At my new job at Procurify, I got access to our HR software but it only has two choices for the “gender” field: Male and Female. Our team reached out to the HRIS customer support and asked to add a custom field to have more choice and reflect our diverse team.
We want to be as inclusive as possible, within the confines of the software and the ability to run clean, insightful reports to track any patterns for attrition, salary and advancement and flag equity issues.
How to populate the custom field? Leaving it completely editable could result in anyone…
I’m starting at Procurify as Principal People Champion. It sounds like a superhero designation but what am I working on?
Throughout my career, I’ve managed a range of different teams: from the Navy to game development to software teams. Bumping up against human interactions of various sorts and weathering various pressures, I identified patterns of behaviour in teams that were sometimes very helpful in working effectively together, and sometimes very not. I’ve gotten good at untangling the knots and smoothing the lines so that teams could perform at their best.
And I’ve figured out how to talk about it so others can understand. …
KICKSTART POSITIVE CHANGE
This is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. What will you do with it?
Humans have a tough time changing, even if they are yearning for the result of the change. Often they’ll wait until there’s a movement, and then they’re willing to take the risk of change and support it in the direction they want to go. They see a light and follow it out of their darkness.
Let’s lead a movement to pull the world into the light.
Why change now?
With COVID-19, every group of people has had to assess and decide how they function in a world of abrupt change. Countries have had different approaches from each other. …
MANAGEMENT PRO-TIPS
Before they settle into bad habits, change to better habits that will last
Many teams have recently had an abrupt shift from working in the office to fully working from home. You should recognize you need to help your team to shift to good behaviours instead of expecting they’ll figure it out themselves. Establishing good patterns now will save you from having to reboot after poor ones become engrained. Now is the time to apply all the tricks you can to set your team up with habits that will help them collaborate and stay cohesive.
Remember as their manager, you are a member of your team. You have needs as a leader: your…
Startup Culture Guidance
Practical steps to put your startup’s culture on a solid path
In the technology industry, you start to create “technical debt” when you kick off a new piece of software. You make upfront assumptions about how you need to build and then bias for action to get your product to market. Later, you’ll want to restructure or refactor the software to correct misalignment from those early decisions. You stabilize and reset things so you can build on a solid foundation into the future.
The same goes for company culture.
Technical startups typically hire quickly. Founders pump their networks to hire people they already trust.
It’s predictable. It minimizes risk.
Paige Meekison
People team leadership at Procurify | Leadership and management veteran: 15 years in video game and technology leadership
