Context

Our client, a consumer technology startup, had developed a niche product in the industry, enabling its acceleration from a small startup to a rapidly growing small company in a short time. It had a strong culture driven by transparency and an entrepreneurial mindset, and there was a natural reluctance to drive in structure that it feared its employees would perceive as bureaucracy.

With a new Chief People Officer steering its HR agenda, there was a need to shape a People Strategy that could look to the mid-long term while balancing the organization’s traits that had made it successful in its early stages. Agility while scaling was the most important tenet to keep in mind.

Actions

We spent time with each member of the Executive team to understand their issues, vision and current challenges. We also analyzed employee data available from pulse surveys and focus groups. Looking at the data, the business plans and the current culture, we identified the key pillars to anchor our People Strategy upon. As might seem apparent, these focused heavily on attraction, development and retention of talent while continuing to reinforce the culture of transparency and nimbleness.

Diving deeper into each area, we identified specific levers around the need for additional role clarity, managing performance with better line-of-sight and improving the overall approach to diversity, equity and inclusion. We created role profiles with a heavy focus on identifying skills in each functional area and what their depth and breadth could lead to in terms of career growth. Based on its philosophy of transparency, our client used Gryd™ to provide its employees with easy access to the information.

We created performance management forms with a focus on quarterly reviews, line-of-sight goals and a process dependent on frequent feedback. Development forms focused on skills assessment and development.

Outcomes

Our client’s employees and managers welcomed the experiences built on frequent feedback and role clarity. They appreciated the continuous reinforcement of the organization’s culture, which was precious to every employee—especially that of transparency—in their people experiences.