The challenge
Landing in-demand talent as a scrappy startup
As the head of legal AIM Intelligent Machines—an early-stage startup building technology and hardware to autonomously control earth-moving heavy machinery—Albert Shih has to wear several hats. With no prior experience in a formal HR role, Shih has had to rely on his 14 years of experience as a patent litigator to serve as the sole person responsible for legal compliance at AIM.
Easy, right?
“It’s been challenging to learn everything I need to about compliance, onboarding, offboarding, and hiring,” said Shih. “I’ve had to review handbooks before, but now that I’m in a position of actually creating one, it’s a whole different beast.”
Several core factors are making this especially challenging for Shih at AIM:
- Hiring amidst an AI revolution: Because its technology relies on artificial intelligence talent, AIM is having to compete for capable engineering talent in a market making a run at that talent across industries. “It’s not enough to just rely on hiring locally anymore,” said Shih. “Everyone is trying to revamp their models right now, and so we have to be really creative to be competitive with how we hire, which requires us to look out of state.
- Managing multi-state compliance: To hire in other states like New York and Colorado, AIM has to be aware of the nuances of state regulations—which becomes especially critical given the company utilizes highly sensitive proprietary information and intellectual property it needs to keep secure. “It’s very important to convey all the right amount of information to the employees so they understand rules and expectations when they sign on,” said Shih. “At the same time, we need to know what we can or can’t impose on our employees—and that differs by state.”
- Operating with startup resources: Like any startup, AIM needs to conserve runaways wherever possible so they can scale, which means Shih has to serve as both general counsel, de facto HR leader, and compliance officer. “It’s a necessary part of startup life, but it’s not easy when we’re competing with the big Silicon Valley companies and tech firms who have HR teams of 100 or more,” said Shih. “We have to do more with less.”
Fundamentally, even though AIM’s mission takes them to the cutting edge of AI technology, their HR struggles are as garden variety as any other company.
That’s why Shih relies on SixFifty to manage it all.
The solution
Using SixFifty to achieve HR excellence—without an HR team
Without the resources to spend on a PEO or full-time HR hire, Shih turned to SixFifty’s automated employment platform to build the legal structure of AIM to scale alongside the company.
For Shih, it wasn’t enough to just hack together a handbook and policies from scratch by pulling potentially inaccurate legal information from Google—something he’s seen other companies do at their own risk. He wanted to get it right the first time.
“SixFifty is a great resource because it feeds me all the information I need without me having to be constantly on the lookout for legal updates or build our handbook by trial-and-error, which is a bad practice in the HR world,” said Shih.
Additionally, Shih has gotten great feedback from AI engineering talent on the documents that SixFifty has produced—allowing them to make a great first impression during recruitment and onboarding.
“I get a lot of questions from candidates about specific provisions or benefits or the structure of our offers, and have always been confident pointing them to our handbook because it’s simple to read,” said Shih. “It’s legally sound but doesn’t read like a legal instrument that can only be understood by lawyers.
How AIM Intelligent Machines uses SixFifty
Putting compliance on autopilot
With SixFifty’s Handbook generator and editor, Shih can rely on always-accurate legal information for all 50 states, vetted by world-class employment attorneys.
“The handbook feature has been my favorite tool,” said Shih. “It gets us pretty close to how we’d be running if we had an HR team of 5 or more, so it’s very cost-effective for us as well.”
Keep up with the competition
SixFifty also gives Shih compliant agreements and documents for every part of the onboarding process, allowing AIM to present itself with legitimacy and professionalism to discerning AI talent.
“Our candidates are used to seeing offers from companies ten times our size, but they are routinely impressed by the quality of our onboarding documents and the thoroughness of our policies,” said Shih.
Constant legal updates
With a robust database that's consistently monitored, SixFifty eliminates any worries about your documents becoming outdated.
“That notice of what’s changed in certain states really helps me in kind of say, okay, this is the next round of changes that we need to make to the handbook to make sure that we're being compliant with the rules,” said Shih.
Tools used: Offer Letter, Employment Agreement, Independent Contractor Agreement, 50-State Separation Kit, Policy Assessment, Employee Handbook, Policy Library, Separation Acknowledgment, and Separation and Release Agreement.
The results
SixFifty sets AIM up for success in its next stage of HR growth
“SixFifty documents have enabled us to implement a really sophisticated framework and structure for our HR functions of hiring, onboarding, and offboarding.”
– Albert Shih, Head of Legal, AIM Intelligent Machines
For AIM, utilizing SixFifty has meant saving crucial dollars for other areas of the business—without risking non-compliance.
“I’ve heard stories where the new HR person comes in and they’re shocked at how things have been running,” said Shih. “I’m hoping that when we get to that stage, when the HR person comes in they’re presently surprised by what we’ve been able to accomplish using SixFifty.”
Ready to try SixFifty for yourself?
Book a call with our team to see how easy employment law compliance can be