Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Where it comes down to, I would say, first of all, is listening to your employees, understanding your employees better in general and being kind of on the skin and also for your employees. That's how I approach this thing. So I have to mention here, we just changed. Even our engagement survey to a new one, it's called sick new survey. And
Speaker 1 00:00:23 Why we did this is really to be
Speaker 0 00:00:25 More on the level that we actually really get the core data to understand
Speaker 1 00:00:29 Our employees better. So that's what Sigma is really concentrating on. And, um, we just came to realize on this, that we have to be better also doing that surveys and the day that, that we get that correct
Speaker 0 00:00:42 Also to concentrate on the learning and development, which we were talking earlier here too. So making career specific or making the kind of expectations clear and what are they like learning and development opportunities in general, to be better on and develop yourself for the week, your session. So that has to be also our focus this year and assignments and their leadership programs and all that. So what's, um, I think that really is an engagement metrics that we can follow too. Um, and, and having them Longo with our journey when we are making it basically how important really their parties in this role and making clarity to everyone's role towards the mission and the company's goals. So, um, then yes, the manager is, so you said, it's so nice that, you know, people lead, if they're not trained and they're not able to leave there to even them this there. So they do play a wider role role in this, too. And of course we are concentrating on their benefits and mental wellbeing and all the other things that you mentioned there too, internal cost mitigation and an engagement on team levels, but that will need them not to topic. Then
Speaker 1 00:01:57 Thanks Laura, to be here, head of growth at seed. Um, I'm back with another episode of our scaling. So far podcast, where we have candid conversations about scaling and building teams with some of the brightest minds in the startup and scale-up space really delighted to introduce our wonderful guest today. Tina <inaudible>, Tina is HR director for you session, a Helsinki based startup and the world's largest music educator. I think they're reaching currently about 20 million monthly users, um, maybe even more now. So Tina, welcome to the podcast and thanks for joining us. How are you doing hi there? Lovely to be here on pronunciation of my last name was totally correct.
Speaker 1 00:02:44 I did. I took a pause before and thought, yeah, let's go for it. So no good, good tear is close to close to correct. And good to be here. Brilliant. And for our listeners, Tina, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your story? So, yeah, so I'm Laura synthetic correctly. First of all, mother for three kids and a plus $1 40 year old dog, we have to, I do have a, like a boss, I would say 13 years experience in HR. And mainly I have been in startups and scale-ups and growth companies and really doing HR for growing up and scaling and building these amazing companies and their cultures. So I would say I'm a strategy builder at a company called strongly.
Speaker 1 00:03:38 Yeah, I like that. And definitely someone after my own heart with the company culture builder as well. So, and so now your HR director position, what's the company's mission and vision. So you see some missing is to make musicality and our vision is that in the future, most people can play an instrument and we'll actually recommending dues. So I would say that we are a very mission-driven company. We strongly believe also in the scientific, proven fact that music really has this positive impact on people's cognitive, mental, and general health as a whole. Nice. Yeah, it definitely seems like a very mission driven company and, and something, I think that, um, yeah, we probably could have done, uh, a lot more of over the last year and everyone was sort of, uh, throughout the pandemic getting new hobbies. So yeah, I bet the platform really took off. Then you joined just over a year ago, didn't you? Yeah, that's correct. It's almost day to day to day. So you would be tomorrow. So that's when, when I had my anniversary, um, exciting journey, a little happy anniversary for tomorrow.
Speaker 1 00:04:58 Wait time, this perfectly. So, um, well, has the last 12 months look like for your session you raised, was it $28 million series B and April, uh, the ship? What has that meant for you from a talent and a people perspective? So yes we did. We are so happy and so excited about this investment, wrong with it. I think I'm probably saying that we had the coolest investors who really strongly believe in us to commerciality. So we have the MPL then trusting God, Amazon, Alexa, to name just a few. And we are super excited about the journey ahead. And I think that believe that the have to us, it's also exciting us even more to be part of this journey to me and to my team as well. So I think now is the time to maybe speed it up and do that growth journey. And it means a lot new members to join our band.
Speaker 1 00:05:56 So lot of you, new sisters will join our band in the near future. If you take up our website today, there are like 25 open roles for both locations, New York and Helsinki. And that's basically what it means. So a really heavy reason from our talent acquisition team to get these skills field with the best talent for us. And then of course, on the other hand, if I think about my team, so the HR, we are really trying to deliver according to all with that and strategy now for the future and internal development learning and development. And yeah, it does also mean new members to our backstage team as we call our HR team at the moment. So yeah, I love to be done and that's what we're working on. And I love the fact that you call your team, your band and your backstage team as well.
Speaker 1 00:06:52 That's, that's really cool. It sounds like you've got a, um, yeah, I think just a pretty cool culture. So very, very interested. Hopefully we'll cover that a little bit later, but so well, you know, that growth journey, how, how, um, how many people would that when you started maybe a little bit above a hundred when I started. So during my time we have recruited more than I think the number of course number is 37, new Batman, so quite heavy growth last year and the same number of second to happen this year too. So yes, we are scaling up on that as I said, the culture is there. So we do call our new joiners, add newbies to have a band, and we are called backstage team, which means that an accuracy set on HR in general. So yes, that's our backstage bad say you love it.
Speaker 1 00:07:44 And you've got a ton of experience in HR specifically for the likes of IDN and Helen more recently. Um, just prior to your position, whether it's from musician or from, from your roles before then, we'll have some of your biggest learnings been when it comes to HR recruitment people practices. What if those that are those learnings been? So as we started with the culture, so, well, I would totally say the company culture and really understanding how huge an impact that really has to everything I would say. I know it's suddenly an opportunity say, to say, culture really eats the strategy for launch, but I have seen this inaction in so many times and I had to kind of dig in like, you're like, what is really the key I would say to understanding the culture and how big of a part you really place to everything. Are you deciding that onboarding process or are you planning on best strategy in HR or bigger like a change strategy or even the people you want to bring in? So I think the culture is really the key and unending everything that we do. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:08:59 Yeah, no, I, I, I agree. And like we had a discussion, um, we've had a few different discussions in the past about sort of hiring for culture, add versus hiring for culture fit and, you know, what's the right terminology there and how you build your culture as a startup and scale up. And obviously when you're at that smaller stage, it's so important, um, because it makes a huge impact. Um, you can't really can't hide it. You can't hide when it goes wrong as well. So do you guys, how, how do you really build, um, sort of the importance of culture into say your hiring practices? Yeah. So as we are looking for new band members, we have just renewed our recruitment process on how does it really, so that's with us with UC should now. And for the future, we are really trying to educate our band members and everybody, every you should not do the more, better feedback for example.
Speaker 1 00:09:57 So this is part of our culture. So we do have these elements already there in the hiring process to solve that. And I think the other element in here is that you really want to give, there can be less possibility to really interact with the team members. They would be belonging to though they can also make that trust better. Is this a team I want to belong to? Is this the kind of hiring manager who I want to try and on that you bring one new one to the company. The culture changes a bit, even if you don't think about that, but it really lost. So everybody has to be on the same, but sharing the same values of respecting the same values and working with the same values and really making it to their own. So I think those parts they're brilliant. And I like the fact that you touched on it as well.
Speaker 1 00:10:50 They're like it's respecting the same values and interpreting it, those, the values in a way that resonates with that individual, right? Because, you know, it's having the core of the value maintained that actually there will always be that individual interpret set and you know, their behaviors show it in different ways than another person does. And yeah, that's where the culture sort of evolves over time. Right. Exactly. And the values as itself, I think they need to involve as well. So when we established our values, it wasn't laid back and now we have to revisit them again, you know, maybe on a yearly basis or every other year, at least so that they will keep up, you know, the evolve, but not a prostitute. I would hate them. They're just values who are just like equals they may need to be values. They need to be living a lot with us.
Speaker 1 00:11:45 Yeah. And if you feel that they need to evolve and change, then acts on that, get feedback and yeah, no, that's super. So on the flip side of that, um, obviously the greatest, the greatest learnings, is there any advice out there that you've heard or, you know, something that you've come across that actually you'd recommend people totally avoid when it comes to sort of HR recruitment and people practices that you think might need to be dispelled, um, especially for startups and scale-ups. Yeah. So I think something that I hear constantly all the time, Sama roundings and we'll come to the colleagues of mine from other companies like HRP is just a cost, you know, always asking for more on a budget. And I really well, actually it is somehow through, but on the other hand, like how much, some business impact HR can have to revenue.
Speaker 1 00:12:43 So is it just a cost or, you know, it's a both sided thing, as well, as I just said, I've discussed with my colleagues that, uh, if we own the board, keep employees along with us, how much do we do savings in a way? So is HR Chester cost. And I know all of the CFOs who have been working with in my past, and of course I'm always asking for more budget, is it just a cause or is it also returned to the revenue somehow on a positive note, maybe that's a one thing. And then also another thing that I have come across, and I think we talk in the forums of HR mainly is that there are companies who say that we are really like putting our peoples first and they are the greatest assets for the company and still the HRS not presented in the leadership team or the top management. So I'm always in this discussion discussing about how is the message received by the employees? Like if you say that people first that you are the greatest asset and then there is no HR percentage.
Speaker 1 00:13:53 So it kind of be very mixed feelings in this sense. Yeah, no, I, yeah, definitely. And I think there are lots of companies out there who, as you say, say that, but actually in practice, um, it's just not the case. And I think it's, um, it's almost that it's being said as like a vanity metric, as you know, how do we attract people? We'll tell them that we care about them a lot. You can say that I similar to the values piece. Everyone says, you know, you have your values and put them on a poster on a wall. They mean nothing. If you don't behave in a way that aligns to your values, or if your people don't agree with them, like you can say one thing, but actually you've got to show through your behaviors, your processes, your practices, your priorities as a business, that people are actually coming fast.
Speaker 1 00:14:48 And yeah, I think it's a really interesting point to Megan. And I think your point about HR is a cost as well. I think much more companies are realizing that HR and talent need to be a product of your business similar to the way that you invest in your product roadmap or your sales and marketing or your go to market strategy. I think we might have touched on this a couple of weeks ago, but yeah, like they say as a cool function of your business, it's a machine, it's an engine that you need to invest in that, um, otherwise you wheels are gonna fall off and it's just, yeah, I think that looking at HR as a cost is, is, uh, is a big mess. So one to definitely be dispelled and yeah, without people, your business is nothing. So that's the investment I'd say, I would totally have to agree on these.
Speaker 1 00:15:42 I use it like I've mentioned to some of my really junior HRS and the first thing that they asked me, like, how do I make, you know, then understand that we are not just a cost. We really are bringing that value on being a really business critical. So I think talking about the return for your investment, if you do the recruitment or onboarding and you know, you hold employees longer, so let's use it an eye-opener for many. So really what you devise in terms of like, yeah, people out there thinking, how do I, how do I prevent my, my senior stakeholders in, in looking at it like this? You would say, look at it in terms of return on investment and present, present the data, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. I love data. So if you can solve really the numbers, you know, like if we have someone who's being onboarded for nine months and then becomes productive, instead of someone being onboarded three months and already then becomes productive.
Speaker 1 00:16:39 So what is then the cost and then return? So I think those discussions are very important. This is leaders who have never thought about this side of HR. So just to have the honest discuss and I put some figures there. So that using that is showing that, you know, HRS thinking about the business on HR is thinking about one nice way to go. Brilliant, love it. And presenting that data. Like, over-communicating it almost, you might not, but here it is, I'm giving it to you anyway and loudly. Do you know, those curb drives are also be used on the side too, so you can have exactly. That's awesome. And so for yourself and for the team at musician, what is on the talent agenda over the coming say, six to 12 months? What are you really doubling down on? Yeah, well, uh, we have made that talent strategy.
Speaker 1 00:17:40 So there are a few things that we are tackling from there. So we have been heavily concentrating on the learning and development now in general for a spring and really focusing on leadership development and leadership programs. So definitely that I even got a headcount to be hired to my team, to be concentrating on the learning and development is so happy to be having this work done and now running programs to educate our people lead. So to say a new normal, we all hate that word already, but ways of working, which we have chosen, we are just about to launch our first pilot, how are we going to run our working ways in the, in the future? So definitely that, and we have this checkpoint of three months drawing it up and then revisiting the birding model for us and then maybe doing some changes. And of course that means a lot of, a lot of work for my team and Jane cheese too.
Speaker 1 00:18:36 And then the third thing on my table today after these was the employee branding. So as we have quite nice brand, I said, bot, we have been barely, barely a little working on our employer brand. So that is something that we are just about to finalize our strategy and we really restarts time. So that's going to be our concentration. They're brilliant. And that learning and development piece and the leadership development and ways of working, that all ties into your employer brand, right? It's so part of your people promise. So that's awesome. And I think leadership development as well is something that sometimes startups and scale-ups do forget about, they don't tend to prioritize. I actually, your people will develop as long as your leaders keep developing. And I think that can sometimes be forgotten about, you know, you roll out a learning and development program for your individual contributors to upskill them, but actually at the same time, you need to be up-skilling those more senior in the org as well.
Speaker 1 00:19:41 So yeah, brilliant that you're rolling that out already. Definitely that they add that last slide where I liked that we really made that. Yes we do. And learning and development, then a company level for everyone individually in different areas of our company functions. But we do now concentrate on our people it's developed and in all the levels. So definitely exactly how you described, that's what we're working on now. So awesome. And in each session, as we said, Talia is really mission driven company. It definitely sounds as well. And it's something I'm sure lots of people could get behind. Um, what kind of talent are you after as a company and, and how do you really go about attracting and engaging? So we are after the top talent who are keen on working with a company that really has a high crowed ambitious goals and has an impact in more than 20 million users on a monthly basis.
Speaker 1 00:20:38 As I said in the beginning too. So often employees who are very different from our backgrounds from many aspects. So education experience know-how, uh, I think we have a quite nice diverse team already and building an even stronger way of working together. We really value that we all are unique and bringing that together. So, yeah, and then most of the roles that we have open, they are on a tech field. So our engineering area is growing, but we are looking for band members to my backstage product to legal and marketing to so scaling up really fast on a headcount to, I would say, yeah, I'm trying to look for the best times for us now and in the future too. So really for this growth mindset, I have to underline too. So someone who is seeking possibilities to grow with the company as the company grows together, ambitious goals.
Speaker 1 00:21:39 And do they have to be passionate about music? Is that a prerequisite or that's a nice question. I get asked that a lot. No, they don't. Um, me, myself, so music is not my core skill. Definitely. I'm happy to be surrounded with good, like let's say almost professional musicians, but no, that's not our life agenda on the recruitment means that you are, what instrument are you playing, Laura? That's why I'm all we ask, but definitely the music is in our DNA. So I think everybody likes music and be like to hear about play and be a really keen on the artist, whoever we're working with. So on and so forth. Then of course we have this lovely app that we can just try and try to work on. Even I'm playing my hour at the moment. So that's not a criteria. Brilliant. No, that's cool.
Speaker 1 00:22:33 I just, I feel like people listening would want to know that. So I thought I better cover it off. So there's a lot of talk about retention issues following the pandemic, obviously. Um, it's been an incredibly tough period for plenty of people out there, right? Well for the entire world, really. Um, I think some people are calling it the great attrition, uh, or something like that. I don't know why we feel the need to name everything, but, uh, probably a whole other topic to dig into, but really when it boils down to it, I think we, we just need to think about how we're looking after our teams, right? As, as humans, as humans and as team members. And I suppose that's from a compensation benefits, progression wellbeing perspective, um, there are tons of layers to that. Of course. What's your approach to that? It does.
Speaker 1 00:23:22 I know we were just talking about being a people first company, but it does sound like a people first company. Oh yeah. So many layers. It does have really many layers where it comes down to, I would say, first of all, listening to your employees, understanding your employees better in general and being kind of on the skin and also of your employees. That's how I approach this thing. So I have to mention here, we just changed even our way engagement survey to a new one, it's got sick, new survey and why we did this is really to be more on the level that we actually really get the correct data to understand our employees better. So that's what Sydney is really concentrating on. And, um, we just came to realize on this, that we have to be better also doing that surveys and the day that, that we get that correct.
Speaker 1 00:24:14 Yeah. For also as in Manson. So we do with people first and not just be preparing to this turnover to NAMI as some call it. So we have had our talent objectives and key results for 2021 already to decrease our employee return. Right. So we have had these earlier and I think that the set that we are missing, driven, that's already for our benefit. And we really are that people see that home day, day one, they meet with us on the recruitment. They will see that we talk about our, I miss them quite heavily and it's really pressing there as we work, but also to concentrate on the learning and development, which we were talking earlier here too. So making careers, visible, making the kind of expectations clear and what are they like learning and development opportunities in general, to be better on and develop yourself further with your session.
Speaker 1 00:25:11 So that has been also I'll, we'll focus this year and assignments and their leadership programs and all of that. So for some, I think that really is an engagement metrics that we can follow to, um, um, on having them longer with our journey when we are making it as many, how important really there is in this full and making clarity to everyone's role to the mission and the company's goals. So yeah, that's what we are concentrating on. And then yes, the manager is, so you said, it's so nice that, you know, people, if they're not trained and they're not able to leave their team members there. So they do play a wider role role in this too. And of course we are concentrating on their benefits and mental wellbeing and all the other things that you mentioned there too, internal communication and an engagement on a team levels, but that will need another topic.
Speaker 1 00:26:09 Then I could talk about that phages. Now it's so important because I think that, uh, this is, um, this is something that I'm passionate about personally. It's, it's the little things that are actually big things. Things like internal communication and transparency and readily available training and information, and that they're almost like a net, a net of sort of employee experience and engagement that if you don't have one of them, there's a hole in your neck and people will fall through is it's really about like, keeping that as strong as you can. So I think maybe people can trip off the, not prioritize some of those things enough and think, oh, we'll do that next year. But actually it's, it's in combination that they're strongest. Um, if that makes sense, and that's exactly why we changed our engagement survey to know how we can reprioritize some things for the next year, as I said, so really understanding what your employees are expecting now and what is the most important to be having no, or fixing now to a better condition.
Speaker 1 00:27:23 So the data you need, the data there and how, how often do you serve at your employees? Because I know some people would think what's too much like, do I do it, uh, once every six months? Do I do it once a week? Is that too much? Do I do it once a month? So like how, how often are you guys do again? So at the moment, this question is really like on spot on, because I would think our employees would say like, oh my God, there's a survey every other day coming to me, if I'm somewhere. And I think we have gone a little bit in the past, and now we're trying to simplify everything and you're going to go to this model, having Stickney once a year, but follow up on quarterly basis, what are we do? And what are we achieving? And on besides we're going to have, you know, wellness surveys.
Speaker 1 00:28:11 So they're still going to be many surveys, maybe so many, not every day, having something to us in the future. And possibly as alternatives people can look at doing focus groups, right? Like if, if there's something you really want to deep dive into, um, get a cohort of your people in a room and have a very open, transparent conversation with them. And that can be super valuable because you might hear things that people wouldn't want to say in a survey. Um, they might, they might be a bit more open, so you could always do different methods of feedback. Definitely. And again, here I have to name the team is the people it's, they get so much feedback that is so important for us then to be read to our backstage team and then we can work on it together. So really added call. And so on that, this is a side question, but do you, with your teams that are managers managing your individual contributors?
Speaker 1 00:29:11 Do you have regular meetings with them as an HR function to, to enable that feedback and the flow of communication? So at the moment, yes, we do. We have monthly get together and we have monthly meetings. So at least twice, twice a month, they will have something together, run by HR. And we do like HR business partnering to with them. So then we got to go deeper and concentrate trust on their teams. But this month we get together as the important us would bring that team leads, the people live, get that they share their experience and bring up issues, which might be, you know, your issue and your colleagues issue too. But it just didn't come up this month next month. So we have this concentration on a few topics that can be outspoken and there's no pre agenda on these other meetings too. And then what we did and try it out, we had this lead bodies, so we've paired every people, they together with someone else.
Speaker 1 00:30:06 So they can have these few topics that they need to discuss between these monthly meetings. And of course they can have for your sparring on the side. Then on that way, we also say move because they have to contribute back to the monthly, get together as two. So that's how we work sort of peer to peer mentorship, right? So somebody to lean on and then she say spar and exchange ideas and yeah, brilliant. The people that are like, you know, on the floor doing in similar similar roles. So, and I saw that auntie, um, mental wellbeing support feed for your people. And firstly, it's brilliant that you not only have a focus on this topic as a company, but Alyssa, that you're providing that level of support for your people. And sometimes employee wellbeing initiatives, like this might seem quite daunting for business leaders. How did you go about rolling something like auntie out for your team and, and what do you feel the impact has been for, for your people and for your sessions so far?
Speaker 1 00:31:13 Yeah, first of all, auntie isn't really an cooperation partner for us in such a great company and such a good timing for him to be, you know, helping us throughout the pandemic. When we started this cooperation actually saw, we saw early signs on our employees' wellbeing and mental wellbeing already when I started a year ago with your sister. And then there was also a healthcare data that was sewing distinctly the absences on the kind of mental side too, and the number of us increasing. So we needed to do some actions there. And we also had the feedback from all of these who I'm talking all the time about, but getting the direct feedback from their team members and their well mental wellbeing or wellbeing in general. So this was very clear for our leadership team, what we needed to do and kind of my novels proposing that we might have someone to cooperate like early preventing actions, not the things to escalate on the next level.
Speaker 1 00:32:13 So what we can prevent with warranty and how much they can offer us as support on that sense before people go on the sick label to the healthcare provider. So before they get really sick and when I brought it up to our leadership team, everybody was fully supportive. So that was kind of very easy approach on that way. So again, the numbers, data live dates and kind of the feedback that we had been collecting. And also we have this idea how we can make it better or how we can pilot at least. And that's always started. So we piloted on CNN, I would say the feedback from our use or a cell phone to service. Excellent. So if I remember correctly, the average user for auntie was saying like nine out of them, the feedback off their users, but we do see semi was nine point 11.
Speaker 1 00:33:05 So we'll use this really appreciate it. They're like professional help and really strongly started to recommend to everybody within your sessions. So we had some early groovers who were, you know, brave enough to sigh and bake the first steps, and then they started to speak about it. And then, you know, the rest of the band started joining, uh, if I have to talk about the impact so I can see their sick leave dates again. So if I look at them the early, early this year and towards the spring this year, their number is really have, so it has to be because of the cooperation, all of the, in some level, at least on those sick leave days. And in general, I think what Andrea has brought to us that is a benefit that we can offer football location, which is lovely, of course it's equal treatment.
Speaker 1 00:33:58 And also the topic of mental wellbeing. It's not a taboo anymore. So people have opened it up and they talk about it that more. So how did it impact that I don't know how to miss it, but I think that impact is huge there too. And sometimes you let, I know you love data. I love data, but sometimes these things just can't actually don't need to be measured. Like it is, it comes out in different ways and it might be the actually performance of teams have increased. And yeah, it's, I think it has the potential to have a huge impact and more than anything, it's taking a very humanistic approach to your people. And, you know, looking after your wellbeing is, should be a priority. And as a company, you're giving them the tools to help them to do that. And I love the fact that as you're saying it's more preventative and proactive as opposed to we've hit a crisis and it's too late.
Speaker 1 00:34:57 Um, cause yeah, I mean, we were on a separate point. I was talking about this topic to somebody else and the fact that with wellbeing, you can't anticipate that, you know, tomorrow you're going to actually feel really low and, and non productive. It just happens. What is important is finding ways to, to, to prevent it and to be proactive about it and to, to manage with, with certain emotions and stress and stuff like that. So that's fantastic that you've rolled something like auntie out and I'm really, really impressed. I'll have to, what I'll do is I'll put a link, um, to the, in our, um, or the, the episode information, the episode notes. So, and they'll do it to the other platform that you mentioned earlier as well, just so people can find them easily. Awesome. A couple of questions to close, slightly more lighthearted and, um, yeah, we'll, we'll jump into them.
Speaker 1 00:35:56 So is there anything that you are super passionate about that you really find julienne? Um, it can be professional personal both. Of course. So both goes to this same topic. I would say I'm passionate about people. I really find everybody's interesting how they see the world and how they behave. And then like when you put people together as a group, how they've been behave and what's kind of the fact that people can have as a group. So like one plus one fair enough, there was three or something. And I think that's very interesting and very many different angles, I would say a more personal life. So I love good food and wine with family and friends. So if I'm hitting crises or something, but I do love the outdoors and skiing in the winter. So all of these four seasons that we have in Finland, I find them nowadays amazing.
Speaker 1 00:36:55 And then sports that go within. So I would say that people in sports and good, you know, free time activities. Yeah. Nice. No, that sounds pretty similar to the stuff that I love including the time. So, no, that's awesome. And is that a thought or a value or phrase that you live by Tina? Yeah, I was thinking of this question and the first thing that came to my mind is like smile, it's contagious. And, and I think it's really positive. So I always tried to find the boss deal out of everything even so sometimes it's super hard and challenging and sometimes you don't even find the positiveness after many years, it can pop to your mind like, okay, there was this positive side, but I really, really try to always find that positiveness. Then I think smiling around, that's a nice kind of like pilot exercise or research to do.
Speaker 1 00:37:50 If you start like heaven is smiling and you do that all day, how many smiles you get back? It's amazing. So like the babies, they learn to smile when they see their mothers and fathers nearby, as you know, smiling to them. I think the same kind of impact it has when you go around the office, a smile nowadays with no face mask on, you know, back in the days when you are without the face mask, you were smiling, how many smiles to get back. So maybe that's a little piece of positiveness that comes to everyone's mom in that way. And then I think professionally at one place that I, I think I repeat it like weighted basis. So three others, like you would like to be like in the common sense of every situation. If you really think about that, you would be the one who you're trying to deliver this message.
Speaker 1 00:38:43 How would you like to be receiving that? So I think that's a good phrase to keep in your mind. So yeah, that there are actually two phrases that I love as well. And I think thinking about how would you, it's so important, especially like, when you're thinking about, um, interacting with people, it's like, well, how would I like to receive this information? How would I like to be treated in this situation? Um, because yeah. And you should be looking after yourself, so you should look after other people. So, and I actually, there was, um, I really love Anthony Bourdain. He's, uh, he's one of my old time heroes, but he did, um, an episode with a, of, one of his shows with a lady who, um, she was, but she essentially started every day when she woke up, she'd set up, have a stretch and just beam from side to side, like just smile, give herself the biggest smile.
Speaker 1 00:39:40 And she said that the impact that that's had on her day, just giving her that herself, that moment to smile and be positive has, has been huge. So yeah, I think smiling is definitely something that I think can affect you and it can affect others around you as well. So bring those, um, just to close up, is there a people leader, a founder or a source of inspiration that you have someone you admire role that has a unique sort of impactful approach to scaling, especially from a people perspective. So now we spoke about all them to so much. So I have to of course mention their co-founder. She said an amazing leader as a founder and like Hosey dos her leaderships, two words, her team and what they had been able to achieve. I think we all have a lot to learn, learn from her on that.
Speaker 1 00:40:35 I would definitely have to medicine and of course I have to mend some, my mentors, Stevens, Alma, X, Google, HR on learning and development. So I have to work with him and I have learned so much, I just adore him in anyways. So, so, so grateful for him. Awesome. And, uh, yeah, we'll maybe link up to those, those LinkedIn profiles as well, so, well, amazing Tina, thank you so much. I am gutted to have to wrap this up. It's been a, it's been such a pleasure speaking with you today. Um, and, and talking about your approach, um, the approach that yourself and your backstage fan, is that what you call them backstage? Yes.
Speaker 1 00:41:22 Yeah. It's really brilliant to hear more about your scaling journey. And I think it's, it's really evident that you are a company that actually does have a people first approach. Um, and yeah, it's, it's just been great to hear about some of your focuses, you know, your talent strategy, learning and development and leadership development as well, and especially the sort of inclusive approach that your team has, um, bringing different experiences together. I think my, one of my biggest takeaways is that how data-driven actually, you, you all, as an organization and, and in your function, as well as an HR leader and actually you're data-driven, but you very much have an iterative approach as well, which is hugely critical for startups and scale-ups right, because you are, you are this sort of core that then does grow into something bigger and you can't restrict that growth.
Speaker 1 00:42:16 You do have to have your foundations and then iterate as you go. And even the fact that I think you said, you're rolling out, um, you're rolling out something and then reviewing it after three months. Like it's just that approach, which I think is, is really brilliant. We have this piloting mentality. I don't know if it comes from the tech side, but you know, you can pilot things and it's not doomed if he doesn't like scale or fly and we can revisit and check it again and do something different, get the feedbacks and then move again to the next though. So I'm very privileged to be working, working there and having this amazing funding coming in for us to help us do more cooperations with all the tax environment. Thank you so much for sharing so many awesome insights with us and feel openness as well throughout. It's really appreciated. Thank you, Laura. This was a lovely chat with you, and hopefully I could give in something new for others who are listening and lovely to give those insights.
