On Wednesday we hosted a Female Founders Forum webinar on How to Build a Team You Can Trust. We discussed hiring, how to support your staff once you have them and how to create a positive and productive company culture.
Our panel included Vanessa Tierney, the founder of Abodoo and director of Yonderdesk.com; Karina Robinson, the co-director of The Inclusion Initiative at the LSE and the CEO of Robinson Hambro; and Louisa Chapple is the HR Director for Barclays Execution Services. These are their top tips.
Gather data. This is key for larger companies where you cannot speak to everyone. Barclays sends out a quarterly survey with the same questions in it, so they can track how their initiatives are impacting staff and work out what needs to be improved to enhance employee wellbeing.
Make sure you have a mission. Most people want to do something meaningful. If your company has a social purpose and a sense that it is making the world a better place, then staff will be more invested in what you do.
Overcome group-think. The most senior person should not be the first to speak in a meeting, because people will be apprehensive about disagreeing with them. Instead, when chairing a meeting, ask the most junior person what they think first.
Hire people with cognitive diversity. Good teams are more than the sum of their parts. People working together who think differently can create much better outcomes. One way of finding someone who thinks differently to the rest of your team is to hire people who used to work outside of your industry, but who have the right transferable skills.
Build an inclusive culture. This is not just because it is the right thing to do, but it is also helpful for your business so that you can understand your customers better.
Encourage people to speak up. People will assume that it is extraverts who will struggle the most with working from home, but Vanessa warned that you will not know if introverts are struggling because they may not speak up without being prompted.
Make sure quiet people are being offered opportunities. It is often the case that the people who are the loudest and the most proactive are given the tasks which lead to promotion. When giving out tasks, see if there is a more equitable way to distribute them to give more people a chance to prove themselves.
Offer people options. Companies like Google have announced that they want people to return to the office. Karina and Vanessa both believe that this offers a great opportunity to start ups. If you feel confident allowing your employees to work from home, then this could be a chance to hire someone from one of these big companies. You may not be able to offer them the same salary, but you can offer them more flexibility.
Support employee wellbeing. Barclays has a healthy habits campaign to make sure that their colleagues are taking care of themselves while working from home. They encourage them to exercise and spend quality time with their families.
Create ambassadors. If someone has a good experience working at your company, including a good experience leaving it, then you will have an ambassador for life.
Find a mentor. Karina says that the secret is not to ask someone “will you be my mentor” because they will say that they don’t have time. Instead, after choosing someone who you want to mentor you, ask them if they will meet you in five months and then ask them for another meeting five months after that.