Peoplelogic Impact runs the whole performance rhythm: goals, 1:1s, feedback, reviews, development plans and the career lattice. Built for teams that have no HR department to operate it.
First-Time Manager Setup Guide for Post-Seed Companies
How to size your manager gap, choose who to promote, and set up first-time managers before the next wave of hires arrives. Includes a calculator, a readiness assessment, a checklist and templates.
Step 1
Size your manager gap
Managers account for at least 70 percent of the variance in engagement scores across business units, according to Gallup's State of the American Manager report (2015). A UK study by the Chartered Management Institute, covering about 4,500 workers and managers, found that 33 percent of managers have never received formal management training.
After a seed round, founders and a few senior people usually manage most of a 50-person company directly. A hiring plan that takes you to 80 or 100 people in a year pushes that past what they can handle, and the first managers get picked quickly, often from your strongest individual contributors.
Enter your numbers to see how many managers you will need at your target number of direct reports. The count includes your most senior leader.
The result is the minimum. Teams that need specialist leads or span several time zones usually need more managers.
Step 2
Check each promotion candidate
Answer the eight questions for one person at a time. The result suggests whether to promote now, promote with extra support, or wait, and lists the skills to build first. Use it to prepare for a conversation with the candidate's leader, not to decide the promotion.
Step 3
Before you promote anyone
Many of the problems new managers have start with how the promotion was set up. Settle these points before the announcement. Click an item to check it off. Your progress is saved in this browser.
Ask whether they want to manage. Some strong individual contributors prefer a senior IC path. Promoting them into management loses a good contributor and gives you an unhappy manager.
Offer a trial period. Use an interim title or a defined 90-day trial so a poor fit can return to an IC role without it counting as a demotion. Tell the candidate this before the announcement.
Settle level and pay first. Agree on level, pay and equity before the team hears the news. Reopening these after the announcement leaves the new manager with little leverage.
Set the split between managing and individual work. Write down what share of the week goes to management and what stays with their own projects. Review it at 30 and 90 days.
Decide who covers their current work. If the person was a top performer, someone needs to pick up part of their output. Otherwise they will try to do both jobs.
Step 4
Before their first day as a manager
Give each new manager the same starting materials so they do not build their own approach from scratch in the first week.
Write a one-page role description. List what they own (1:1s, team goals, feedback, onboarding new hires) and what stays with HR or leadership (pay decisions, terminations, legal-sensitive issues). A template is in Step 8.
Remove work from their plate in writing. Name the projects or tasks that move to someone else, with dates.
Give them a starter kit. A 1:1 agenda, a feedback model and a goal template, all in Step 8, so they have something to use in their first 1:1.
Pair them with an experienced manager. Choose someone outside their reporting line, ideally from another team, and schedule a conversation every two weeks for the first 90 days.
Announce the change with specifics. Tell the team why this person was chosen, what changes for them (reporting lines, 1:1 schedule, who approves time off) and when it starts.
Step 5: Days 1 to 30
Training and coaching in the first 30 days
Plan two things for the first month: training in the basic skills, and coaching on real situations from the manager's own team.
Training
Run a core training in the first two weeks. Cover running 1:1s, giving feedback, delegating, setting goals and having a hard conversation. Two or three shorter sessions work better than one long one, because managers can try each skill before the next session.
Hold weekly HR office hours. Offer a 30-minute slot for questions. Brief managers on topics with legal risk: documenting performance, leave requests, harassment or discrimination complaints, and pay questions.
Coaching and support
Start coaching every two weeks for 90 days. A senior leader, an outside coach or an experienced peer manager can do this. Sessions work best when the manager brings real situations from the past two weeks. Use the 90-day coaching plan in Step 8.
Form a peer group. Put new managers in a small group that meets monthly for an hour. Peers at the same stage trade what is working and see that others have the same problems.
Check in at day 30. Ask the manager and two of their direct reports the pulse questions in Step 8, then adjust the plan based on the answers.
Step 6
Onboarding new hires through new managers
New managers will onboard most of your next wave of hires. A fixed structure keeps onboarding quality from depending on how confident each manager feels.
Confirm access and equipment before day one. HR owns this so the manager does not spend the first week on admin.
Hold the first 1:1 within three days. Cover expectations, how the new hire likes to work, and open questions.
Assign an onboarding buddy. Pick a peer on the same team who can answer the small questions a manager has no time for.
Write 30, 60 and 90 day goals in week one. Use three to five goals per milestone, agreed between the manager and the new hire.
Review each new hire at day 30. A 15-minute check between HR and the manager catches problems while they are small.
Step 7: Days 60 to 90
Warning signs to watch
DDI's Global Leadership Forecast 2025 found that the share of leaders who trust their immediate managers fell from 46 percent in 2022 to 29 percent in 2024. The survey covered 10,796 leaders and 2,185 HR professionals. The signals below help you catch a loss of trust on a new manager's team early.
Review these signals for each new manager at day 60 and again at day 90.
Signal
What it may mean
What to do
1:1s skipped or moved repeatedly
The manager is overloaded or unsure how to run them
Check workload, share the 1:1 agenda template, ask the mentor to sit in on one
More than 8 direct reports
The manager cannot give each person enough time
Split the team or add a team lead
Pulse or engagement scores drop on one team
A management or workload problem on that team
Read the comments, then hold a skip-level conversation
A new hire leaves within 90 days
An onboarding gap or a poor fit with the manager
Run an exit conversation and review the onboarding checklist
Manager says there is no time to manage
The management share of the week is not protected
Revisit the time split and move individual work to someone else
Manager avoids feedback conversations
A skill or confidence gap
Add coaching on feedback and practice the conversation first
If the setup is not working, the options are more coaching, a smaller team, or a move back to an IC role without penalty. Agree on these options with the manager at the start so the day 90 conversation holds no surprises.
Tracking these signals by hand across several new managers takes time. Peoplelogic Impact shows 1:1 activity, engagement survey results and org structure by team, so you can see them without collecting data manually.
Enter your work email to unlock four templates you can copy into your own documents: a manager role description, a 1:1 agenda, a 90-day coaching plan and a new manager pulse check.
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Manager role description
Role: [Name], manager of [team], reporting to [manager]. Start date: [date].
You own
Weekly or biweekly 1:1s with each direct report
Setting and reviewing team goals each quarter
Giving feedback at least every two weeks
Onboarding new hires on your team
First response to concerns raised by your team
You share with HR
Hiring decisions (HR runs the process, you make the recommendation)
Pay and level changes (you recommend, leadership approves)
Performance concerns, before they become formal
Stays with HR and leadership
Terminations
Harassment, discrimination, leave and accommodation issues
Company-wide policy changes
Time split: [X]% managing, [Y]% individual work. Review on [day 30 date] and [day 90 date].
What success looks like at 90 days: [three specific, measurable items]
1:1 agenda (30 minutes)
Check-in (5 min). How are things going, including outside of work tasks?
Their topics (10 min). The direct report goes first.
Goals (5 min). Progress on current goals and anything blocking them.
Feedback (5 min). One thing going well and one thing to change. Ask: What should I do differently as your manager?
Next steps (5 min). Write down actions with owners and dates.
Questions that get past "fine"
What makes you say that?
How do you know you are on track?
What could go wrong?
What did we learn from the last project, and what would you change?
Keep a shared notes document. Reschedule within the same week instead of cancelling.
90-day coaching plan
Period
Focus
Coaching topics
Check at the end
Days 1 to 30
Expectations and 1:1s
Set up the 1:1 schedule, write team goals, hold a first feedback conversation
1:1s held on schedule with every direct report
Days 31 to 60
Delegation and feedback
Decide what to hand off and review it at three points (after the first piece of work, midway, and at a final debrief), give feedback on a missed expectation, recognize good work
Two or more recurring tasks delegated
Days 61 to 90
Hard conversations and team health
Address a performance concern, balance workload, hold development conversations
Every direct report has had a development conversation. Review with HR at day 90.
New manager pulse check
Ask the manager at day 30 and day 90
How many hours a week do you spend on management work, and is that enough?
Which part of managing is hardest right now?
Which decision did you want to make but were not sure you could?
What support from me or HR would help most in the next 30 days?
How confident are you managing your team, from 1 to 5?
Ask two direct reports
Do you know what is expected of you over the next 30 days?
Do you get useful feedback from your manager?
What would make your manager's support more useful to you?
Stay interview: the manager asks their strongest direct report by day 90
You are crucial to our work. How can we make sure you stay for the next two years?
What would you want to be doing a year from now that you are not doing today?
Have this conversation over coffee or in a 1:1. Even without a clear answer, it shows the manager is thinking about the person's growth.