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“Whether the IPO is months or years away, hiring still has to happen. As a leader, it’s your job to manage team performance and wellbeing so that your team feels equipped, supported, and able to stay the course without burning out.”

“IPO sounds like an intimidating process that requires a whole different set of skills. But in reality, the core skills talent leaders and their teams need to navigate the IPO process aren’t that distinctly different from those needed when it’s business as usual.”

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The IPO process is a milestone moment for many organizations. But behind the scenes of that one defining moment lie months — and often years — of preparation. 

When going public, timing is critical. The window of opportunity is often short. Investor sentiment can change — the market conditions even more so. Success depends on readiness, and readiness depends on building the right foundations for future growth. Being proactive, and preparing ahead of time means your organization is primed to act when this window of opportunity arrives.

Talent acquisition teams play a pivotal role in this process. But often, they’re navigating this journey without a roadmap — or even a concrete timeline for when the IPO will happen. As a talent acquisition leader, your role is to guide and motivate your team through building the processes, infrastructure, and talent strategy so that your organization is ready for future success.

In this short guide, we’ll explain:

  • Why IPO readiness matters for the talent acquisition team
  • IPO reporting and governance best practice tips
  • What happens beyond the IPO

Pre-IPO checklist for talent acquisition

Review and document key talent acquisition processes and policies

Evaluate your existing talent data and data infrastructure

Run a talent audit and map essential roles across the company

Build succession plans for other key roles

Review current and future talent needs and ideal candidate qualities

Audit your tech stack and talent suppliers to identify if these are still serving your needs

Review and update employee value proposition

Develop communications plans for internal and external use

Key IPO definitions

The road to IPO may seem like it’s paved with jargon and legalese. Before we get stuck into the nitty gritty around talent acquisition IPO readiness, let’s run through the key terms we’ll refer to in this guide. Make sure your teams are familiar with the following definitions:

IPO readiness

IPO readiness refers to the process of preparing an organization to sell its stocks on the public market. It’s a lengthy, detailed process that requires organizations to tighten up processes, gather key data, and ensure they’re adhering to compliance and governance.

In people and talent, this includes ensuring compliant hiring practices, auditing talent acquisition data, and setting up background processes for post-IPO, when companies are subject to annual audits.

Form S-1

The Form S-1 — also known as the S-1 — is a form that private companies need to file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when they’re intending to go public. This document provides key details about the company for potential public investors, including:

  • What the company does, including its products and services offered
  • An overview of the company’s financial performance
  • Potential risks that could impact business and stock price
  • Information about the company’s leadership
  • How the company plans to use the money raised from the IPO

Roadshow

Once you’re ready to go public, it’s time to drum up excitement on what you have to offer. Roadshows are a series of presentations — whether in-person or virtually — that distil a company’s sales pitch and key information. They’re a chance for companies to gauge their market price, and for future investors to ask questions before they commit.

Quiet Period

The quiet period is a legally mandated time before and after the IPO during which the company is restricted from making public statements or communications that could influence its stock price or market perception. This restriction extends to executives and employees. It’s a way of levelling the playing field for future investors, and making sure everyone has access to exactly the same information.

Pricing

As the company gets ready for IPO, it needs to set an initial price at which its shares will be offered to the public. This price is set based on factors including company valuation, market conditions, and investor buzz.

Listing Day

Ring the bell — it’s listing day. Listing day refers to when a company’s shares finally begin trading on a public stock exchange after its IPO. This is a milestone moment for companies — and all eyes are on how the offer is received by investors.

Lockup Period

The lockup period is a legally mandated timeframe following the IPO where major shareholders — like leaders and executives, early investors, and employees with stock options — are restricted from selling their shares. This varies depending on the terms set during the IPO process, but can range from 90 to 180 days.

Quarterly Earnings

When a company goes public, it’s required to report on key information to its shareholders and the market. Quarterly earnings reports cover regular updates on the company’s financial performance, 

As part of this report, people and talent teams will need to disclose information pertaining to hiring and the employee experience, including:

  • Employee turnover, attrition, and hiring
  • Workforce composition
  • Employee compensation, benefits, bonuses, and stock options
  • Human capital data, including succession plans, development and training costs, employee engagement, and number of safety incidents

Why do talent acquisition teams need to
be IPO ready?

People are your organization’s biggest investment and its future competitive advantage. Tightening up key talent processes and evolving talent strategy now will only support your organization’s growth and success in the future — whether your company goes for an IPO or not.

Preparing the talent function for IPO offers a few compelling benefits:

Attract the best talent for future success:

Preparing for IPO means talent teams can really evaluate future talent strategy and focus on the qualities and types of candidate needed to drive future success, and start building a warm pipeline ahead of time.

Harness data and insights more effectively:

Data is the foundation of every modern talent acquisition team. Building a more integrated, interoperable talent dataset means talent acquisition teams can act on their insights more effectively, and hire more strategically.

Scale operations and efficiency

As companies scale, the processes and tools that worked when there were 20 employees probably won’t work by the time you reach 200. Auditing your processes and tooling can help identify operational inefficiencies and outgrown tooling.


Essential skills for talent leaders and teams during the IPO process

IPO sounds like an intimidating process that requires a whole different set of skills. But in reality, the core skills talent leaders and their teams need to navigate the IPO process aren’t that distinctly different from those needed when it’s business as usual. It’s more about their application that matters.

But there are three key skills areas teams can index on ahead of going public:

Data fluency and literacy

Reporting on data is a key part of the IPO process, so honing data literacy and fluency skills, such as data analysis, data storytelling, and expertise with analytics tooling, will ensure faster, more accurate reporting.

Communication

Going for an IPO is typically a time of anxiety and uncertainty. Tapping into emotional intelligence, communication, and transparency will be essential for heading off any challenging conversations with candidates — especially those in flight at the time the company goes public.

Adaptability

Uncertainty is now just part of the way we work. Cross-training the talent team across different functions will build a stronger bank of secondary and tertiary expertise, creating a team that’s better suited to adapt to the changing needs of the business.

IPO reporting and governance best practice for talent teams

During the IPO process and beyond, regulators and investors alike will be taking a very close look at your organization’s performance and processes. 

When we spoke to talent experts on this, their golden rule was this: Operate as if you’re going to get audited. All companies have a few skeletons in the closet before their talent structures are fully defined, whether that’s talent referrals, off-the-record hires from C-suite, or differing pay structures for similar roles. 

Nailing down your processes and systems around sourcing, interviewing, and your broader candidate journey will ensure that by the time IPO comes, they’re watertight.


Six TA processes you need to nail down pre-IPO

1.

Document your talent processes

When it comes to process and policy, people and talent leaders are often building the plane as they fly. But during the IPO and beyond, companies face increased scrutiny over how they’re operating.

Start by documenting your baseline processes like compensation and progression — even if they’re a work in progress. Think about the consistency of your processes, and any exceptions to your policies — especially the conditions under which those exceptions occur.

2.

Build solid workforce categorization

Depending on your hiring strategy, your organization’s workforce might be made up of a few different types of worker in addition to your permanent employees — such as contractors, freelancers, or temporary staff. These are still part of your talent pipeline, and you’ll need to do your due diligence with these relationships, too.

Reviewing these relationships along with any talent suppliers like external RPOs, and ensuring they’re properly categorized in your talent data, will mean your processes and systems will stay consistent and accurate.

3.

Define and track key talent metrics

The IPO process puts talent acquisition data under a microscope. Pre-IPO and even beyond going public, you’ll need to be able to report on key recruiting metrics and pipeline data, including who you’re hiring, how much you’re spending on hiring, future headcount plans, and your candidate attractiveness for strategic roles. 

Building these reporting workflows ahead of time will not only ensure you have the right data to hand, but that you’ll have time to iron out any creases and critically, that your data is accurate — especially if you’ve got multiple recruiting tools in your stack.

4.

Make sure talent data is interoperable and accessible…

Speaking of tooling — one of the biggest things that holds up being able to report on that data is when it’s housed across different systems. Having a trusted, single source of truth for your talent acquisition data will mean you’re not held up by system incompatibility, format incompatibility, or inaccurate or incomplete data.

Putting safeguards in place — such as regular tooling and data audits — will help you make sure your data stays in sync and accurate.

5.

…But ensure talent data and infrastructure stays compliant and secure

The IPO process isn’t just about reporting on data — you’ll also be subject to some scrutiny on your level of compliance. Auditing who has access to talent acquisition data across the organization can ensure that ahead of going public, your data remains secure, private, and compliant with regulatory requirements.

6.

Get ahead on succession planning

As your company goes public, there’s likely to be some employee movement. Long-tenured employees may cash in their shares and jump ship, while others might just prefer to work for private companies.

Prepare for this eventuality by getting ahead on succession planning. First, map critical roles that the company needs to function — your skeleton crew. Then, identify any other key internal stakeholders, such as department leaders or senior managers. For each key role, build a contingency hiring plan that addresses how talent acquisition will respond, and how long it will take to fill the role in question.

Leading through IPO: Preparing the team and managing information flow

For talent acquisition leaders, going through an IPO can be a tricky balance of managing information (or a lack thereof) while managing business as usual. Timelines can feel sketchy as the date for going public becomes a moving target, and there are a lot of background processes that might feel shrouded in secrecy.

But whether the IPO is months or years away, hiring still has to happen. As a leader, it’s your job to manage team performance and well-being so that your team feels equipped, supported, and able to stay the course without burning out.

Staying centered around current team goals and hiring targets will help teams stay focused on business as usual. Meanwhile, checking in with your team regularly about how they’re feeling will maintain high levels of transparency and trust throughout this transitional period.

You’re also likely to get a lot of unanswerable questions from your team as to how they need to act, what’s going to happen next, and how to manage questions from candidates.

Managing information flow and maintaining momentum during this period of uncertainty is also critical. Being transparent about what you can and can’t share at both an internal and external level and critically, the reasons why, is important to help teams better understand the IPO process and what’s at stake. 

This is especially important during a quiet period, when teams are restricted on making any statements about the company to candidates in the pipeline.


Beyond the IPO: What talent acquisition teams
need to do next

Once your company has finally rung the bell and crossed the finish line to becoming a public company, it’s time to take a breath and enjoy the moment. Months of preparation have led up to this day — and acknowledging your team’s efforts is essential to keep motivation high.

But beyond this milestone moment. Short-term, you’ll need to think about immediate conversations with candidates and evolving talent needs — while long-term, you’ll need to put the workflows in place for annual auditing processes.

Understand your most important priorities

If there’s one thing you can do right now, it’s identifying your one or two key priorities for tomorrow, when the business engine turns over again. Run through what’s on the agenda for your team in the coming days. What conversations are on the schedule? What will potential candidates need to know off the bat about their stock options? How will you reframe your value proposition with candidates currently in your process?

Nailing down these immediate needs will help your team go into their day-to-day work feeling equipped, despite all the changes. 

Create materials for team enablement

After working through your immediate needs, it’s also a great time to make sure your team feels equipped going into candidate conversations while the dust settles.

Work with teams including finance and legal to create a crystal clear FAQ that helps talent team members articulate to candidates exactly what’s going to happen, and how this could change future role progression, and how compensation is calculated in candidate discussions. 

Each organization will have its own specific hiring needs during this time, which may impact your messaging. Try to make sure your FAQ covers topics and scenarios like:

  • How compensation and stock options are calculated
  • Negotiating new offers if a candidate signed an offer pre-IPO
  • Handling objections from concerned candidates on joining a company post-IPO
  • Addressing stock price volatility

Re-evaluate your talent needs

Being a public company is likely to change your employee value proposition and how you market roles — meaning you’ll need to revisit your hiring criteria and evaluate what qualities candidates need to advance the organization.

You’ll also need to re-evaluate whether or not your current pipeline fits your new criteria and run a temperature check with candidates: What are candidates’ current drivers for joining your criteria? Do they fit with your post-IPO talent strategy?

Prepare for future audits now

Public companies are subject to annual audits on key HR and talent data. Having an accurate single source of truth for talent data will ensure that you’re able to report on critical metrics, including open headcount, cost-per-hire, and time-to-fill for key roles. But beyond just reporting on your data, you’ll need to run regular internal audits to make sure data stays compliant and secure:

  • How consistent are data formats and categorisations between different tools in the talent tech stack?
  • How complete and accurate is our talent data? Are there any gaps?
  • Do our systems and data infrastructure still adhere to compliance guidelines and regulatory requirements?
  • Are we tracking the right metrics for investors?

Ensuring talent acquisition success — before, during, and after the IPO

Talent acquisition teams are at the forefront of ensuring that the organization — and its people — are ready for the big moment of going public. Streamlining processes, building strong reporting and governance protocols, and evolving talent strategy will help talent acquisition tighten up loose cogs in the process, and while thinking strategically about the future.


Prepare your talent function for an IPO: Best-in-class hiring, by people who care

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