going to push back. And your response to that is, "Unfortunately, this decision is final. We wish you the best."
And the other thing — never apologize. It's going to feel so tempting to say "I'm sorry," but for somebody who might lean litigious, saying sorry is an immediate hook for them to claim you were doing something wrong. So never say sorry, never answer questions. Just get them in and out as quickly as possible and then make their transition as smooth as possible. That's where the humanity and the respect can come in — "We'll take care of all of this for you. Here's your severance package. Here's the information about COBRA if you offer benefits." Have all of that prepared in advance.
Jaye: How do you manage the change with the team?
Lexi: Great question. My experience is that every team likes to handle this very differently, and it depends on the culture. So there are a bunch of different ways to do it. If it's a larger team, sometimes leadership will find an excuse to gather the team and then announce the news. Other teams prefer a one-on-one approach, letting each team member know what happened and answering questions.
However you do it, share as little information as possible. A lot of it should be treated as confidential. Most of the team does not need to know why somebody was let go — they just need to know what happens next. Typically when teams hear that someone has been fired, especially if it's the first time your company is firing somebody, the first thing they're thinking is, "Oh my God, is my job safe?"
And so what you want to do is focus for a moment on saying "This is what happened, we have a plan," and then focus on the future. What does this mean for us? Are we replacing this person? Who's taking on their workload? How will the rest of the team know if they are not in good standing performance-wise? What are our processes around managing performance? Those are the things I would include in communication to the team.
Jaye: Would you tell someone that this person was fired for performance issues?
Lexi: It's nuanced. I think there is trust to be built in showing a team that the company doesn't tolerate poor performance, because usually the rest of the team is feeling that poor performance as well. So there are situations where it is appropriate to share that there were performance issues. A better phrase is that it turned out not to be a good fit — and the people who have been working with that person will understand why. You don't really need to say much more.
Jaye: So — day-of choreography. I often get into a minute-by-minute plan with my clients to make sure everything is thoughtful, so people aren't blindsided by, say, finding out this person's email was cut off before anyone knows what's going on. Do you have tips on the choreography of moving through it so it's relatively smooth?
Lexi: You'll want to coordinate so that whoever controls your IT is shutting off their access while you're in the meeting with them — unless this is an amicable situation where you're giving them a couple of weeks' notice. You'll want them to leave everything in the room after the conversation, with no access to anything. But if access gets cut before the conversation happens, that's going to freak people out. So it needs to be very well orchestrated. You need someone on the other end — maybe your laptop is open and you give a thumbs up to the IT person as you're uttering the sentence. There are a lot of those types of dynamics at play.
The other piece that often trips people up is that in Massachusetts, you're required to give someone their final paycheck on their last day of work if you're firing them. That can be confusing because a lot of clients use Gusto, and Gusto notifies you when you get paid. So if you send payment to arrive on someone's last day, they're going to get an email at 8 a.m. saying they've been paid, and then they're going to say, "Hey, I thought payday wasn't today."
One way to get around that is to write a paper check and record it in your payroll system. You can also buy yourself two days — if you're having the conversation on a Wednesday, say Friday is their last day. They're not expected to work the rest of Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, but they'll receive their paycheck on Friday, and you can send it through your normal process. They'll be notified, but they'll already know what's happening. That's my preferred method.
Jaye: Just for our listeners — why do you have to cut off access so abruptly?
Lexi: This is one of those things that doesn't feel very humane. The huge risk — what people are often fearful about when terminating someone — is that the person will fly off the handle. They'll send emails to all of their customers and investors saying they were mistreated. They'll falsify data, sabotage an experiment, steal something, cause a scene. That has never happened in my ten years in HR, personally. I know it's happened to some people. You just want to be prepared for the absolute worst.
And what I tell myself is that person has a support system that will give them all the warmth and comfort and help them understand that this is how the world works. Your job in the moment is to protect your company and your remaining team. The way you do that is by getting them out the door as quickly as possible and cutting off all of their access so there's no opportunity for them to even think about sabotaging your company.
Jaye: So one last question — how do you manage the gap between cutting off access and communicating to the team so they're not confused?
Lexi: Tell the team as quickly as possible. Go directly from the termination meeting to talking to your team. Especially in a small team where news travels fast — one of them is probably going to see the person walking out or packing up their desk. This is one of my HR pro tips for startups: everyone is going to know in two seconds. So you want the message to come from you, in the way you want it to be heard. Schedule time to talk to the team immediately after the termination meeting.
Jaye: This is so helpful. And I 100% agree with everything you've said from my own experiences. It's so hard. I once had to fire someone on their first day. It was an awful experience. And I was sitting with an HR representative who reminded me that the second this doesn't feel awful, you've lost your humanity. So remind yourself that it shouldn't feel good — it's a horrible thing to have to do to someone. But you are responsible for the success and outcome of your startup, and you have to do what you need to do to hit those technical milestones and bring in the resources to keep moving.
Lexi: Yeah, I completely agree.
Jaye: So we're going to shift gears in our last few minutes to talk about another big topic: parental leave. I often send people to you when they have no idea what to do. Can you give us a few tips on how to think about it when your first person is going on parental leave and you have to set a precedent for the org?
Lexi: Yes. So I'll start here: whatever you do for the first person, you have to pretty much do for everyone else, forever, until you make a concerted, documented policy change. This is really important because pregnant people and those who need to take leave to care for a pregnant person are protected classes, which means if they sue you for mistreating them, they'll probably win. And this is also true of adoptive families — any situation involving bringing a child into your life.
Jaye: Correct. Yes. Thank you.
Lexi: Typically where I'll start is by telling people that Massachusetts offers paid parental leave legally to every employee. So at baseline, you're required as an organization to allow your employees to take — I believe it's up to 20 weeks of job-protected parental leave if you're the birthing parent, and a little less if you're not. So even if you don't do anything else, even if you don't top up the pay or offer anything more generous, you have to offer that leave, and their job has to be available at the same rate of pay when they return. Period.
A lot of companies choose to do more than that. Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave typically pays at roughly 60% of salary during the leave — it varies and the calculation is very confusing — but a lot of companies will top up the remaining 40% so that the person on leave is making their full salary while out. You could also do that for a limited period, like the first six weeks, and then have the employee rely on Mass PFML for the remainder. Or you could extend the total amount of leave time. That's not usually super attractive in a small team, so people tend to go for the pay top-up. But legally, you're not required to do anything except allow them to take the leave, and that's fine — it's actually a pretty generous state leave.
To administer it, your company needs to be registered with Massachusetts PFML as an employer, so you can manage the portal and see applications. The employee registers on the employee portal, submits an application, it comes to you, you approve it, and then you manage your payroll around it when the person goes on leave.
Jaye: Here's a tricky one. Can you have someone work an hour a week while they're on parental leave so the transition isn't as abrupt, especially when it's a senior leader who's the only person with a certain expertise on your team? Is that possible?
Lexi: It is. The most compliant way to do that is to have the person apply for intermittent leave through the Massachusetts PFML portal. That allows them to submit hours rather than assuming they're taking a set number of weeks off. They'll only get paid by the state for those hours, and then you pay them through your payroll for the hours they work. That's the easiest approach. There are other creative ways to handle it, especially if you have PTO or unlimited vacation, but compliance-wise, that's probably the best way.
Jaye: That's super helpful. I have a lot of CEOs who are having babies — especially female CEOs — and trying to figure out how to juggle the early days of a new child while also running the company. Any tips for them?
Lexi: Honestly, the tip that comes to mind is to model what you'd like to see from your employees in the future. Please take time to take care of your child, especially assuming you've hired a team you can trust to keep things moving. Then just communicate. Using the Massachusetts PFML portal is relatively straightforward. The harder part is setting boundaries and communicating when you'll be working, what you're needed for versus what you're not, and those types of things. In these early stage companies especially, that sets the tone for how everyone else is going to behave.
Jaye: I love that. We actually have a tool in our Founder Leader Toolbox that helps people communicate exactly those things. I'll link it in the transcript so people can access it along with this episode. Lexi, we're about to wrap up. What is your number one head of people tip for early stage startups?
Lexi: I thought about this. Can I have two?
Jaye: You can have two.
Lexi: My first is: document literally everything. Even if it feels tedious, you will be really grateful someday that you have it. If you're giving feedback to someone, even just in passing, take a second to shoot them an email and say, "Hey, just want to document that we talked about this." Up to bigger things like how you planned for parental leave — just make sure everything is written down. You never know when you're going to need it.
The second one is: think about culture and values early and often, and talk about them a lot. If you can define the type of company you want to build from a people experience perspective, you're going to be able to hire better, manage better, and yes, fire more easily. It's a lot easier to say someone isn't a good fit when you know what a good fit looks like and can articulate it. So if you can carve out time to think through what your values are as an organization and as a leadership team, how those values show up behaviorally, and what experience you want your employees and customers to have — that goes a really long way. And you can always build on it as you grow.
Jaye: I'm so grateful those were wonderful tips, and I double down on all of them.
Lexi: I think people roll their eyes at this stuff because they're literally inventing things — creating the next big whatever in whatever industry they're in. That feels and is extremely important, and there's already not enough time to do that. But if you want to build a company that is scalable and sustainable, you need to be thinking about this other stuff too.
Jaye: Lexi, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to share your extremely thoughtful tips with us. So incredibly helpful. Thank you so much.
Lexi: My pleasure. Truly, I love startups — I know they're the future, and I love helping well-intentioned people build something that's going to last. And I admire the work that you're doing so much, Jaye, and thanks for having me.
