Jon: Welcome to empathy deployed the podcast where you can experience an
example customer interview every week.
You'll discover new perspectives on different software products and improve
your customer interview technique.
As I attempt to do the same
I'm Jonathan Markwell.
And this week I'll be interviewing when he man, when he's a customer of
Bob, Bob is an HR information system.
I'll be trying to understand why when he purchased.
How she uses it and what paternity leaves she's considered
when he's a human resources.
Director apps acquired, acquired, provides payment processing and
banking services all in one place.
Hi, Winnie.
Hi
Winnie: John.
Jon: Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me today.
I'm very excited, uh, to hear more about your experience with,
um, with Bob, um, or hi, Bob.
Um, this is also a main and an HR information system.
Um, before we get started, I just wanted to ask if you had any questions.
Winnie: No.
Um, thank you, John.
No, I'm all good to go can stuff.
Jon: I just want to double check that you're happy to record this
interview, obviously, if it was a normal customer interview, I'd be
asking this question saying that we only be shared internally, but this
is a as, you know, a podcast episode.
And so, um, it will be shared publicly for everyone to learn from your experience.
Is that okay?
Winnie: Of course.
Absolutely.
Jon: Thank you.
Okay.
So, um, first question.
Can you tell me a little bit about how you came to need something to
do the job that Bob does for you?
Winnie: Um, of course.
Thank you, John.
Um, I think like a lot of perhaps people in my role or in my world when you're
starting a new, a new role in a new company and we're a startup, I suppose.
You know, it's even more.
Um, the case that in, in my role currently is that we ran
everything from a spreadsheet.
And I think a lot of companies would often start off with a spreadsheet system.
Really manage oil, their people, data.
So anything from start dates to addresses or their personal
alternative, um, documentation.
We also use, um, G and everything else to sort of for all our documentation,
but in terms of actual personal, um, employee data, that we have nothing
to, to really make that a nice and slick experience for our people, but
also to get some meaningful data for.
That, that, um, that data.
So I, I went about sourcing something for my needs, from the markets, or
did a lot of interviews to try and.
That's attain what those systems might need to look like.
And, um, so that's, I suppose, where we started with the journey, just having
everything everywhere and using it to find some sort of order, I think, to, to the
information that I had and to give myself, um, some time obviously, to be able
to sort of really document everything.
Jon: Okay.
So you had all this employee information in spreadsheets before.
Cause that has that right.
And you, and you knew that, uh, this class of software existed already.
Um, and so you went out to find Simons that
Winnie: that's right?
Yeah, exactly.
So I'd use a number of different systems before to try and, um,
to help manage employee data.
So.
Really large enterprise level systems, as well as SME level, um, HR systems.
And they all do lots of different things.
So it could be just to manage things like holiday approvals,
workflows, and collection of, of, you know, sensitive data, payroll,
et cetera, but lots of different systems do lots of different things.
So I knew that we needed something that could scale with us as we.
As we doubled the size of the company, um, needed something in place to
try and give, to help me along with some of those administrative tasks.
Yep.
Jon: That makes sense.
Um, and other than spreadsheets, and you've mentioned some enterprise
tools, um, have you had to do this kind of work manually before?
Um,
Winnie: yeah, absolutely.
Email, especially with, you know, the pandemic, it's just email a lot
of different platforms that we use for different, um, ID verification,
um, as part of our onboarding process, it just needed to, to
uplift that whole process to meet.
To ensure that we're compliant, if anything, um, and to make sure that we're
collecting this clearly and saving it in, um, in a secure, in a secure way.
So yeah, absolutely trying to, uh, make sure that there's an audit-able
process to everything that we're doing.
Right.
Jon: So, Going back to when you joined this new company in this new role
and they were using spreadsheets, um, for all this different information.
Um, and, uh, w was there.
Particular part of the process, um, a one particular process in the work
you're doing that you're really finding, um, uh, frustration in some way that
sort of prompted your decision to find some software to take this this on.
Winnie: I think the most pressing thing for us was definitely having something
that could manage our performance process.
So.
Everything's very, paper-based having something with it.
Words roll really nicely and align with our.
Um, mission values, what our strategy was, making sure that
people knew where we were going.
We needed something that would help give a sense to our people.
Um, what those priorities were.
So I, we worked OKR here.
And you had lots of Miro boards.
We were using, um, lots of different tools, you know, in different ways.
And people were using, um, we're using spreadsheets.
Some people were using presentations for performance.
So I think the biggest pressing thing, as well as organizing all
the other lovely data was really.
The performance element and making sure that as we scaled
first business, that we were all aligned to the same strategic goal.
And, um, so I think the, I suppose the overarching thing for me really
was having a system that would, I suppose, cope with the diff.
The functionality needed to fit that really in terms of the
ability to, um, roll that into my individual objectives or roll to
the, to departmental or to company.
So it just made more sense to have that as my, I suppose, a backbone
Jon: tomorrow.
Did you have that process in place?
And then can you walk me through what you would, what steps you would
go through to manage that process?
Winnie: Yeah.
So typically it's, um, announced at company level.
So company would announce what the OKR would, the overarching
arching objective for this, um, for this year would be, um, or that.
Um, and we would set what those key results, the outputs of those
objectives needed to look like.
So I suppose then each department knew how they were going to contribute
to that big sort of picture.
And so once that was set at a company level or get put into a.
Um, and then announced, um, our company meeting, everyone comes together to sort
of then talk at departmental level, which we would have done some work on to align
that with the big company objective.
So there'll be probably three to five, you know?
Okay, ours maybe, um, would need to hit, I think, three big ones.
Um, and at an individual level, you already starting to think once your
company one has been set, what, how you're going to start contributing
to your departmental objectives?
So there is, there's a sort of.
Um, a trigger point in terms of when this information needs to be put in by.
So there are sort of aligned to two weeks in that quarter.
So we knew when things would you buy.
Um, it's been, I suppose, a it's trial and error because you know, this is a.
The closest way to making, I suppose sense in terms of how do we, as individuals
contribute to that overarching company objective while this is the clearest,
I think performance management process that I've ever maybe, um, reviewed,
none of them are any, you know, are.
Amazing.
Uh, but this is probably as closely aligned to best practice, I think.
Jon: All right.
And did you bring the OKR process into the company?
It was that they're an established, it just it's the management of it, that and
Winnie: management of it.
I think we sort of came together at the same time, almost my CEO.
Um, Had we have a, a thing here called transformation sessions and we'll do
this every couple of weeks, if they're more frequent, um, sort of when we first
started and there were big sort of like.
Questions that we'd ask ourselves around, you know, where we'd want to take this
company, how we want to shape values, for example, what does good mean?
Um, what does, you know, um, motivation mean all of these sorts of types of
things, and everyone, you know, would go off and would either read the
same book or read lots of different things and come together and have
a discussion around, um, What this, what anyone got from it, um, and have
pretty, sort of nice open discussions around these big, um, items measure.
What matters is, what are those books that we read?
And RCA was really the biggest sort of proponent of wanting to get
this, um, embedded in the company.
So really it started from.
I suppose it's decided to, to, to bring us together, um, on this big thing.
So, and, you know, I think if anyone has read the book or, um, or any of these
sorts of methods, it just makes sense.
Right.
Um, and I think it's the clearest way to, to measure
these sorts of, um, these goals.
And I think get us close to where we want to be.
So
Jon: measure what matters.
Prompted the, I brought the idea of OKR is into the, into the business first to the
CEO and then to two other people, as you had these, um, transformation sessions.
Winnie: Yep.
I joined in April.
So these conversations were sort of already underway and I suppose it's part
of my role has been looking to shape how.
How the actual process will, you know.
Okay, great.
But, okay.
How, what does it mean in terms of every day?
Um, and what does the framework and process actually look like?
So having some structure around
Jon: that, and so, um, you kind of, you had the book and you had an organization
that wanted to work in this particular.
And, and then you're working out what to do next.
Did you, did you think about a manual process around that or
did you immediately reach out to find a software tool to, to help?
Winnie: Wow, that's the thing, because there has been that we
have been doing it manually in lots of different pockets, right.
And lots of different ways.
So, yeah, some people, you know, wanted that visual sort of mirror
board, which looks quite nice and it was quite easy to use for others.
Um, in other teams we're doing it in PowerPoint.
And so there were already sort of just.
Not in one place.
Um, so they were already competing about OKR, perhaps not in a unified place.
So perhaps, you know, it was just choosing one or the other.
And those definitely descends in terms of, I don't want to maybe, you know,
do it in this way or it just being a bit, bit sort of maybe maybe difficult.
Um, and this felt like quite a nice.
Elements to bring into, okay.
The whole sort of HR piece that, that the sort of, um, employee piece
engagement piece and the time of piece together under one sort of,
Jon: alright, so that was the driver to unify.
Everything was so that you or the BHR team or managers could have a consistent
view on everybody positioned with.
Winnie: Yeah.
In alignment and consistency.
Absolutely.
Um, we could have, yeah, absolutely probably use one of those things.
And that was my intention to continue using some of these things for, you
know, a spreadsheet, you know, um, being so small, but actually looking to
sort of build out some formal process.
Um, we can do it that way.
I think that certainly, um, Or during this in a, in a, in a
good way, needed something else.
I think, um, I could put everything into my diary, um, and that is our
manual process, but it does feel clunky.
Um, especially as a,
Jon: can you, can you take me through the time I joined in April
of where you got to assuming.
You've you've now you're using Bob when you have been for some time.
Um, and it, and it's now doing the job of managing the process for you.
Winnie: It is.
Um, it's been, I think, I think it's been really quite nice for the teams because
it's quite intuitive system to use.
Um, and.
So far so good.
I, I think because the managers adopted it for, they got, you know, to, to use
it, to sort of get a run around, um, all the different functionality, elements,
so around performance, building out their OKR on the system, and then looking at T
you know, how they, you know, resourcing, um, elements, um, were in there as well.
Yeah, they got a handle of it.
And then, um, I opened up out to the wider wider teams.
Um, and because the managers had already adopted it, I think it felt, you know,
it was pretty intuitive and easy to use.
There's nice.
Welcome screen.
It takes you through what you can already use.
So it felt.
They, but like your customizable sort of messaging throughout and once
you're onboarded onto the system, it sort of is, is quite, it's quite nice.
It's like in place of a, um, what are those called when a company has
a, and I've had these before, when I have a page on a website and that is.
Thing.
I got can't remember what they call this.
Um, I'm not
Jon: sure if it come if it comes to you later though, but I mean, I, um,
uh, and, and so, uh, you, you joined in April, you see this as a big challenge.
And when did you, um, did you sign up or stop paying for Bob?
At what point was that?
Winnie: I think we've signed up in July.
Yeah.
So it's been a couple of months, um, or have used a load of systems, probably
just got bamboozled by all the time.
Your, your, um, just all those sorts of different elements of functionality
that each of these systems have.
Um, and it really helped actually reviewing different types of systems
for monist just to really then hone into what I didn't didn't want.
I think from a system, that process was actually really invaluable, but
it, it started merging into what, and if I bought it as well, And
so, and also, yeah, sorry, sorry.
I was just going to say, because I was looking for two systems, but yeah.
Um,
Jon: so you, you were looking for two different things at the same
Winnie: things, because I think it's very difficult sometimes to find
one system that does everything.
So because of the high volume recruitment, though, we are looking to, to.
Build, um, over the next 12 months, I mean, you did something that would, that
will help build the pipeline of potential talent and help us bring to life.
A lot of what life was like working here and give our candidates, you know,
good experience as well to sort of, that was the front end of perhaps the
protests, uh, using a different system.
So had to use to in the end, had to select.
Jon: So would your ideal have been to find one, but you and you went for
two because there's not that that's.
Winnie: Yeah, exactly.
I think sometimes it's difficult to find one that encompasses
all of those different elements.
Invariably have to, um, you know, lose something in, in terms of, uh, probably,
you know, the engagement element perhaps.
Um, isn't so strong in some of these.
All encompassing sort of systems.
Um, and yeah, I ended up selecting two because I couldn't find anything that
was in our budget for, um, for our needs.
So, yeah.
Jon: And how did you, if you don't mind me asking, how'd you,
uh, how did you set the budget?
They use each of the tools
Winnie: or origin.
Great question, John, because, you know, I just had, I just
had to pitch for the budget.
Um, so it was a little bit like just here, where is the review of three systems?
And it just calmed down to really two, if I'm honest, there's one
that I really wanted, but it was just too expensive, really.
Um, And yeah, it came down to two systems that were more or less the same, but
had very different, um, functionality.
Uh, yeah, a great question.
Jon: So, which, so there were basically three in the mix at that point.
The one when you really wanted that was, uh, did you decide it was out of
budget or someone else decided it was it.
Winnie: Uh, I think I, I got given a rough budget for everything
and, um, and I suppose within that budget I had to use, uh, there's
a load of other things in there.
And I thought, well, actually, here's what I'm assigning to this roughly, because it
would probably been a few years since I've had to, um, you know, look at big systems.
In my, in the last two rolls its existing systems.
I knew roughly how much those were.
So, so I think, you know, it did have a benchmark to go from, but ultimately,
yeah, it was, it was my decision to say actually, you know, the size that
we are at the moment, probably okay.
To use what we have to scale with.
And if we're a certain size, it means.
When we moved to in the future, but I said calm down to, you know,
tap functionality and price, I
Jon: think.
Okay.
And what, and can you share any of the numbers or the way that you came
up with those numbers for the budget?
Winnie: Um, so I mean, they weren't, I ended up having to negotiate with
the guys, um, and it was just down to watch, uh, They were talking
with the song is that we are, we're talking about two, maybe two and
a half grand for the ATS system.
And, you know, under five, maybe around five for the HR system as
Jon: fee
Winnie: is that annual annual annual fees.
So it was walking, you know, the best part, like quite, you know, uh,
So quite punchy, but for something that you're not really going to
see, like generating any money.
Right.
Um, and so, you know, and it's much of a muchness when you start
sort of at that SME lower end it's.
Yeah, it's very competitive pricing and they, you know, some of them
did things like, you know, or do something on the, obviously the number
of months, um, all of that sort of thing rather than the price itself.
Um, so it was just really trying to sort of get the value of what I needed.
Um, and what I could see scaling with us if we didn't need to change, right.
I don't want to change systems, but ultimately making it
simple if that were the case.
Um, and that probably comes down to the ATS system more than the book.
Hi Bob, because I think that will be fine for a little while.
Um, and there are other ad-ons that they have.
That sort of, I think help, but it's engagement, ease those, some sort of,
there's a nice piece in the system that I selected, which were things
that maybe, um, would seem like ad-ons and other HR systems, the engagement
piece, it gives you sort of some, they have an algorithm that they don't quite
give you exactly how it's all made, you know, made up, but dependent on.
Age and level, um, seniority, um, and length of service, all of these
things, they've got this thing that will come together and say, okay,
this individual has this much risk in terms of flight or, you know, um, or
whatever, you know, what it might be, um, which I found really interesting.
Um, and you're starting to see a lot of these systems having these types of, you
know, it's that granular sort of data that you sort of want, um, It helps.
All right.
Jon: Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, this is really, really interesting.
Um, uh, so, um, can you name the other products that you were looking at?
Winnie: Um, workable.
I looked at greenhouse loft greenhouse.
I think that's probably like the goal.
Well, to me it felt like the gold standard of, um, for HR, like an ATS system, right.
These other sort of, um, and workable this, another ATS system, um, application.
Tracking talk.
Um, and so, you know, they had different sort of functionality around things
like you could, you know, interview kits, all the things to support
your manager through competency, interviewing, giving your candidate
all the information they may need.
You know, having workflows that you can.
Just to minimize your work, classmates automate as much as possible, um, which
is super interesting workable goals.
I suppose, USP for, for those guys was very much around, um, the
integration with, um, LinkedIn.
And that was very much.
Acquiring talent.
That felt very much like, um, around that in terms of HR systems,
bamboo, um, HR, um, I'd used before.
Um, I'd used another brief HR system using before.
Um, and what else?
I started reviewing HR systems.
So this great.
I can't remember.
Jon: Oh, sorry.
Winnie: Clear review was another one.
I really love that system.
It just felt very narrowed, just very much performance.
Okay.
All orientated, not much more on maybe, you know, um, holiday
tracking all of the other elements.
So, um, what else you didn't
Jon: ask me something that was the one that was the one that was priced
at that you felt priced out of?
Um,
Winnie: um, well, you know, I think, yeah, so.
Hi.
Well, what day is probably just too big for us, but that is probably again the,
I would say for if anyone's watching enterprise, that's probably the kind
of system that people like to use.
I feels like.
A lighter version of work of Workday.
Um, and we're too small to really require a Workday type solution.
I feel that I've difficult with the one that felt right for us and Bob
differently, you know, ticks a lot of those boxes, I think, um, because of
the engagement piece and the ability to sort of, um, I think people like using.
It's it feels quite a nice tool.
It integrates into slack.
It's it's very sort of plug it in and it works.
Jon: Do you remember how you first heard about Bob and what, why you start leaning
even considered it along with that?
Winnie: Yeah, I just keep hearing good things about it from the market.
Um, there are other systems that do elements of what they do, but I
think it's the whole sort of HR ASP's probably when I was at, uh, propelled
that we didn't use it there, but I, um, I'd heard that hyper island used it.
You're familiar with hyper island.
Um, They are, um, somebody, I know that what's, that, um, Anna had
mentioned that she uses the system and.
Brilliant.
This is amazing.
Um, I liked what I saw, but had no opportunity to switch any of my
existing systems in any company ever since then to something like this.
And I think it's, yeah, I think the guys, especially the managers that
have used it have found it quite nice to use and quite intuitive.
You know, these things tend to be clunky and if my managers don't use it.
You know, this, this is, I have a very, very low, um, you know, um,
success, uh, you know, the adoption rate, then my managers aren't there.
It makes a lot of
Jon: sense.
And so it's almost like you heard about it two or three years ago.
Um, and you've sort of always been in the back of your mind.
And it's and it's come up and then you had enough share or that there was a
moment where you needed to find a system.
And so it was been natural for you to review that alongside the
other things that you were, that you were looking at or considering.
Winnie: Yeah, I think that's probably.
Jon: Okay.
That's very interesting.
Um, and do you remember when you say the market, um, you'd heard from, is there,
um, so this was an art, uh, colleague or acquaintance from, from Brighton.
I, I take it
Winnie: international company, in fact, um, that are using it.
'cause I know, respect them and know that their, their way of thinking
is probably in line with what our.
Wanting from something, you know, something that's pretty innovative
that is easy to use that aligned with something that makes sense.
You know, these performance systems sometimes don't make
sense and they're not intuitive.
It's very clunky to use.
And so I'd heard some good things and absolutely, you know, that's definitely
prompted, um, the conversation, um, And w where do you know if the account
manager that I ended up talking to?
I knew from five years ago, or, you know, we connected through something else.
So, um, also called Winnie.
And so, and so randomly, because she has a very unique name.
It's like, I know you.
So that was quite random, nothing to influence the process at all.
But I think because, um, we'd spoken about other systems in the past, so.
Jon: At least coincidence is like, unless they help jog jog memories.
It's really interesting.
I'm conscious of time we've already, but it was speaking for 30 minutes
and I could keep going because it's absolutely fascinating, but I know
that, um, the you've you've got to get onside fine, um, starts to wrap
things up, um, uh, Any quick questions.
I mean, if you, so if you couldn't use Bob anymore, um, what would you do instead?
Um, John
Winnie: Frye, what would I do and said, oh, I, this is a great question.
What would I do instead?
I great question.
I'm not sure.
Would I get back to spreadsheets?
I mean, that would be problematic.
Um, I think it would probably be to seek something.
Well, turn it off.
It depends.
Why, why can't I use this again?
John?
You're telling me I got used to some more, but yeah, I think it'll be
very difficult for the guys, um, to go back to using that snazzy holiday
tracker that we had on a spreadsheet.
Um, I think it would, it would be we'll get on with it, right?
Like everyone.
Yeah.
I think it makes life so, so I think it's become that go-to
tool that we use for all sorts.
Right.
Um, I'm making a good impression in terms of people's onboarding and having
a one place, uh, one place of, uh, for policies and what the benefits are
and, you know, celebrating, people's sort of giving each other 360 feedback.
I mean, it's that one place to go for all of those sorts of things.
And,
Jon: um, uh, I guess, building on that, what, is there a particular kind of
company that would be best suited to using Bob, but if you're in a situation
again, or, or do you consider it a go-to tool for just based on site
number of people that your manager.
Um,
Winnie: I would say that it's quite a nice sort of tool for,
um, scaling organizations.
Uh, there are other tools out there that have probably more
granular detail, more functionality.
I think, you know, some of the others that I didn't, you know,
really like lattice, for example, lovely tool, really like that.
Um, also very similar in terms of function that, you know, all the sort
of cute things that you could do.
Highly geared towards engagement.
I think if you care about your people want to have, um, something that
will help you bring to life, what is important and to set the tone in
terms of aligning messaging, making sure that it is somewhere that
you can't over-communicate right.
Um, during these times, um, And I think it's a great sort of way of making sure
that your people are, you know, have somewhere that they can go and find this
stuff because we're all working from home.
Um, things are sort of, you know, if, if you know golf, if there
isn't anywhere to go for these, for these things, it's sat in people's
folders, um, or in people's inboxes.
So, and that's, um, just not useful.
So it's just making sure that these.
Live somewhere.
Um, and we're able to, we're all crying out for feedback, right from one another.
And just having something that enables that and celebrates your achievements.
And, um, you can use to, to bring up in terms of one-to-one with our teams
at the moment, you know, before we, we have no where to store that it was on
scraps of paper in inboxes and that sort of thing, having something like this.
AUD brings order to some of those, and you can have more effective
conversations within your teams.
Right?
You can have one to ones that you think a tip is, all the things that,
all the lovely things that people have said about you, the previous, you
know, objectives that you smashed or not, um, or need some more support on.
It's just, uh, you know, Bringing some order to some of those
things that we all cry out for.
We want to know how well we're doing and to sort of be measured against
that thing that we said we'll do.
Um, and when we're rewarded for the good stuff.
So I know that's why it's because I hit all of these things.
It's really clear rather than, you know, um, you're not getting anything in
actually nothing is, is, is being spoken about, it's not aligned to anything.
The framework is unclear and it's.
Transparent.
This is the whole point of having something that we can sort of refer to
and, um, you know, empower our teams really, because it's about outputs.
It's not about sort of micromanaging each of those tasks really.
Um, and our people all have stake in terms of, you know, creating.
It needs to look like, right.
We're all steering this ship as well as building it.
So trying to put some structure around how, how it should
maybe look, um, together.
Jon: Yeah.
Thanks.
A lot of sense.
So such a making the decision around the software, because it just hits those value
points quite deep down in how you feel.
Um, people should be.
Managed and, um, but after, I guess, um, um, Hmm.
Let's think about that.
Uh, so a slightly different question.
Um, is there anything that you would change about it?
If there's one thing that you could pick and choose.
Winnie: Yeah, I think perhaps one thing change, I think just having
perhaps more ability to customize elements of it, I think is, is the
only thing that I found, you know, when I went to try and find something,
you know, this particular element, I was like, oh, this bit, isn't it.
Well, I, you know, it's not here.
It's actually missing.
Oh, that's, that's interesting.
It's, you know, a place to be able to document one-to-one meetings.
Um, you know, so we've got goals, we've got, you know, ability to set the OKR and
everything else, but actually to document, you know, We've checked in or what have
you isn't there it's just hit goal or not like it goal not, but, you know, there's
lots of different sort of, you know, um, elements to the sh to that, um, percentage
element in terms of hitting goal or not.
But yeah, that was interesting.
Um, so probably just being able to sort of customize some element, um,
Jon: so you can see if one-to-one zone.
And yeah,
Winnie: ones are happening.
And just so there's a place to be able to document those conversations
with people clear about, you know, we had those conversations and,
um, this is what we talked about.
Just a place for okay.
Having, um, reference to that.
But yeah, not, not, not in existence, um, which I thought was.
Jon: I'm sure.
You know, maybe
Winnie: a
Jon: future from Bob we'll listen to this conversation and
yeah, this is fascinating.
I, um, yeah.
I keep asking you questions for a very long time.
I think put lots of different threads on, on this, um, uh, Uh, yeah, we've
been speaking for nearly 40 minutes now.
Um, and I I'd love to, um, uh, I'd love to ask, uh, a bit more about, um,
sort of your, uh, background and the company that you currently work for.
Um, Cause one specific thing that I think would help with context is on
the other things we've discussed.
This is also the size of the company and it's how much it's grown since you joined
in April through to now in November.
And then what the intention is.
Winnie: Absolutely.
So we're, I've been here since, uh, April, as you so fairly
new where, uh, skating FinTech.
We operate in the payments processing and banking as a service sector and
what we do closely with a number of, um, small to large merchants, um, across a
number of different sectors and where.
I think in the time that I've been here since, since April, we've probably
hired about nine people in that time.
Um, so.
It's just me here.
So it's gaining this ship and we're looking to double the size of our
head count, um, in the coming year.
So we're about 19 heads at the moment.
We've got somebody starting in January, so we're really excited already that
I'm hitting those, those numbers.
Um, but in the next 12 months, look to, to double the size of the competition,
we need to be about 45 heads.
Uh, Y the end of end of the year or being good, the resulting pans are in a
Jon: very particular roles.
You're looking at.
Winnie: Product operations commercial across, across the
whole band of different functions.
So we are check out the website they'll, uh, it will be on acquired.com and
we'll look to publish a number of, you know, what it's like to work in
certain departments, give us a day in the life of each of our team to
showcase all the brilliant work they do.
Jon: Brilliant.
And is it, where can we find out more about you?
Are you on Twitter and LinkedIn?
Winnie: Which LinkedIn?
So Winnie man, give me a follow.
I think he might quit to handle his, um, or Mannington.
So check all of my, all my handles on there.
Jon: Excellent.
Thank you so much.
Um, when he, um, that's been super.
Insightful.
Um, and, um, yeah, just a completely new perspective, again, that know
I hear, um, with each of 'em each of these, uh, interviews, um, and
I do different kinds of software.
Again, I hadn't really spent as much time thinking about it turns out that I
thought I had spent thinking about it.
So thank you.
I'll, I'll get those links into the, into the show notes for everybody,
but if we could leave with one final question for you, are there three
other, um, tools or software tools or products that you've used regularly
or painful that you'd recommend people check out, um, maybe HR related or.
Yeah.
In some other way.
Winnie: Of course.
Uh, so I, I'm not sure I've had three, but I will definitely recommend, you
know, one of these that the team are using a lot at the moment, um, as.
And this is a CRM tool, which is a bit like, um, Salesforce.
Um, but the guys are absolutely loving the functionality or drive, hearing
some really good things about the tool.
And we, we use that for, for all of our sales or commercial, um,
and customer service functions.
So operating.
Yeah, the guys are really loving that the ATS tool I'm using at the
moment is team Taylor, liking that.
I love the, um, the ability to sort of create videos, uh, haven't done
yet, but we'll do, um, just to make it sort of customizable to, to us and
the look and feel of us as a company.
I don't know if I have a third, I have to give you a thing called.
Jon: I'm sure you've mentioned Ferris others, uh, as we, as we spoke
Winnie: to me,
Paul,
Jon: thank you so much.
I'll do that.
Thank you so much, Winnie.
Um, it's, it's been wonderful.
Um, um, good, good to see you again.
Winnie: Uh, how.
Thank you, John so much for inviting me.
Um, been lovely to talk to you and, you know, some thought provoking questions
there, but, um, if it needs any, you know, tap me up on LinkedIn guys.
Um, let me know, but it's lovely and a pleasure talking to you, John.
Jon: That was hopefully a useful example of a customer interview.
You can find notes from this episode, including links to all the products
mentioned at empathy, deployed.com.
If you know anyone who might benefit from hearing this perspective,
please share the episode.
And word of caution.
This interview is a snapshot of just one person's perspective
in an artificial situation.
You should be very careful about drawing any conclusions about
the guest people like them or the product from this single data point.
Customer interviews are most valuable when you see parallels across, many
of them will be in a specific context.
I'd suggest a minimum of five and ideally 12 to 15.
I recommend the book, deploy empathy by Michelle Hanson for a
practical guide on how to do it.
Well, if you'd like to join me as a guest on a future
episode, please send me a note.
I'm jumped on Twitter.
That's J O T.
My DMS are open.
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