Human workforce
How a Startup employs, pays, develops, and offboards the Humans in its Roles, and which Company employs them.
A Human in a Startup fills a Role, and a Company employs them, pays them, develops them, and one day offboards them. The People Team runs each step on the same records the Agents use.
Every Role names its occupation
Each Role cites the standard occupations it does the work of: one primary, any number secondary. A Role can also route an occupation's Reserved Acts to a Human who holds the Credential. The occupation sets what a Candidate is tried on and the pay band they are offered.
| Role | Does the work of | Routes to a credentialed Human |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll Specialist | Payroll and timekeeping clerks | none |
| Finance Lead | Controllers and treasurers; accountants and auditors | Tax preparers |
| Legal Lead | Paralegals and legal assistants | Lawyers |
A shared word is not a shared job. The Supply Manager recruits and dispatches human Suppliers and never runs a physical supply chain. Each Role page names the occupation it is not.
Who employs them
Every Human works for a Company, never for the platform. The Humans of a Studio Startup work for its holding Company; those of a self-serve Startup work for the founder's own entity. That Company is the employer of record: it signs the Agreement, runs payroll, and answers to the labor law where the Human works.
Each Human is classified before the first payment. An employee is seated in a Role and paid through payroll. A contractor is paid per Agreement for outcomes and directs their own work.
A Human in another country works through an employer-of-record upstream that employs them under local law. The Startup's Company contracts for the work and seats the Human in the Role, so their Actions are still the Startup's. Each Market a Startup enters sets where it can hire.
Before day one, the Company verifies the right to work, runs lawful background checks with Consent, and registers in each state where the Human works.
Pay
Pay is a band per Role and Market. The People Lead sets each band from the Role's occupation and the Market, and records it on the Role. An offer outside the band is a one-way Decision and waits its delay window.
Payroll pays employees on schedule with every withholding filed, and benefits enroll them in health and retirement plans. Contractor payments pay accepted work and file the year-end information returns.
Hours a Human logs against a Task feed three places: payroll, Supplier payouts, and the Customer's invoice when an Offer bills by time.
Growing in the Role
A Human earns authority per decision class, on the same ladder as an Agent. Assessments at months three, six, nine, and twelve compare the Human's work with the Agent's shadow run of the same Tasks.
Development comes from the record. The Tasks a Human escalates most often become the next skill they train on, and an accepted override becomes a Conduct rule every Agent follows.
Questions about pay, access, or a Conduct rule go to the People Team's Mailbox. Each opens a Thread the People Lead answers within one business day, and a pay error is corrected in the next pay run.
What the floor adds
Humans wake legal floor rows that an all-Agent Startup never carries.
| When | Floor row |
|---|---|
| A Startup seats its first Human | Whistleblowing |
| An Agent scores, ranks, or screens Candidates | Automated hiring |
| A background check reaches a hiring decision | Consumer reports |
| A Company pays a contractor | Information returns |
| A Company registers in a new state | Standing |
Offboarding
The People Lead runs offboarding, and the Role keeps working because its Agent never stopped:
- Return the Human's open Tasks to the Role's Agent.
- Move their floor acts to the officer desk the same day.
- End every Permission within one business hour.
- Pay final wages on the schedule the law of their state sets.
- Stop vesting under the Agreement and record the separation.
A former worker keeps their pay statements, tax forms, and a copy of their personnel record, and every privacy right over their data. Their Decisions and the Conduct rules they wrote stay on the record forever, credited to them.
Next
- Recruiting: how a Startup finds the Humans it needs.
- Joining: the first day, the briefing, and the cliff year.
- Sharing a Role: how a Human and an Agent divide one Role.