Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
We’re struggling to keep good people – how do we attract and hang on to top talent?
66 Plays14 days ago
This week’s scale-up confession comes from Harriet, a CEO of a growing SaaS company that provides cybersecurity risk assessment software for professional services firms.
Responding to Harriet's letter, Rob is joined by marketing expert Nicola Anderson, Jo Harley - Co-Founder of Korero and Greg Wellman - Co-Founder of Agora Talent to discuss possible solutions.
Thanks to our panellists:
Nicola Anderson - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersonnicola/
Jo Harley - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-harley/
Greg Wellman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregoryjackwellman/
Connect with Us:
Have your own business question or leadership challenge? Please email Rob at rob@mission-group.co.uk (and let us know whether you would prefer a private answer or are happy to feature in a future episode).
You can also reach Rob on LinkedIn via https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertliddiard/ or to book some free time https://www.eosworldwide.com/rob-liddiard).
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Scale Up Confessions
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, welcome to Scale Up Confessions, the show where we talk about what it really feels like to lead and manage a growing business. I'm Rob Lyddiard. I was the founding CEO of a software business called Yapster that was acquired at the end of 2022. And I'm now a professional implementer of the Entrepreneurial Operating System or EOS, which means I work with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leadership teams to help them get what they want from their businesses.
Harriet's Recruitment Challenges
00:00:23
Speaker
Today on Scale Up Confessions, we've got a and voice note in from Harriet, who runs a software company that is suffering unwanted labor turnover. So struggling to recruit great people at a budget that she can afford and hold on to them when they come into the business.
00:00:40
Speaker
So as ever, I've assembled a cast of my very clever professional friends to dissect Harriet's confession and hopefully give some useful advice to her and to those of you listening.
Expert Panel: Talent Retention & Recruitment
00:00:49
Speaker
I've got Nicola Anderson, one of the best connected people in the London revenue community.
00:00:54
Speaker
Nicola's a longstanding CMO that also does fractional work still for for companies typically on that kind of venture hyperscale path and a whole bunch of other things that you have to look up her LinkedIn in the show notes to to keep track of.
00:01:10
Speaker
I've got Joe Harley, the founder of Carrero, which is a technology platform that helps um business leaders and managers have better quarterly conversations with their people to get more out of their teams.
00:01:21
Speaker
And I've got Greg Wellman, one of the founders of Agora Talent. Greg is a leading recruiter in the tech scale-up space. He's also got another business that he recently started, which is a platform for fractional CFOs.
00:01:34
Speaker
So there's not much that my cast don't know about um about talent retention issues, employer and brand propositions, recruitment processes, and all other such matters. So without further ado, let's get into Harriet's scale-up confession and get advice from Joe, Greg and Nicola.
00:01:58
Speaker
All right, I'm here with three of my very clever professional friends, Greg, Nicola, Joe, how are we all? Very good, thank you. Excited to be here. Yeah. Good, thanks, Rob. I'm very ah flattered to be described as clever, but hey, I'll take it.
00:02:11
Speaker
Well, we're definitely friends. Yeah, we'll go with that one. Yeah. All right, let's get straight into our confession. We've got ah an an issue from Harriet that speaks very much to all of your experience. So let's go.
Strategies for Attracting Top Talent
00:02:26
Speaker
Hi Rob. As CEO of a growing SaaS company that provides cybersecurity risk assessment software for professional services firms, I've been facing a challenge with hiring and keeping the right people.
00:02:41
Speaker
When we first started, we had a small, tight-knit team who were deeply committed to the business. But as we've scaled, attracting top talent has become increasingly difficult.
00:02:52
Speaker
We're competing with bigger tech firms that can offer higher salaries and flashier perks. When we do manage to hire great people, they often don't stay long, either lured away by a better offer or frustrated by the challenges of working in a fast growing but still relatively scrappy company.
00:03:13
Speaker
Our head of people is doing their best, but we're constantly behind on hiring targets, which is putting a strain on our existing team. Morale is slipping, and i worry we're burning out the people who we do have because we're already short-staffed.
00:03:28
Speaker
We know we can't outspend the big players, but there must be a way to attract and retain the kind of talent we need to grow. How do we fix this before it stifles our progress?
00:03:40
Speaker
Thanks, Harriet. Oh, Harriet. So Harriet wants elite people for no money. Greg, I'm guessing you've never had a client ask for that. Yeah, absolutely.
00:03:50
Speaker
um Yeah, it's a tricky one. ah Yeah, I think the first thing I kind of thought about when she wass going through that was actually... Because it sounds like when they're hiring people, they're also struggling to keep them. So there might be something to look at to be actually, are you hiring the right level of person? Because it might be that she's focusing slightly more more senior and people are coming in and they're getting frustrated.
00:04:10
Speaker
um And the best way of solving the salary issue is if you hire someone more junior into the role who's potentially kind of stepping up. That was, yeah, that was my first kind of thought, I suppose, on on that. But it it is tricky because I think you can't really...
00:04:27
Speaker
I think kind of historically people have always focused on ah kind of equity or or the lure of share options and being able to to get people, I suppose, bought in under a kind of joint mission. But I think what we've seen over the last kind of two, three years with cost of living and other things kind of hitting me ah the everyday employee, I think it's ah it's a lot more attractive now, a nice big comfy corporate salary than it was ah three, four years ago. So yeah, tough, tough challenge.
00:04:57
Speaker
Right. So, OK, thank you for that. So we're teasing out some issues there. So we've got this issue around the retention point. um Nicola, Jo, who's happy to go first? Jo, you happy to go first? What are some of the issues that jumped out to you there as Harriet was speaking?
00:05:10
Speaker
um Some of the issues? Well, like I talk a lot about the individualization of the employee experience. I think as a founder, you immediately assume that everybody is going to care about your business as much as you do. and actually, we know that isn't the case.
00:05:26
Speaker
And it's also really easy to think that like any kind of benefits or perks or whatever you're doing is your, we call it your people promise, but your employee value proposition, that one size will fit all. And I think when you're a small smaller organisation, actually it's about really individualising the experience to suit each person. So much more about equity rather than equality.
00:05:51
Speaker
um And, I mean, it's as simple as asking people what's important to them. If you know what's important to each individual and you go some way towards providing that, then that will give you a much bigger advantage over sort of bigger, much bigger corporate organizations.
00:06:07
Speaker
Interesting. Individualization of the employee experience. So I got that down as an issue. Nicola, what spoke to you? Well, I went through exactly the same problem at GoCardless. So I went from Moo, which was a very loved brand, really strong employer brand, and everyone wanted to work there, to this tiny startup that had 30 people, and it was direct debit.
00:06:27
Speaker
I mean, who on earth wants to go and work there? It's like the least sexy thing you can possibly imagine. And one of my interview questions used to be, why on earth do you want to work for a direct debit company? I mean, what is it about it?
00:06:39
Speaker
There's all these other fabulous businesses out there. I think um so i can I can talk about a little bit about what we did there. But I think there's a couple of things. The problem with the retention sounds like they're hiring the wrong sorts of people.
00:06:51
Speaker
And we used to talk about it as like tour of duty. Everyone has a sweet spot. And there are some people that are really comfortable and love being in at that early stage. They love being scrappy. They love being hands on. They love doing a whole range of of different roles as such under one.
00:07:05
Speaker
And that doesn't work for other people. And I wonder if they're looking for the wrong type of person. looking for people that have got experience at maybe series CD who aren't the right fit for that, just like I'm not the right fit for that. So my sweet spot is exactly that stage, series A to series C. And as soon as it gets bigger than that, it's not my space.
00:07:23
Speaker
And you'll see these natural churn as people go, OK, we've got too big now. I don't know everything that's going on in the business and that's what I like. And then they'll go back into that early stage. And it's a very different set of attributes you're looking for, for that type of person.
00:07:37
Speaker
um And I wonder if they're not getting that match quite right, which means they're bringing in the wrong people, which means they're not staying because that's not what they're looking for in their next role. And I'd also say what plays into that is when you're a founder-led business, most people report into you at the beginning, obviously, and then they're reporting to the people that report into you. But then you get to a point where you end up having almost a middle management tier.
00:08:03
Speaker
And that middle management tier will either be your greatest conduit to success or your biggest barrier. So there might be some leadership ah some leadership issues in there as well, just in terms of defining business.
00:08:16
Speaker
what good leadership looks like here and what expectations we have of our people. Heavy. Okay. So just let me just quickly summarize the issues for Harriet and anybody that might be listening that might be is quietly suffering some of the same problems as Harriet. So we've got the kind of vision point around the employer brand might be an issue there. We've got the obvious people issues, but not just are we getting the right people, the right clients,
00:08:37
Speaker
capability of people do they get one have the capacity to do the actual job that we've got but also the managers if her if harris business has grown to the point where they're now reporting into folks that maybe aren't as as inspiring as perhaps she was once or maybe they are but the folks that are coming in just want to work directly for a founder joe your point and then all three of you i think have alluded to some of the kind of people processes type stuff your recruitment process um presumably onboarding And then like how do you make how do you monitor that you're actually honouring that employer promise on the right on on the
Employer Branding & Authenticity
00:09:10
Speaker
way in? right Those are kind of three big buckets of issues, would we say? Yeah, and I think, Rob, one more to add in is, does everyone need to be full-time?
00:09:18
Speaker
I mean, are there opportunities actually to broaden out your workforce by using freelancers, small agencies, fractionals, where actually you might be able to get as good, if not better, quality, but because they're only working a certain number of days?
00:09:33
Speaker
for the same spend as if they were full time, but just more senior. yeah And what I did when I was facing this challenge is I used a lot of very um small agencies. So you're, you know, really critical to their growth of their business, and some freelancers. And actually, some of those then came in house.
00:09:50
Speaker
um But it just meant that I wasn't constantly trying to hire. I had some opportunities to grow the business, get a bit more of a name, and then um it was easier to bring people in. So you don't need to have everyone full time from the up.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah. and i um Sorry, Greg. but That's right. now I think just on that point with the fractional piece, that like we've seen a massive um kind of increase into it. And I think it's going to accelerate um incredibly quickly over the next few years in certain disciplines with AI automation. I think people are going able to do much more in less time, which is going to make it more cost effective for people to actually kind of interact with talent. So I think long term,
00:10:29
Speaker
it's going to be a real key advantage for scaling businesses over kind of other corporates and um and it will really help this issue i think if people are really open to it and um yeah we've we've definitely seen a huge kind of uptick in demand in that space and it's uh yeah exciting time love it okay right so i've got some buckets of issues there so why don't we start with employer brand then i mean harriet hasn't really given us any details of what her employer brand is but i mean should we like we can We can probably imagine based on our collective experience, we've seen some some bad and some good.
00:11:03
Speaker
I love it when people sort of bear their scar tissue. i mean, you've already ah dived on the grenade again early, which I appreciate. You've done that and a number of times we've had these conversations. I mean, Greg, like why don't you start? like where where do you Where does employer brand go wrong from your perspective? Where are some of the issues that Harriet should introspect on just to check that she's actually like?
00:11:25
Speaker
got a saleable proposition to begin with then Joe I'd love to hear your thoughts as well after Greg yeah I think it's um I think kind of Joe's point on the like the moment of inflection you've got I think when you've I think it's very clear when you're really early in what you kind of need and that early team that's obviously worked so well for her like going from that then into scale mode is like I see a lot of businesses that that struggle with it and it does come down to um you're getting those other leaders and that whole kind of change in actually what you need and and and a founder being ready to to give those leaders the opportunity to to really kind of be effective and um and have the have the chance to um to take on a different um view as the business grows. I think that's tough as a founder to do as you kind of go through that and you're on top of everything to actually be like, right, I've got a leadership team now.
00:12:12
Speaker
I need grow these departments out. Recruitment's a really big. the focus um we need to really develop our our brand guidelines and make sure that we're working um incredibly well in what good looks like kind of hiring wise and great can i just interject quickly because i feel like that is a polite way of saying you see a lot of bad in that like can you just sort of would you mind just because it's a confession i like when you see bad what does that look like how many hopeless middle managers are there out there and thoughtless recruiting founders So I think one of the tricky things that that I see is is sometimes where founders are ah really in the detail, um and even when a business really starts to scale and they're all on and they hire good people, but they're then kind of really on top of exactly what they're doing and not actually giving them the autonomy they need to um to survive. So it's really, yeah I find the best founders as they scale are the ones who know where their weak spots are and know where they need to step back, bring good people in who they trust and give an ability to um to really flourish.
00:13:10
Speaker
Because think in this instance... Does that mean you've heard candidates say to you that like you know they were the right person and then they're like, I can't work with this person? Yeah, exactly. They've gone into organization and they're just they're just and they're they're stifling and they're bottlenecking a lot of the time. um And I think as a business starts to really grow, you need to put those but those things in place. And I still see it um a lot around certain organizations. And um I speak to people every day who are looking to leave companies. And ah often they the the culture and the founder and that whole kind of dynamic is a really common thing.
00:13:40
Speaker
theme that runs through it so it's um yeah it's it's that ability i think to be able to trust and um and step back where you need to which is which is a big change from what you need as a very early stage founder so it's um yeah let me say it's a tricky transition i'm laughing because harriet's listening and like the first advice is harriet look in the mirror i get you you ah you horrible Are you horrible to work with? but that That is genuinely like super helpful advice. Jo, I can see you laughing and half half nodding. you you're happy to to to to pick up from there? Let's assume that Harriet is willing to introspect on um the initial employer promise and then how she's actually living living up to that.
00:14:18
Speaker
like well Where would you I think a lot of what what I see from my clients, certainly, and we work with so bigger businesses, but also with quite a lot of family and founder-led organisations,
00:14:29
Speaker
And what we see is that when people are trying to attract people into the organisation, they, A, they do it from a marketing perspective and not necessarily what it's really like here. So it doesn't feel authentic. So the first that first 100 critical days when when people really decide whether they're going to stay with you or not, often it feels a bit of a disconnect between what I was sort of sold, if you like, and what the reality is.
00:14:53
Speaker
So I think it's really important to, before you start going out to recruit, is really understand what your what your value proposition is. So what are your USPs as an employer?
00:15:05
Speaker
And I think very few people actually look at that. They think, oh, well, let's get, I don't know, let's get Perkbox or let's get Reward Gateway or let's get a platform that offers amazing benefits without really thinking about what do people want out of the workplace.
00:15:22
Speaker
Because we found, we did a lot of research and found that when people are have inspirational leadership, when they're communicated to as an adult, when they have individualized development, when they're talked about, you know, and when they have the opportunity to understand where their career is going and how this organization will help them get from where they are now to where they want to be.
00:15:41
Speaker
And when values aligned to that the business, then money does become number nine, as long as you're being paid fairly. And I think a lot of businesses think that they can just stick on their website what perks there are, if you like, and that's enough. And it's not. People want to know.
00:15:58
Speaker
what the business stands for, they want to understand but really what's in it for them. And we should spend and as much time on marketing to our existing employees and future employees as we should on marketing to our clients or our customers.
00:16:12
Speaker
um And that's where I think that people in the marketing functions need to work closer together, because often you'll see a value set either come up completely by marketing department, it makes no sense to the people,
00:16:23
Speaker
or completely by the people department and it makes no sense to the consumer. And so it's about bringing that together. And I don't know, obviously, I don't know Harriet's particular situation, but what I would say is really, really understand what it is you're offering to people and then make sure that you deliver it and everybody's clear on it.
00:16:43
Speaker
Love it. Nicola. So with my marketing hat on here, we used to do we used to have a marketing plan with the the people function as well, which was all about what's our employee brand and making sure it was consistent.
00:16:57
Speaker
um And the first thing, as always, is go and do some research. And i really loved when I was at my tutor, Bertie would spend a lot of time just talking to all levels, really understanding what it was that they really liked about the company, what some of the challenges were, how we could improve it.
00:17:13
Speaker
And exactly as Joe said, yes, there is certain benefits that you do need and that will, if you don't have them, will stop people from joining you. But free breakfast on a Wednesday or whatever else, it's not going to make someone decide to come and join you or ah stay or no longer, but it used to be free drinks on a Thursday.
00:17:29
Speaker
um So i think it's it's really understanding the people that are there, what is it that they really value about that company and and um and how do you take that to market as such? And then I think it's also exactly what you said, Rob. It's about going from that interview process through that first 90 days and the number of companies I talk to when we've just placed the hand, what's your onboarding process? um We've got them a laptop and we've got them some swag.
00:17:55
Speaker
Right. Okay. Shall we work through this? um And i always check in like after first week, after first month, after a couple of months, just to see how things are going and also feed back to the hiring manager.
00:18:07
Speaker
um But having that that um planned out onboarding plan, making sure they've got a buddy perhaps in another department that's gonna check in on them, um getting regular feedback is so important because that's critical. If they feel a part of the team from the beginning and that they have a role to play and value to add and they can start to see their impact, that's when they're gonna really enjoy what they're doing. Yeah, I have a um ah confession that it feels appropriate to to share.
Onboarding & Internal Processes
00:18:34
Speaker
i yeah So there there was ah there was a, a woman that worked in like somewhat straddled kind of marketing and people. And she, when I was CEO of Yapster, this is pre COVID quite a long time ago before I learned how to run a business. And, um, she kind of told me that she wanted to work at Yapster and she kind of shaped a role for herself. And like that shit like, she should have picked, I reckon she should have inferred a red flag then actually the fact that I was so casual about like shaping this job for her.
00:19:02
Speaker
She, anyway, she left within a week, Joe, you know, that you know, the person we're not going to out her. And, um, She came, I handed her a laptop and then went off to some meeting. She was in this kind of feral office. She was like, and she was all about vibes and culture. She came from this series company and she like, she left within a week, like so so sobbing because she felt so guilty and foolish. And then she took a job at this like great company that went on to do brilliant. So I'm sure it was a, it was a good decision in her part.
00:19:30
Speaker
I remember being totally like confused, but I wasn't horrified until Joe, took me for a coffee. you remember this, Joe? she was She was like, um this person is connected to another person that we know. and um...
00:19:47
Speaker
ah Can you even remember what words you used, Joe? Like, don't worry. I mean, when we keep it anonymous. We'll protect the innocent and the guilty. But like, how like what did you hear? It was basically that like, it wasn't very nice, wasn't It it was a shit show, I think, were the words.
00:20:02
Speaker
So awful. But I was working like 80 hours a week, killing myself to like try and keep all of these stakeholders, internal and external, happy. The thought that I could do 80 hours a week and the result be like so...
00:20:16
Speaker
like shit was like blew my mind right there's nothing I'd ever done in my life and my legal career anything else where if I put that amount of effort in I could not even be like on the start line it was like I was running a race going backwards I think with you Rob you just got a lot you got a load of really good people and thought if you threw them all in a room together and were as enthusiastic about your product as you are then it would just somehow work yeah
00:20:44
Speaker
Just astonishing. So Harriet, if you are listening to this, I hope you haven't confessed, you're not on your own. It's really, really normal. You've got three great people on this episode and lots of other people in all of our extended connections that can help you through this. But you have to listen to the hard feedback. I mean, Greg, I'm assuming that quite a lot, I know got your two businesses, at least one of them you get paid on a contingent basis, I'm assuming.
00:21:11
Speaker
How many times a week are you speaking truth to power? Yeah, it's, so I'd say it's a bit of a mix really on how we kind of operate and work with with people on that front. But it's, um ah yeah, we we have to kind of advise quite a lot. I think one of the other point I had actually thinking about it when it is potentially how needs think a little bit about the actual salary and and the, like the investment um on that front.
00:21:36
Speaker
Because I think like We find it a lot with businesses that start to scale where you've had a founding team that that's really um sacrificed a
Scaling Compensation with Growth
00:21:44
Speaker
lot. So they've taken a lot of the time, really huge pay cuts. They've got the upside of kind of equity in the business, but they ah they've been through that. And I think when a business starts to scale, you're then left with a number of people that potentially are a little bit underpaid to what market value is now that you're a bigger business.
00:22:00
Speaker
And um that shift, I think, from going into a scale-up mode where you have to look across an organization actually say, you know what? We need to start offering more cash is a tough thing to do when you've got founder that's coming from a different viewpoint. And often they might actually start to be hiring people that might be paid more than them. And going through that change a tricky one. And um and She mentioned there how she was like the business was kind of falling behind it a bit with hiring, backing up, and it was really kind of costing the company, ah which would be money. So you might you might be having to think about, right, actually, do we have to look at that what we're paying people and and start to mix these budgets up so that we can start to kind of attract the the right people? But it's it's a tough thing to to go through, I think, especially when a business starts to grow kind of super quickly. and
00:22:48
Speaker
it's um But yeah, it might be something to think about. Nicola, you must have seen that a lot. So I know you've done a lot of work with venture-backed businesses. Do you often see that founders don't understand the cash requirements of upskilling the team, not to mention all the stuff they then want to do to drive kind of demand demand in the market. What have you seen work well in terms of maturation?
00:23:09
Speaker
I've interestingly seen it on both sides. I've seen really early stage saying, we need a CMO. And I'm like, you really don't. You're not quite ready for it. And you don't need to be spending 200K on this hire.
00:23:20
Speaker
Actually, you should be thinking about bringing in a head of marketing and then perhaps one day week fractional to support on some of the more strategic stuff. um So we always laugh that we actually probably do ourselves out of quite a lot of comp there because we're saying, don't spend that much.
00:23:35
Speaker
um And then you see on the other side, often you get people saying, well, I just need a junior person that can come in and they can do everything, um you know, on a 40 grand salary. So it's all about just getting those benchmark reports.
00:23:48
Speaker
So having a lot of those, um this is the standard compensation. And also this is what you can expect from somebody at this level. Yes, they can do all the execution, but you're going to have to be very hands-on managing, leading them, explaining what they need to be doing. And is that what you've got the time for? And is that actually your area of expertise?
00:24:02
Speaker
If you go up here for this level, then this is what you can expect. And the value that they'll pay back for that extra amount is going to deliver 3X. Nicola, how often do founders actually listen? I think all of us know that g like founders, the the characteristics that cause them to found the company in the first place often means they're not the best listeners are good at like learning vicariously. They typically have to find that the stove is hot by touching it.
00:24:26
Speaker
Do you just like, do you just have to give them a year to like miss their plan, hire the the the baby marketeer and then realize that it isn't what they need? Or have you found any techniques of getting through their thick heads quickly?
00:24:39
Speaker
ah It's a mix. Like sometimes that immediately, yeah, that's totally what we need. Sometimes I say, look, let me speak to a couple of other people in your organisation and come back with the feedback. And because I'm an objective person, it's often a bit like therapy for other members of the leadership team.
00:24:53
Speaker
So I'll quite frequently not just speak to the founder. I'll speak to, say, the revenue leader, um product, um perhaps chairman, someone on the board. And particularly in marketing hours, I quite often and get, oh, I don't know anything about marketing. And then like an hour later, you've had this like major download. And then when I summarise all of that and i say, look, these are some of the problems that we're having, that can be really helpful.
00:25:14
Speaker
Giving examples of like what's happened in the past also so reinforcing it with evidence and data just like you would with with your general marketing and then yes i do get some where either they've they've um made this mistake and have come to us after having made that mistake or they'll say no no no we're going to hire this and then six months later and yeah You just have to give it time.
00:25:36
Speaker
And then there are occasions where they do nail it. They do get someone who is just ah an absolute superstar, and it works. And that it's fantastic. KAREN FOLEY EPSTEINFELDT- That's so annoying, isn't when they the wrong thing and they nail it. Yeah. But you've got to give them the credit. KAREN FOLEY EPSTEINFELDT- But I think making sure that you're speaking to a number of different people in that leadership team really helps build up that story because often the founder can be blinking if you say, OK, here's four people and everyone's saying the same thing, which is different to you.
00:26:03
Speaker
So is it maybe time that that we listened? And it also just helps the fact that I've been there in these situations and made many similar mistakes. Yeah, i I find myself using the ah the number of times I cocked it up as a way of trying to persuade him one fewer time.
00:26:18
Speaker
Joe, I know you're too classy to to sell Carrero, but going make you anyway. Like you don't need to make it about the product. But quarterly conversations and having, no, because like I've already confessed what a lousy founder I was for the first half of my journey. And then, you know, I was taught how to run a company, whatever. We've we've done that lots of times.
00:26:37
Speaker
that kind of proven process about how to hold together a high performing team. What are
Maintaining Team Performance & Engagement
00:26:42
Speaker
the kind of the rituals that one might employ to, yeah, just to get the most out of a good person and just be interesting to, to hear your, hear your perspective on that. Because I, I did hire good people, put them in the room, hope it was going to work out. I didn't have an operating philosophy for the company at large and nor did I have any rituals or rigor around holding people accountable when they were not performing, but also,
00:27:06
Speaker
you know, letting them held me accountable when they were and I wasn't. So just given the business you're in, at least with the Carrero business, ah just be interested to hear your philosophy on those rituals and rigour.
00:27:18
Speaker
I mean, I think as we've, Nicola and I have both touched on that first sort of 1900 days is key. And I suppose what Carrero does is put for an employee, it gives them place to go and give feedback.
00:27:31
Speaker
So at any time throughout that period and they're on it and they can go and update how they're feeling, but actually it's about giving the middle managers or leaders the the sort of the framework to have a really good conversation around how somebody is getting on whatever touch points the organization wants but we would suggest day one week one week four week eight week 12 as a minimum that you're checking in and just you know even if it's as even if it's just a how are you, how are you getting on? But actually, it can be really robust. And it just, it depends on the organisation, how we work with it. But, you know, new labour laws are coming in next year, with you know, employee rights can happen from day one. So we need to be making sure that we're
00:28:17
Speaker
putting the due diligence behind how we're having conversations and how we're acting with people through their sort of probationary period. I hate the word probationary period. No one ever got excited about anything to do with their probation review, did they?
00:28:29
Speaker
You know we call it a discovery period or, you know, onboarding or whatever. know, it's about both people understanding whether it is the right fit for them. And after that, we drop into a regular...
00:28:41
Speaker
sort of a three month cadence really and that can be from an individual's perspective or from the business perspective around what are the things that I'm working towards, how am I how i aligning myself to the values and behaviours of the organisation um What development do I need to grow to the next level? Should I want to? What does the future career what does my future career look like here or elsewhere and how can I get there?
00:29:04
Speaker
But also how am I feeling mentally, physically um and emotionally? you know How happy am I at work? Would I recommend you as a great place to work? Just opening up and having all that type of conversation with somebody you report into just furthers the relationships.
00:29:19
Speaker
The number of times people say to me, yeah I know my people really well. um Do you? Do you really? Are you really clear what they want to be doing with their lives beyond this? You know, it's not just about what they did for the the weekend and what their cat's name is.
00:29:32
Speaker
um It goes a lot deeper. And so the the businesses that we work with that implement this kind of thing for the first time or move away from a paper form or once-of-a-year appraisal, which nobody ever got excited about,
00:29:44
Speaker
We're getting really good feedback in terms of people saying, yeah, I'm having conversations at a much deeper level. And I know we run best places to work in hospitality and best places to work in travel.
00:29:56
Speaker
And we know from that that the number one thing that people want from an organisation, actually number two, I think it is, is that somebody cared to feel like I work for an organisation that cares.
00:30:08
Speaker
And what's more caring than sitting down with somebody and talking to them about them and actually listening and it being ah sort of outside the operation. um So just giving the time to do that, you know, and again, a lot of the kickback we go is that our managers don't have time to do this. I'm like, you don't have time to sit down for an hour or a quarter or with somebody. and metaphorically put your don't actually put your arms around them because that's illegal I know don't do that um but you know just sit and engage away from the business um you know ah and I don't think anything that we do is rocket science but it's about putting as you say the rigor behind it the process behind it and then from a business perspective you start seeing who are the people that
00:30:53
Speaker
ah your core people who are the people that just really want to come in, do a good job, go home. That's absolutely fine. But who are the people that want to, that want to achieve? Who are the people that are going to specialize in an area, but don't necessarily want to manage One of the things I see in all the clients I work with is that people are promoted into positions because they're good at what they do, not because they're good at leading people. And it's two very different skill sets.
00:31:16
Speaker
So for me, as soon as you promote somebody into a position where they're now responsible for someone else, their job becomes a completely different thing. And it's about looking after those people and helping them and enabling them and empowering them to do the job, not just swooping in and doing it for them.
00:31:31
Speaker
which I think you know we touched on earlier, a lot of founders tend to do that, lot of leaders tend to do that. I just wanted to add on here, Jo, you say something really important there about showing you care.
Enhancing the Interview Process
00:31:41
Speaker
And I think it's so important to demonstrate that through the interview process. um The CMO community I run, the amount of bad treatment during interview processes is just horrific.
00:31:53
Speaker
so oh So I got to stage four and then they just ghosted me. I didn't hear from them again. And I put in you know six, seven hours worth of work. Just got dropped. I didn't get any feedback. I just got told, sorry, no And one thing that, Greg, I'm sure you do this as well, is that that we make sure with every stage of that interview process is that you get feedback, whether it's you're moving forward in the system, feedback and some things you might want to think about. and this is how what you need to be thinking about for the next stage.
00:32:19
Speaker
And this is why we think you could be a great fit. Or if it's a no this is why it's a no And giving very clear and honest um examples of of what it was that meant that it was a no.
00:32:30
Speaker
Because that is so important for your brand. The amount of brands that have come through in our communities that do not go through the interview process with them because of this. And then you see the same job coming up again and again and again because no one wants to work there and they've burnt their bridges.
00:32:44
Speaker
Whereas what you can find is even if someone isn't the right candidate, you give them good feedback. I've had situations where they've said, makes total sense. I actually think I know someone who would be a better fit than me. Before you know it, you've got free referrals going on.
00:32:55
Speaker
And people actively want to come and work there because like I've just heard it's an amazing interview process and then a great onboarding process. And then you're starting to build your employee brand without really doing anything. And just on that note, super important to check Glassdoor because candidates will look at that and make sure like if there's negative feedback on there, why and what do you need to change?
00:33:14
Speaker
And how are you going to actually start managing that actively too? Thankfully, I got my fit together before Glassdoor really took off. So I look quite good in retrospect, despite the confession from today. Greg, I know we're coming up on time.
00:33:27
Speaker
and do you give your clients advice on on on on process? Like what does a good process look like from from sort of your side of the market for people to say nice things about your clients, you know, in the way that Nicola's just attested?
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a lot around communication. um i think it's also... making sure the process is is working to decipher who the best candidate is. um i think one of the the kind of pitfalls that we see a little bit is um ah kind of founders looking to kind of bring other people into the process but often they have the same interview with with three or four different people and there's not that communication of right this is what was covered in the first round these are my concerns these are where i want to take things how are we actually going to kind of move something forward and i think people can invest a lot of time into processes where um yeah they feel that that they're saying the similar things um
00:34:20
Speaker
I think there's also um a little bit of a tendency around ah kind of case studies or people putting a lot of um input into ah k studies for for founders that can be extremely extensive.
00:34:34
Speaker
um and And then um that there's a line, I think, there around kind of yeah kind of free counsel and actually making sure that if you're testing someone's skills, you're doing it in a way where it's time effective and testing their skills without actually getting them to go and do a bit of strategy work for you, which I think is, yeah um which does, yeah. and and i And I think it's a lot ah lot of time it comes from the right place. And I think people,
00:35:00
Speaker
generally want to kind of um ah yeah have that kind of discussion. But if you're doing that with, say, 15 candidates at the same at that stage or too early within a process, then I think it's um is pretty wrong. So it's trying to um yeah it's trying to decipher that and make sure that you've got um the right things in place. I think the second thing is also just decisiveness. I think if you've got a process that's well set up,
00:35:22
Speaker
um It can be rigorous, but I think it has to be flexible and quick. And and I think anyone coming into an organization needs to to see that. And I think it does. It shows how your business operates if yeah yeah if you do i yeah spend too long and in deliberating. But it can be it can be tricky. There's always ah lot of things happening. and investors and uncertainty and in the market we've got at moment, especially when it comes to hiring.
00:35:45
Speaker
ah Yet we've seen a lot of things being pulled and other things happening that um yeah is all done in the right intentions, but but there's a lot going on. So again, it just comes down to ah to communication and and seeing the best ways to set it all up.
00:35:59
Speaker
Amazing. um Okay, Harriet, so the bad news is this is on you. The
Closing Thoughts & Contact Information
00:36:04
Speaker
good news is that this is on you, which means you can you you can fix it. um So just to summarize, I think we're heard that get really clear on who you are and what you're offering, what's the employer brand, um honor it.
00:36:16
Speaker
Then don't be shy about making sure that the person you're speaking to kind of fits your vision, the culture, the the opportunity. Get deep into that without taking the piss on having them do whole bunch of free consulting for you.
00:36:30
Speaker
And then be really rigorous about the processes that you're going to employ to make sure that both you and the candidate honour those promises made up front. If you're a good manager, like you might have noticed that Nicola talked about how she did kind of check-ins,
00:36:43
Speaker
when she brought people into their organization. And you'll also infer from my confession that I am not an actually good manager. And I didn't do any of those check-ins without the assistance of a robust third party process supported by technology. There's no right or wrong, but like it is on you to, um, to know where you're going, how you're going to get there and then make sure that you safely lead the people. So, um, I'm sorry, there's no silver bullet like there never is from these confessions, but I hope it was helpful. Uh, Greg,
00:37:09
Speaker
Nicola, Jo, thank you so much for sharing your insights. As ever, are you happy for me to put your LinkedIn in the show notes and folks to reach out if they want to talk more? Yeah, of course. lately Absolutely. Brilliant. Cheers all. Thanks, Rob.
00:37:21
Speaker
Thank you. yes