{"id":19895,"date":"2021-06-02T08:03:05","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T08:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/?p=19895"},"modified":"2021-06-15T18:21:16","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T18:21:16","slug":"podcast-joining-a-fast-growing-scaleup-as-director-of-people-valerie-mann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/blog\/podcast-joining-a-fast-growing-scaleup-as-director-of-people-valerie-mann\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast | Joining A Fast-growing Scaleup As Director Of People &#8211; Valerie Mann"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you\u2019re joining a fast-growing scaleup as the Director of People, where do you start? How do you shape the culture into something codified and scalable? How do you determine the priorities? And what steps can you take towards building a high-performance culture?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Valerie Mann joined us to talk about her journey at <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/elder.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elder<\/a>, the UK-based live-in care &amp; home care provider that uses \u2018The Mum Test\u2019 as part of their carer selection process. She explained what that involves, how Elder provided mental health and wellbeing support during the pandemic, and how they approach the situation of supporting both frontline staff and those based at the HQ.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Watch the episode<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-47d2ApzOLw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Listen to the episode<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/anchor.fm\/gethownow\/embed\/episodes\/Joining-A-Fast-growing-Scaleup-As-Director-Of-People--Valerie-Mann--Episode-8-e11uk5h\" width=\"400px\" height=\"102px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2><b>Running order<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">0:00 Introduction to Valerie and Elder.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2:53 Working out priority areas when joining a new company.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">6:08 Is it a daunting challenge to codify and scale culture?<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10:17 Moving from shaping values to manifesting them in behaviour.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">13:07 Building a high-performance culture.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">16:55 Managing frontline workers and desk-based staff.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">20:48 How Elder might invest in carer learning beyond compliance.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">23:45 What is the \u2018Mum Test\u2019 for selecting carers?<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">24:58 How Elder has approached and supported mental wellbeing.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">33.53 What\u2019s next for Elder and their people development plans.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">37:00 Quickfire questions.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Lessons learnt from Valerie&#8217;s journey joining Elder as Director of People<\/h2>\n<h3><b>Working out the priorities when joining a new company<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you might expect, Valerie started by speaking with the CEO to understand the business priorities before chatting with the team about the challenges they were facing. It\u2019s something we\u2019ve spoken about on the show before, but those consulting conversations really help understand the why behind what\u2019s going on and make more informed decisions. Which aligns with Valerie\u2019s next step of taking stock of what key things Elder already had in place and analysing what might be missing from a user perspective.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Having worked in large companies before, Nelson asked Valerie if anything surprised her when joining a fast-growing scaleup. Luckily for Valerie, it was that culture, values and some processes were already in place! They might not have been embedded or formally set, but they had certainly developed organically. And that\u2019s a great reminder to pay attention to what\u2019s happening naturally &#8211; especially from a company culture standpoint. It\u2019s better to tap into that than to try swimming against the current.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Moving from shaping values to manifesting them in behaviour<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Embed them into what you do on a daily basis. If you\u2019ve got a value around being open and honest, include that into your reviews, peer-to-peer discussion and formal feedback processes. But it\u2019s important to strike a balance, it shouldn\u2019t become a cult where people are all doing the same thing. Remember that it\u2019s about you as a community and what you can do together.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>How do you build a high-performance culture?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Firstly, you\u2019ve got to define what a high-performance culture looks like in your organisation. Get clarity on where you\u2019re going as a business, establish the goals and strategies and then be transparent to make sure that information cascades down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Collaboration is a big one, especially when you\u2019re moving from startup to scaleup because people have been used to working in and building their function, but you\u2019re now asking them to work together and across those functions. Informal collaboration that was happening naturally when the team was smaller now needs to become more formalised and aligned.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>The challenge of catering to both frontline workers in the field and desk-based HQ staff<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Currently, carer operations manage it for them and they\u2019re technically self-employed but Elder&#8217;s values are communicated to them, their behaviour guidance is based around care delivery and that&#8217;s all made clear to carers.\u00a0 They also have a Carer Of The Month award and that&#8217;s celebrated at the all-hands meeting and have set up carer hangout where people are sitting with them twice per week. In the future, when they\u2019re moving into the regulated space and have carers in-house, it will be a different ball game where they can really bring those two groups together. Elder is focusing on becoming a great place for them to develop and build their career as a carer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>How Elder has approached mental health and wellbeing support<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Life and work are very blended, a trend we\u2019ve really seen over the past 12 months. Something Elder could tell from the energy within the company and the responses to their pulse survey was that people were struggling with productivity. So, internally they built a mental health team to support people and bring that conversation to the fore &#8211; making sure it\u2019s not one of those things that doesn\u2019t get spoken about. They also use Spill, an app that provides remote mental health support for employees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Typically you might find some questions or push back about the ROI or measuring mental health support\u2019s impact. In Valerie\u2019s eyes, it\u2019s all about preventing the impact rather than reacting to what happens when people are struggling. If you measure productivity or absenteeism and notice a real decline, it\u2019s probably already too late&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>How to connect<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Find Valerie on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/valerie-mann-50785\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Find ElderHQ on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/elder-hq\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ElderHQ\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ElderHQ\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/elder_hq\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instagram<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and over on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.elder.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">their website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Find Nelson on<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/nelsonsivalingam\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ThatNelsonDude\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Find HowNow on<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/hownowhq\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hownowteam\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/instagram.com\/hownowhq\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instagram.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><b>Where to subscribe<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to watch the episodes, head over and<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC4QrYnD1H3oqVeAQQTyOhGQ\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">subscribe on our YouTube channel<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And if you prefer to listen to your podcasts, search on whichever app you use or click on one of the links below:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/70k8Cfn70DcPD0CEBA1ySs\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spotify<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breaker.audio\/99-problems-but-work-aint-one\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Breaker<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/anchor.fm\/gethownow\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anchor<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy85ZDNkMGQ0L3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google Podcasts<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/99-problems-but-work-aint-one\/id1572432505\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you\u2019re joining a fast-growing scaleup as the Director of People, where do you start?&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":19897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3119],"tags":[1228,1597,1261],"yst_prominent_words":[1784,349],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19895"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19977,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19895\/revisions\/19977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19895"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}