Our Head of People is an absolute rock star on company culture and employee retention, but our compliance filings, benefits administration, and payroll records are a disorganized disaster. How do we resolve this Right Person, Wrong Seat issue without wrecking our culture?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You are facing a classic Right Person, Wrong Seat issue. Your Head of People lives your core values and builds tremendous trust with your staff, but they lack the administrative discipline and technical capacity required for HR compliance.

Keeping someone in a seat they cannot execute damages the company and eventually destroys the employee credibility. In EOS, you must decouple your appreciation for the person from the structural needs of the Accountability Chart.

Begin by analyzing the HR seat on your chart. In high-growth companies, the People function often splits into two distinct seats:
- Talent and Culture, focused on recruiting, coaching, culture development, and retention.
- HR Operations and Compliance, focused on benefits, legal compliance, payroll accuracy, and systems.

Evaluate whether your current leader has the GWC for a focused Talent and Culture seat. If the answer is yes, and the business has the financial capacity and organizational scale to support that seat, redefine their scope. Strip compliance and administrative tasks out of their role entirely.

Then, solve the compliance seat through an external hire, an outsourced HR administration service, or a specialized payroll partner.

If your business is not large enough to split the seat into two distinct roles, you must have an honest conversation. Explain that the company requires a leader who GWC's both strategic culture and operational compliance. Help them transition gracefully to an organization where their specific strengths fit, or help them step into a non-leadership role that matches their actual skills. Leaving them to drown in paperwork is unfair to them and dangerous for your business.