How can we structure our business to bring out the best in our team?

Founder Vision is a one-on-one podcast that digs into deep conversations with business leaders from emerging markets as they get vulnerable about their experience in the early- to median-stage moments of their founding journey.

Headstart is a UK-based startup: a new breed of candidate/applicant management and matching software. Headstart sits very firmly in the HR and recruitment technology space, combining a data science-based matching and screening with an applicant management tool for junior-level job applications in large enterprise organizations.

In doing all that, Headstart’s mission is to level the playing field. They focus on surfacing opportunities for people who wouldn’t normally be able to land an interview for a role (nevermind to actually get it) to be considered. Headstart prides itself on being a very strong player on thew side of diversity — and, in particular, social mobility.

In this interview, Brett chats with Gareth Jones, Headstart’s CEO.

Catch the full episode in the player below, or on Spotify, Audible, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.

Key Takeaways

Stay Open

When the pandemic hammer hit, Headstart had just closed a round and brought on a bevvy of brand-new staffers. Within a fortnight, Gareth realized that, if the company was going to stay solvent, they’d have to do a deep reorg and lose almost half of the team.

“I think the first thing was to just be open with everybody,” Gareth says. “I did an open session with everyone. I did an employee survey with everybody, including those that were leaving — and an internal net promoter score survey, because I wanted to make sure I understood fully what everything was thinking about the whole situation. I think that was very well received. I am a big believer in running an adult business and employing adults and letting them deliver for you as opposed to a command-and-control kind of environment. I think that openness and transparency got us through. Doing that allowed me to put together an operating system for our business, which is effectively just a structure around which we can build the business. It is a very simple, six-phase structure, but it encourages a multi-disciplinary team approach to delivering product effectively, from discovery, research, about what we are going to build through to design, development then on through marketing and delivery. It was quite a difficult quarter for us, but we rallied and doubled down on product, like I said, which is now paying dividends for us in terms of our ability to respond to the market and understand actually what the clients want.”

Let Your People Be Grown-Ups

“I was always on a bit of a journey to understand why when we say people are our most important asset, that never seemed to ring true. Companies seemed to pay lip service to that.

I felt there was a lot of talk about it, and then we were treating [employees] like assets instead of human beings.. I decided to go into more commercial roles, figuring I was missing something from the world of work that I would soon understand as to why it has to be like that, or maybe I will uncover it is not. Thirty two years in, I am still a firm believer in the need to move to a much more flexible, informal environment that’s focused on outcomes. If we are going to invest and hire and develop great people, then the last thing we should be doing is then putting a whole bunch of constraints around them when they join the business.

“I want people to be mentally and physically their best selves. I have no interest in how they do that, so I am not prescribing that they do certain exercises or something. I don’t want them to report what they are doing to do that to me or to the business, but that for me is the absolute priority. Basically, as an individual, find a working partner that suits you. Find a working location that suits you. Find a way of working, basically, and living that allows you to be your best self, and then you will bring that best self to your team, and that team of best selves will bring the best team experience and the best deliverable to the company. It is in that order, you, the team, the company.”

See the Silver Lining

“It is interesting that COVID has short-circuited the world of work by 20 years and thrust us into this. I think that’s a good thing. I think the challenge is it would have happened. It would have taken 20 years because that’s the natural osmosis of how we change operating structures in companies. In that 20 years, we would have seen a new batch of leaders emerge, some old ones retire, new ones emerge who would have embraced that new way of working.

“Actually, what we have got is this new way of working but we have still got the old leadership. I think they are struggling with it. It will be really interesting to see how some of the established global organizations cope with life after COVID when people are used to having a little bit more choice and flexibility. It will be interesting times ahead, I would say.”