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A conversation with Teamtailor CHRO Sarah Mian on global HR, lean teams, and why modern HR leaders must choose where to focus.
When Sarah Mian joined Teamtailor as Chief HR Officer, the opportunity represented a shift she had been waiting for.
After several years working in European tech companies navigating cost controls and downsizing, she was stepping into something very different: a company in growth mode.
“Coming from tech companies in Europe, the last few years have been a struggle,” she explained. “My focus had been a lot on cost efficiency and downsizing. So now to come to a company that is growing and scaling into new countries is incredibly inspiring.”
Teamtailor has grown to more than 550 employees across multiple markets, and that growth presents a different kind of HR challenge. Instead of contraction and optimization, the task becomes scaling teams, culture, and processes across countries without losing what made the company successful in the first place.
For Sarah, that means balancing global consistency with local flexibility.
One of the first realities Sarah encountered stepping into the role was how quickly HR practices diverge when organizations expand internationally.
Without clear global structures, each region naturally builds its own way of working.
“What happens when HR becomes more of an admin function and isn’t really part of setting processes and structures,” she said, “is that managers or countries start doing their own thing.”
Local adaptation is necessary. Labor laws, cultural expectations, and leadership styles all vary across countries.
But without some level of standardization, organizations risk fragmentation.
“If we truly want to be a global company, we need a global way of doing things,” Sarah said. “Performance processes, salary processes, leadership expectations—those need to work in the same way so we can create fairness and a sense of one team.”
The key is finding the right balance: global alignment on core principles, while allowing local teams to adapt where necessary.
One of the most striking realities of modern HR leadership is how lean many teams remain.
At Teamtailor, Sarah and two HR business partners support more than 550 employees across multiple countries.
That reality forces prioritization.
“There’s a positive side to being a smaller team,” she explained. “Managers know exactly who to turn to. We can build strong relationships and create trust with leaders across the organization.”
But there are also limitations.
“The consequence is that sometimes we become more reactive than proactive,” she said. “Instead of coaching leaders early or preventing issues, cases show up and we respond.”
This is where modern HR teams are evolving.
Rather than attempting to become experts in everything—from labor law to learning and development to compensation strategy—many HR leaders are shifting toward a hybrid model: internal strategic leadership combined with external specialists.
“I think HR used to drown trying to be experts in everything,” Sarah said. “Today we don’t have the resources for that.”
Instead, the focus becomes identifying where HR truly drives impact.
“HR needs to understand where we actually make a difference,” she said. “We cannot be everywhere.”
In practice, that often means relying on local legal experts, consultants, or partners for areas like labor law compliance, while HR leaders focus on culture, leadership development, and organizational strategy.
Growth creates another challenge: maintaining company culture while hiring quickly.
At a fast-scaling organization like Teamtailor, recruitment volume can increase dramatically as the company enters new markets.
The risk is losing the core identity that attracted employees in the first place.
“It’s very easy to lose what the core of the company is when you’re scaling fast,” Sarah explained.
One of the ways Teamtailor addresses this is through storytelling. During onboarding, the company’s CEO shares the story of how the company began.
“He talks about when they started in a basement and were trying to figure out what kind of company they wanted to be,” Sarah said. “And then he takes people through the journey of growing to 550 employees.”
Just as important as telling the story is being transparent about the realities of a scaling company.
“We’re honest with candidates,” she said. “We tell them we don’t have everything in place yet. Some processes will be messy. But that’s why we need them—to help build the structure.”
That transparency helps attract people who are excited about shaping the company’s future, rather than expecting a perfectly polished environment.
Sarah has used Teamtailor long before she joined the company.
In fact, she had already implemented the platform at multiple previous organizations.
“The first thing that caught my eye was how user-friendly it was,” she said. “For candidates, for recruiters—it’s very intuitive.”
Recruiters can easily manage hiring pipelines, communicate with hiring managers, and keep track of candidates throughout the process.
“Everything is very visual,” Sarah explained. “You have a clear overview of every candidate and where they are in the process.”
Today the platform is evolving with AI-powered features that help recruiters summarize interviews and generate candidate insights.
But being an HR leader inside an HR technology company brings its own pressure.
“There’s definitely an extra expectation,” Sarah said. “We should have a world-class recruitment process.”
Even so, she sees room for improvement.
“We’re good today,” she said, “but we should become even better.”
Like every part of the business world, HR is increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence.
For Sarah, the biggest impact is not replacing HR professionals—it’s giving them time back.
“AI makes us so much more efficient,” she said.
Tasks that once required hours of manual analysis can now happen instantly.
“You can summarize cases, create reports, pull data quickly,” she explained. “Instead of sitting in Excel files like we used to, you get answers immediately.”
That efficiency allows HR teams to focus on higher-value work.
“It opens up time for us to work more proactively and really focus on leadership and strategy.”
But Sarah also recognizes the risks.
“HR data is sensitive,” she said. “You need to make sure the information is correct, especially when it comes to labor law.”
Overreliance on AI—or trusting outputs without verification—can create real problems.
“Over-trusting AI is definitely a risk,” she said.
If there is one theme that runs through Sarah’s perspective on modern HR, it is focus.
The role of HR leaders is expanding, but resources are not.
That means choosing where to lean in and where to partner.
Choosing where HR should lead strategy—and where outside expertise makes more sense.
And choosing how to scale culture, leadership, and hiring while the organization itself continues to evolve.
It is a balancing act every growing company must navigate.
And for HR leaders, it is becoming the defining challenge of the job.
