FaMelio: The human foundation
How we grew the Melio team from 40 to 248 during a global pandemic while staying true to our core values
I was a mother of one who loved the thrill-free life. I had a steady job at a large investment bank. It was supposed to be more than enough.
But something was missing, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I met Matan, Ziv and Ilan, the founders of Melio, in June 2018. And that elusive “something” I found in Melio was a sense of mission and purpose.
My name is Yarin Yeger. I’m the Head of People Operations in the Tel Aviv HQ of Melio, a startup whose motto is “keeping small business in business.” And it’s not a marketing slogan or a catchy soundbite. It’s embedded in our DNA.
I know because I’ve been there from day one, and because those were the words that convinced me to leave my cushy job of seven years and join a company that was then a team of only eight, including the three founders.
Melio’s mission is to help small businesses improve their cash flow and workflow, gain more control over their finances and optimize their business’s financial health.
My part in this mission is to lay the human foundation. But it was clear to me that building the best team meant more than finding the brightest, most talented people.
We wanted to make sure that the same culture that drew me to Melio — a close-knit group of people working towards the same mission — would remain the same when the team had 100 times as many employees. We wanted people who would actively choose to be a part of our mission, rather than stay out of inertia.
We also knew that we had one chance to do it right. Companies, like people, have personalities. And as with people, the things you learn as a toddler will stick with you as you mature.
That’s why we made sure that from the get-go we embraced the right core values. Our communication within the company is always open, casual, positive and inclusive. Employee welfare comes first and we will continuously strive for inclusiveness and equality of all genders, ages, races and religions.
As Melio’s rapid growth and adoption by small businesses across the U.S. exceeded expectations, we searched for talented people to join us in all fields: development, design, marketing and more. We cooperated with top tech recruitment companies and brought more talent recruitment specialists to our team.
Employees bring their friends
We launched “You’ve got a friend in Melio,” a month-long campaign asking our employees to recommend Melio to their friends. The campaign included COVID-oriented perks such as private at-home chef dinners and home styling services, and, of course, bonuses to employees and teams bringing in qualified candidates.
We also brought in a professional photographer to take headshots of our employees that they can use to upgrade their social network profiles.
The campaign’s success surpassed our expectations and we received over 70 applications. It’s clear that although the perks were an incentive, we wouldn’t have had such a high response rate if our employees didn’t believe Melio was a great place to work.
We introduced Melio and its culture in social media, locating niche groups in various social networks. A great example is a post about our “meatless Monday” in a vegan group on Facebook. The post gained great traction, and brought lots of candidates to our hiring funnel. We also posted in “Women in Tech” and other professional groups.
Adapting HR to Covid
When COVID-19 hit, recruiting and employee welfare operations became more challenging than I could have ever imagined. Together with Cholit Bachrach, who took over the operations while I was on maternity leave with my second child, we rolled up our sleeves. We not only had to recruit via Zoom, but also find solutions to enable our employees to work conveniently from home.
We arranged for employees to have necessary equipment sent to their homes. We also realized that employees who were parents had to sustain an impossible routine of working with children at home. We decided to fund daycare for our employees, and we set up a “Melio Kids” section in our budget.
For new employees, we focused on providing them with the best onboarding experience we could — they received a package filled with perks and Melio swag, such as high quality backpacks and reusable drinking bottles. We took care to make sure they enjoyed as seamless an onboarding experience as possible by maintaining constant communication with them and by being attentive to their needs.
We also maintained open communication in our recruitment process. The candidates we interviewed deserved a transparent interview process, even if they didn’t reach an offer stage. We work meticulously to ensure candidates know where they are in the process, what they should expect next, and how long it should take for them to get answers.
Before COVID-19, back in February 2020, Melio had 40 employees. During the height of the pandemic, our team more than doubled in size, with 95 employees joining our crew in Tel Aviv.
Hiring More Women
I wanted Melio to be an excellent place for other mothers and women. If there’s one thing I’m especially proud of, it’s our effort to bring as many women as possible to our team. When we started, we were two women out of a team of 10.
We realized that if we didn’t set a clear goal of recruiting women from the onset and ensure there were leadership and professional development opportunities for women, then a lack of gender equality would become a self-perpetuating problem.
I searched for talented women in all fields and researched “women in programming” social groups and forums to promote Melio. When we hit the 50 employees mark, 22 were women.
Today, 48% of the global Melio team is female. The Tel Aviv team is 48% female (64 out of 135), and women fill 53% of the leadership positions (8 out of 15). We have 10 women in our development team of 43, and we’re looking to recruit more talented women.
It’s a little more than two and a half years since my journey with Melio began, and we’re still full throttle ahead. As we start 2021, Melio is a company of 220 employees globally, with a target of 250 employees in Tel Aviv by the end of the year, and more than 500 in total.
The only way to grow so rapidly while still maintaining company culture and the high standards to which we committed ourselves, is through understanding that recruitment is a discipline of its own. We need people dedicated solely to this mission. We recently separated talent acquisition from other people operations, and brought in the amazing Tahel Roy, a recruitment leader with global experience, to lead us in our ongoing global recruiting efforts, while Cholit Bachrach continues to brilliantly lead the Tel Aviv recruitment mission.
We already have our eyes set on the horizon. We intend to expand our recruitment pipeline and increase our exposure by becoming more active in tech conferences and webinars. I’m sure Tahel’s efforts will contribute immensely to getting us there.
I have a picture on my workstation at home. It’s from our first company retreat, in April 2019, before we knew what COVID-19 was and the impact it would have on our lives. There were just 16 of us then.
It was then that I playfully coined the term “FaMelio,” when referring to our team. Less than two years have passed since that photo was taken, and it seems like a different era altogether. Not only did the term take root within the company, but I can proudly say that the sense of togetherness and intimacy behind it is now stronger than ever. I guess we’re doing something right.
