The Upscale HR Lead session is an opportunity for attendees to explore common scaling challenges, the frameworks and processes for the People function of an organisation and to connect with like-minded HR Leads to build a community of HR Leads. Attendees will come away from the session with some key learnings and a bigger network of peers that are supportive of one another in their individual scaling journeys.
Led by a seasoned scale coach, this session will tackle the most common functional challenges faced by HR/Talent leads, followed up by an in-depth discussion about scaling your team.
Scale Coaches:
Session Takeaways:
COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID WHEN SCALING YOUR ORGANISATION/ ITS PEOPLE
Bad decisions age like ripening bananas, not like a fine burgundy
Many companies fall into this as a lack of operational structure ends up with decentralised decision making which can hinder the growth of an organization. How much trust and guidance should you give others in the organisation to make decisions? Think about how you can set the tone of how decisions should be made and what should be referred to when making these decisions, then you can give yourself a set of operating principles to aid decentralised decision making. It’s also important to be inclusive of other people’s perspectives, treat them with respect and to trust them with the truth to let them help solve the problems of the company. If you don’t take control of your narrative, they will eventually work it out themselves.
You MUST start with solid foundations
These need to be built clearly and lived, and ensure that each new office has leaders who will too, then you’re on the right track. Actually surveying people in the organisation is helpful, ask them what positive behaviours they see and what behaviours they would like to see be improved. The results are threefold; it builds a solid and thorough understanding of the organisation, it sets a higher bar for what is acceptable, and also gives everyone an opportunity to give some input. This also applies to your processes: Hiring, onboarding, performance management, management capability etc.
There’s a saying in the Military, that if you see something below standard and do nothing, then you’ve set a new standard. This is what will happen if you don’t set these out early. It helps people to understand and get behind that standard.
Organisations need to be designed to scale, not grown through default
Organisational design is often overlooked. Modelling and planning actually need to be done in great detail as things change all the time and although you need to be clear on your plans for scaling, this does not mean you need a five year plan. Design also includes organizational philosophy (singing from the same hymn sheet) starting with the leadership team. This could be on competition, performance, hiring, onboarding, anything. You need senior leadership to align on that philosophy, to set the standards, then design the organisation accordingly. If delayed, this can cause greater frictions further down the line so discussions should be made very early on in the process. It’s also worth thinking about who is right for a managerial role and if not, think about how else that individual can progress and take a different route where they can excel as a specialist but not have to manage anyone.
Tell it like it is
A lack of feedback or communication across the organisation in all forms is common, whether from a manager to an employee or between employees. Give as much information as possible and let people use their own judgement to analyze a situation, as if not, your team will be able to sense or hear if something is not going well. Another common area of improvement is recognition, what can be a simple and quick task is often not done enough but can go a long way. Finally, constant constructive feedback (positive or negative) is essential to an organisation as there is nothing worse than not telling someone that things weren't good enough. Usually failure has many contributing factors and is not malice. Give people space to learn, develop and grow.
Set clear, accountable goals
Reduce company goals to approximately 3 things and do reductions at each level (team and individual). Less is more and any platform can be used - even a simple spreadsheet.
Set out what the business needs to achieve, give people insight into the metrics of success
Ensure team and individual goals feed up unto this.
Clear routes to progress
Firstly, map out what each level of the company looks like and outline what behaviors and skills are needed in each. There are four groups that need to know this information; the employee, the manager, the leadership team and whoever does performance reviews.
Notice how these people are all meandering around, not to sure on where to go. This is what happens when you give everyone autonomy, but not system to operate in.
Progression - mistakes and considerations:
Support your managers, then get them to support each other
It’s not about “what”, most people know what makes a great (or bad) manager or leader)
Focus on the “How” - to resolve difficult conversations, how often 1-1s should take place, even time management.
Standards of attitude also apply here, as you scale, encourage them to reassess the standards.
Encourage all people managers to meet regularly and work together, this could be via self solve clinic, offsite, dinner - something is better than nothing and helps a lot as the common ground is that everyone is managing someone.
A coherent and formulaic compensation philosophy
A lack of coherence (planning) and consistency (actual numbers) can be a big downfall. Define roles and salary bands, make it explicit and share it company wide so everyone is on the same page, this then enables you to take control of negotiations and ensure fairness throughout the process.
If someone wants to go because of salary, they will go but let them as you have set your standards.
“If you start using discretion too early about new hires or new performers, you’re going to set yourself up for long-term problems you can’t anticipate.” At some point, you’ll run out of money to give.
A basic comp philosophy can be a good half-step before setting the ‘official’ policy. Otherwise you’ll find yourself tangled in a string of one-off offers.
Internal comms
Don’t let your internal comms become a game of chinese whispers
What steps can we all take tomorrow to improve based on what we’ve shared so far today?
> How do we keep the culture of our organisation strong as we scale the team?
Codify what is culture and display it.
Make sure it's part of interviewing, onboarding, training, recognition and rewarding
Be mindful of different locations - not just geographical but teams spread around in the office
Cultural fit and cultural enhancement - use your values as a decision compass in your decision making processes
> How do we nurture, develop and reward our talent?
When it comes to nurturing, it’s about having clear expectations and being able to measure it so that we can drive accountability
Development - training, ongoing feedback
Rewards - thinking of how we can reward people based on motivations e.g. money driven, titles, in front of whole company
Balance of when they really add value and when they are just doing their job
For some, title equals progression
121 - make it a relationship and not just a catch up
Horizontal movement to other teams - different type of progression
> How do we best continue to communicate updates and changes across the whole company?
Multiple different communication channels out there, be mindful of what is the info you want to communicate and which platform would be best to have it
E.g. rotate to have different hosts of the all hands
Ask me anything to the founders or a reverse with founders - tell me anything
Get leadership team together and get them to communicate the news to their individual teams
Open up a safe space, keeping that channel open
> How do we drive accountability for people and performance issues?
Promoting people that didn't have the right skills is a big issue - how do you backtrack and fix it?
People realising they don't want to be managers when they have been promoted
Solutions: create a toolbox and make it available, train new managers on best practices and what it is to be a manager, bi-weekly check ins or whatever works best for the business
Communication is everything, get managers trained and make sure they communicate
Both underperformers and overperformers could be a challenge
Identity people’s strengths rather than fixing weaknesses to get the best out of people
Money and salary reviews may not always be the best solution for overperformers as they will still be constantly thinking about what is next for them
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