Startup People Clinic — Newsletter — Autumn 2020

Updates and insights from the team at www.supc.co.uk

Team news:

We’re delighted to be able to congratulate Amy on her new role as Director of People at Second Nature. It’s an amazing opportunity to get involved at an early stage with an exciting company that has a vision that is hard to argue with.

To help the world build healthy habits.

That does though mean that two out of three of us have full time roles (Craig is currently at DeepMind), and that Rich will be the point person for the near future if there are any opportunities for us to explore. We’re going to be meeting up at least monthly to share experience and insights, which means you get the benefit of all of us even if you only work directly with one of us. We see our various “day jobs” as a feature not a bug — if you work with us you know you are working with people who have real experience of the challenges you face.

Current projects/activities:

• We’re going to be running a workshop for SETSquared on the 22nd October on “Great 1:1s, And Other Habits Of Effective Leaders”. It’s practical tips on 1:1s, also with some ideas on how founders and startup leaders can start thinking about leadership development. We’ll share more once we’ve run the session.

What we are seeing:

Remote Working

The team hard at work, and a glimpse of Rich’s super pro set up.

• Broadly two camps are emerging: 1) Companies who are planning for this and adjusting the way they approach everything to make it work more smoothly and 2) Companies who are just dealing with it on an ad hoc basis.
• Those in camp 1) are more likely to be the bigger, more established, firms. They are cautious about getting people back to the office, and have resources to throw at remote working.
• Upsides: Remote working is providing access to a wider pool of candidates (less constrained by geography), and can help reduce overheads. It’s also normalising pro-inclusion flexible ways of working that many (particularly, but not exclusively, mums) have had to argue hard for in the past.
• Downsides: 1) A lack of connection with others is having a negative impact on people in terms of their mental health and productivity. 2) Companies who have invested in their office as part of their employee value proposition, but that asset no longer has value for employees who are working from home.

Talent

• There’s a big pool of talent available for those who are hiring, there is also high quality in the pool if you can identify it.
• But the knock on effect is that identifying quality hires in the pool is more difficult. However, an increased volume of applications is putting strain on organisations, particularly those who are reliant on interviews for their early screening.

Our tips

• Push yourself to think more strategically about your workforce — what you need from them and what they need from you — and build remote working into that. Below is a deck from a session we ran on workforce planning over the summer.

Click the image to see the deck

• Review your Employee Value Proposition — what does that mean in a predominantly or at least partially remote world?
• Think beyond recruiters and interviews in terms of how you assess candidates at the top of the funnel. There are a multitude of tools out there: psychometrics, application forms, situational judgement tests etc. Be careful though and get good help — the sift is where candidates with more diverse backgrounds and perspectives are often ruled out.

What we’ve been reading/thinking about:

For various good reasons, the spotlight is shining particularly brightly on DE&I issues at the moment. This article is about gender, and how they way we structure our relationships can enhance or inhibit careers, and reinforce or challenge gender inequality.

https://hbr.org/2020/05/gender-equity-starts-in-the-home

A fun read about how narcissistic leaders can cause real harm to businesses. For anyone daring enough to try, I have recently qualified in a psychometric tool that targets the Dark Triad of traits (narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy).

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/how-narcissistic-leaders-destroy-within

In a world full of lazy culture “hacks”, here’s a proper, serious article that gets to grips with the topic in a really helpful way

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/organizational_culture_as_a_tool_for_change?utm_source=Enews&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=SSIR_Now

A fun and instructive read, although I am probably much less cynical about things like Agile and leadership than the author is.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lab-Rats-Silicon-Valley-Miserable/dp/1549142577

Some great research about how to build, and build trust in, virtual teams

https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/flexible-working/developing-virtual-teams

A debate on the role of politics in business: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-company-af882df8804. This has prompted a lively discussion within the team, and it’s fair to say that we don’t all agree on the rights and wrongs of this approach. What we do agree about is that organisations do have a role to play in social change — not least because they are an arena where inequalities can be sustained and amplified without due care and attention. However, we also agree that the Coinbase move (if you look at the detail not the reaction — listen here https://www.redefininghr.com/podcast-episodes/ep60-coinbase-chief-people-officer-lj-brock) seems like a well intentioned attempt to deal with a real problem: that political dialogue is currently so polarised and toxic — without any real attempt from sides to hear each other and adjust their views — that it is very difficult to engage in political topics without “picking a side” and alienating half the population.