And then there was 1
Today I am a People Ops team of 1. For the first time in my 18 year career. I’ll be honest, I’m not thrilled about it! I thrive getting to work collaboratively. I welcome the opportunity to challenge and encourage the growth of people around me. And I still have so many ideas of ways to extensively support the culture of my org that I’d love to partner with someone on.
People Ops is a lonely profession in many ways and not having someone working with me who gets it will be hard.
For all the other People Ops teams of 1 — or soon to be teams of 1 — here are the 5 ways I’m setting myself up for success (hint I think they could apply to all People Ops executives regardless of team size):
- Relying on my network. I have countless People Ops pros in my network and you better believe I will be leaning on them! Some of my favorite networks are:
CPOHQ (If you’re in a People Ops Executive or Leadership Role)
2. Documenting and automating as much as possible. We have a wiki that I’ve worked on building out over the last year. It is chock full of answers, resources and anything I’ve ever rolled out to the org. Your one stop HRBP if you will. I also use Sapling to help automate a lot of our basic People Ops workflows. e.g. Instead of me needing to meet with Hiring Managers about onboarding- they get an email pointing them to a wiki site with all the resources they need to onboard their new hires successfully!
3. Being honest about support. I have a great group of executive colleagues that I can be honest and direct with. I don’t hesitate to let them know how they can best support me and thus their teams. And even better, they jump in and do it. I’m also direct with hiring managers, DEIB advocates and culture builders in the org about how they can best support themselves and thus the company with their work. e.g. I’ve created a resource for hiring managers about how they can best move the hiring process forward when we have no recruiting function. And I put together a DEIB Committee so that we are creating a work group to ensure that DEIB is supported, championed and we’re continually working on building an Anti-Racist company.
4. Not compromising work life blend. Pretty straightforward. If I’m going to be a successful People Ops executive team of 1 I need to continue to ensure I have the balance and blend needed to be “on” at work.
5. Prioritizing. Ruthlessly. People Ops (especially now) is like being in the firefighters academy and graduating immediately into a 5 alarm fire you are fighting by yourself. The house is much more likely to burn down if I try to put it all out at once. Ensuring I stay focused on the areas that have the biggest impact is crucial. Being clear about my priorities is even more important. Hint- this is why goal setting and weekly tracking is so helpful. I love asana for this.
Have any to add? I welcome them! I’d love to hear from you.
