Culture as a Service (CAAS)

Notes from the floor

• Change culture from the top — “leading by example by leaving loudly.” Leadership needs to openly use the benefits and flexibility a company offers, because it shows employees they don’t need to feel bad for doing the same.
• Remote-first isn’t just for parents — it also means hiring from a much larger, more diverse group of people, for example those with a disability or who are older.
• Alchemy grew to 160 people in 5 years and put it down to mentoring and a flat structure — giving employees a mentor only ~1 year ahead of them helped retain staff and let them grow fast.
• Too much competition — structure the organisation so employees collaborate rather than compete for the next promotion. Supportive, collaborative teams are where the most growth comes from.
• We can’t grow if we don’t know what’s wrong — we’re too nice in 1-to-1s because mentors aren’t trained on how to give negative feedback. Train mentors to give it, and employees to take it and grow.
• Higher retention from being open about salary — one company found that posting salaries, so everyone knows they’re paid the same, led to a big increase in retention.
• People don’t leave jobs for more money — research shows most people leave because the work doesn’t feel like it has purpose. How do we make people feel their project matters?
• Mentoring training for any leaders — a recurring theme was people celebrating mentorship programmes for their leaders: “it has totally transformed our retention rate.”
• We can’t just train on technical skills — no organisation works with people who are all technically brilliant but have no soft skills. Training needs to cover soft skills, not just technical ones.