Staff and team leads: who to hire and how to keep them

Hiring is easy. Hiring well and keeping people is hard. In this game, an employee is not just a salary number. Each one has a name and a personality. Who you pick and how you treat them adds up over time, for growth and for people leaving.

Three roles and the team lead

You can hire for three roles. The first raises your product or service quality. Its name changes with the industry, like developer, baker or chef. The second is sales, which brings in more customers. The third is ops, which cuts churn.

Once a role has even one employee, it gets a named team lead. You can have up to three leads. Check their Skill and Loyalty in the Core staff box on the business screen. A lead's effect is 0 at Skill 40 and about +10% at Skill 100. If Loyalty drops below 30, the effect is cut in half. One person won't turn the company around, but they add steady help.

Picking from three applicants

When you press a hire button, the Job applications window shows three applicants. The buttons are the dev-role hire (named by industry), Hire sales & marketing and Hire ops & floor staff. Each applicant shows a personality, Skill, a growth multiplier and monthly pay. The window also shows Runway after this hire, which is how many months you can last after taking this person on.

• Skill: starts at roughly 35 to 75. Higher Skill means a bigger effect right away.
• Growth multiplier: a bigger number means Skill rises faster each month. Someone average today can be the better pick if you plan to keep them for a long time.
• Monthly pay: it differs by applicant. Some ask for up to 40% more than the base pay.
• Personality: there are seven. Meticulous makes few mistakes. Climber is skilled, but loyalty comes with conditions. Ride-or-Die rarely leaves. Genius has spiking Skill, but also big mood swings. Morale Booster lifts team morale. Workaholic gets a lot done, but burnout is never far. Slacker has low output and can cause trouble.

Applications stay put even if you put them on hold. When you hire one person, only that applicant is removed. When all applications are used up, new applicants come in. There is also Add general staff, which adds headcount with no name. But if you want the fun of choosing people and the personality effect of a team lead, applications are better. Hiring for the dev role also has its own success chance, and a failed hire costs you Mind. That chance depends on the city's hiring difficulty, your company's Hype and your staff perks.

New hires take 3 months to adjust, so their effect is smaller at first. Be patient.

Your first hire comes with a grant

Your company's first hire gets a first-hire employment grant. In your first year after founding (within 12 months), the company receives cash worth a few months of the new hire's pay. The amount depends on the city's market size, and each company gets it only once.

The Runway after this hire line already counts the grant. If that number is under 3 months, you have to press the button one more time to hire. This safety check stops you from adding people when cash is thin.

How to keep your team leads

Loyalty moves with morale, pay, stock options, and whether the company is in profit or loss. It drops fast if company cash goes negative or if the overtime is too heavy. When Loyalty gets low, cards can show up, like a raise demand, a headhunter offer or a spin-off announcement. At rock bottom, someone may quit without a word. Burnout is most likely when morale is low or the workload is heavy.

Here is what you can do.

1. Lead Check-in: raises the Loyalty of your lowest-loyalty lead. You can talk to the same person once every two months.
2. Grant Stock Options: you give up a little of your stake, and in return Loyalty jumps and their baseline goes up. It works once per person, and only when your stake is big enough.
3. Manage one employee: tap a name in the Core staff list to open their HR file. There you can do a One-on-one, Training, an Individual raise or Ease workload. It works once per person per month.
4. Promises: you can use Promise extra staff by next month or Promise a raise by next month. Keep it and Loyalty goes up. Break it and Loyalty takes a big hit.

If morale falls below 30, employees may quit on the spot. A Team dinner & pizza party and staff perks lower that risk. You can turn perks on in the Management tab.

Combos and the Secretary's memo

A combo forms when three things line up: your founding background, your industry, and a lead with the right personality and Loyalty of 60 or higher. For example, say a former teacher runs an education business and has a Ride-or-Die or Meticulous ops lead. Customer churn drops a lot. In return, new customers arrive a little more slowly. Every combo comes with a weakness. If the lead leaves or loses heart, the combo breaks. Each combo you find is recorded in the Dex.

Read the Secretary's memo too. If a lead's Loyalty falls a lot, the secretary warns you first. And if you're in profit with plenty of cash, the secretary hints that you can hire more.

Summary

• When you look at applicants, check the growth multiplier, personality and monthly pay, not just Skill.
• There is one lead per role, and their effect stays within about ±10%, even at the high end.
• Loyalty depends on morale, pay, stock options and how the company is doing. Look after it early with check-ins and promises.
• The first-hire employment grant comes only once, in your first year.