Building Blocks | The Newsletter for the People Builders community | Edition 2 💌
Stories, reflections, and tools from People leaders helping each other navigate the new world of work
Hello, People Builders! 👋
Can you believe it?!
Since the official launch of our community at the start of the year, we’ve been joined by 185+ People leaders from around the world – all wonderful and passionate individuals eager to exchange, innovate, and co-create the remote and hybrid workplaces of the future. 🥳
Do you know other People leaders who might wanna join People Builders? Feel free to forward this community registration link to them.
Other big news this month: People Builders will be making its first real-life appearance in… Las Vegas, yo! 😎
On March 27-29, we’re bringing the Oyster People Builders team to Transform, the premiere global event for people-driven leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors who are shaping the new world of work. We’d love to meet you at our interactive booth #411, or at our exclusive event for community members: Build yourself up on the evening of the 29th!
In this issue 💡
In this edition of Building Blocks, here’s what we have in store:
Building Voices – Alan takes the mic 🎤
Builder Kit – New community-built checklist on How to Build Your Global Compensation Philosophy 💸
Building Together – Community events this month 🧨
Thanks for reading! 💌
Marie
Building Voices — Alan takes the mic 🎤
At People Builders, we’re passionate about developing the tools and solutions that will elevate the People function as a strategic leader in the business. A few weeks ago, I spoke with Alan Wilson, Head of People Operations at Tarabut Gateway, a remote-first open banking business with teams in the MENA region, more specifically in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, as well as in the UK. What prompted our call was a recent Linkedin post from Alan about how he coached his People Ops team in Process Improvement frameworks, and the stunning results that came out of it.
Alan leads a team of 3 People Ops Partners and he made it his “masterpiece” to transfer his knowledge of operations & process improvement to his team, teaching them the fundamentals of the Process Improvement Framework, such as Six Sigma principles, lean manufacturing, and other methodologies. This way of working, while challenging at first for the team, unlocked a high level of autonomy and self-sufficiency, helped his team members navigate cross-functional projects more comfortably, took pressure off them, and gave them a powerful tool to get stakeholder buy-in and fundamentally provide maximum value to the business.
So many People Ops people are crushed under the weight of doing non-value-added work. But to be able to do more with less, you need the methods! You need to give your team the tools so they can add value, bring the business along, and transform their mindset about being value creators.
To illustrate their now fully integrated way of working, Alan gave an example of how his team tackled a problem managing the working schedule of certain regions via their HRIS.
Instead of jumping straight into solutions and systems fixes, with the risk of seeing the problem reappear 6 months down the line, we methodologically followed the PI steps: doing the diagnostic work, consulting internal customers, identifying pain points, value stream mapping, removing non-value add process steps and defining improvement KPIs. Eventually, we were able to identify the exact root cause of the problem and save hours of work - 15 hours per month.
This new way of working helped Alan and his team more easily win the support of their internal stakeholders.
The Process Improvement Framework is a powerful tool for getting stakeholder buy-in. We do the work that most People teams shy away from. We do value-stream mapping, so we know which steps are non-value add and how these add up in terms of hours per month. By following this approach, we can tell with tangible proof that we could be avoiding non-value add activity and errors if we adopt these powerful methods of enquiry. Our stakeholders see that we know what we're talking about; because we are doing the diagnostic work, this gives them confidence to invest in our recommendations, projects and process improvements.
Alan’s team now has the confidence to work with the rest of the business as a strategic partner, and even as a role model.
The fact that we know our pain points, have our KPIs and clear requirements all mapped out, have done the diagnostic work, and know exactly what we're looking for – all that means that we can tell a story to systems and service providers we work with, but also to the business. For instance, we have Slack channels to share our updates and dashboards with the rest of the business, and we continuously evolve by using more data and gathering insights. We came to a point where we really have something to teach other departments, our ways of working and thinking that can benefit other functions at TG.
Part of Alan’s team People Ops Process Framework is illustrated above. This provides direction for every project and improvement we embark on. Since most changes we support are process improvements, this model provides the standards, tools and techniques we deploy to deliver value creation for TG.Alan is passionate about people getting enjoyment from their jobs, and finds fulfilment in helping them extract the most value out of their work.
At first, the team was saying: ‘This is so overwhelming.’ But after 6 months, the quality of their outputs and the value they created are unbelievable. Because you feel equipped, you feel empowered. Their grasp of how to create value and most importantly, to bring the business along on the journey, has been amazing to witness. It has sparked a real desire amongst them to look beyond the confines of the People function to find the answers to working most effectively. Even in difficult times, people will look for such skill sets. I really want to give them the best so that, if it came to that, they wouldn't be on the job market for long. I believe this is the way forward for all People Ops teams, recession or not.
Alan is committed to sharing more of his experience so you can be sure I’ll be following along, and I encourage you to do the same! Also, drop your thoughts in the comments or connect with Alan on Linkedin, and don’t hesitate to reach out to him to learn more.
Builder Kit — New community-built checklist on How to Build a Global Compensation Philosophy 💸
Earlier this month, we hosted a Conf-Lab workshop on How to Build a Global Compensation Philosophy. With participants from almost all five continents, we explored the key challenges of building a global compensation philosophy:
How to keep it fair across locations?
Where can you find reliable salary data?
How do you deal with currency fluctuations?
Do you pay the same salary for the same role in different countries?
While we quickly came to the realization that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, we were able to define the crucial elements to consider in order to design a winning global compensation framework. Wherever you are on your comp journey, I hope you’ll find this strategic checklist built by fellow People Builders a useful tool to help you create and future-proof your company’s global comp philosophy.
PS: If you’re curious about the workshop discussions, you’ll find the Miro board and other workshop material in our People Builders Hub.
Building Together — Community events this month 🗣️
Even though we’ll be spending most of March preparing for our presence at Transform in Las Vegas (stay tuned… more on that soon!), we do have a new Conf-Lab edition this month that I’m particularly excited about!
Whether you’ve decided on a hybrid, full-remote, or predominantly on-site working model, we’ll open the floor to a candid discussion about which one is actually right for your business. We’ll spend some time identifying the key advantages and disadvantages of each option, and by doing so, we’ll find strategic anchor points to guide how to choose, evolve, or make the case to internal stakeholders for a model of work that will optimally support the ambitions of your team and your business.
Over to you 🤗
In our previous poll, 100% of those who voted confirmed being interested in more support and idea-sharing on the topic of reorgs, restructures, and layoffs. Based on your feedback, I’ll be sure to include this topic in our next event series. 👍
I’d also love to hear about what other topics would be particularly useful to you as I narrow down the themes of our People Builders workshop series for Q2.