CA3 Cup of tea series

I've often wondered how small tech start-ups manage to maintain their strong ethos and culture when they grow to large unicorn levels. It's easy enough to manage when there are only a few employees, but when you get to 700+, surely something changes? Well, I had my chance to find out when I spoke to Lorraine Metcalf, Chief People Officer at Quantexa, in March 2024.

Lorraine has extensive HR and Talent experience leading teams at businesses such as Zoopla and Notonthehighstreet. She has been awarded several prestigious HR awards throughout her career and has some fascinating ideas on employer brand and culture.

During this episode of the Cup of tea series, Sarah quizzes Lorraine on how she's fostered company values and culture in a business that's faced rapid growth and expansion over the last few years. They discuss employer brand and how this has been instrumental to their success, as well as how she and her team onboard new hires into Quantexa.

If you'd like to find out more about employer branding, or discuss any of the topics you've heard in the Cup of tea series, please do get in touch.

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During Episode 18 of the CA3 Cup of tea series, Sarah Wardle is joined by Emma Mirrington, founder of The Firm - a leading global memberships organisation for TA professionals.

At the end of last year, The Firm published their annual report, which provides insight and findings from their annual survey. During the podcast, Emma talks us through the results of the report, what talent acquisition leaders and teams are focusing on in 2024, and what their key priorities and trends will be.

I think this is our most enlightening Cup of Tea series podcast to date, and our first one for 2024! I was very excited to be chatting with an old friend Sally Higham. Sally and I go way back, almost 20 years, back to when it was all about rec ad and I went by the name of Cheeks! We have enjoyed the highs and lows of several different workplaces together. Since we did, Sally has lived and worked in Singapore and Switzerland for several large global organisations and is now the Director and Head of Talent Attraction at Lonza and an Executive Menopause Coach. And it was actually the latter I wanted to talk about with her today.

When I heard Sally’s episode on Starting a conversation around menopause in the workplace on the EMEA Recruitment Podcast, I wanted to find out more. This is something that’s just around the corner for me and something I haven’t really given much thought to. I am worryingly ill-informed, so I figured Sally was the right person to help me find out more – about how to plan for it, and what I needed to look out for and navigate in my life and at work.

Sally answers the following questions during our conversation:

1. Why did you decide to become a menopause coach?

2. Menopause facts:

a. Will menopause affect everyone in the same way?

b. What symptoms do I need to look out for, and could I already be going through it?

c. What’s the difference between perimenopause and the full-blown menopause?

d. How long will the menopause last? Will I feel great when it’s over?

e. Do I need to warn my family and employer that this is coming?

f. What adjustments will my work have to make for me? If any?

g. As you have experience of working and living in a few different countries, are there differences globally in both how the menopause is perceived, and how healthcare systems treat people?

3. What other advice would you give to people who are approaching this time in their lives?

4. What advice would you give to employers who want to do the right thing and support their employees in the right way?

Sally finished by saying that menopause is not just a women’s issue, it is a human rights issue. Whilst the majority of those directly affected are women, it can also directly affect transgender and non-binary people too. It can also indirectly affect anybody who knows or loves the person going through it – partners, families, friends and colleagues.

To find out more and get in touch with Sally, you can contact her on LinkedIn.

And here are the range of resources recommended by Sally, which you may find useful:

Books:

· Davina McCall – Menopausing

· The Power Decade – How to thrive after Menopause – Susan Saunders

· Just Getting Started – Lessons in Life, Love and Menopause – Lisa Snowdon

· Everything you need to know about the Menopause (but were too afraid to ask) – Kate Muir

· The Perimenopause Solution – Dr Shahzadi Harper & Emma Bardwell

Links:

Henpicked

The Kathryn Colas Academy

Emma Bardwell

Newson Health

The Aging Project

With the many automation, AI and technological advances in the talent acquisition and recruitment industry, there are obvious benefits to all of us who are looking at better and more efficient ways of engaging with new talent. But the downside to this can mean the lack of the human element. Especially when talking about your employer brand.

So, for episode 16, I wanted to ask an expert about how we can ensure we are humanising our employer brand at every touchpoint - and be authentic with everything we do. So I spoke to Diogo Videira!

Diogo is an employer brand expert who focuses on talent acquisition and employer branding strategies. He’s the Head of Recruitment for ExxonMobil in the Czech Republic, and has led several successful programmes and campaigns to build their employer brand. I really enjoyed chatting with him during this episode about his practical tips on how to improve employer branding in particular.

We hope you enjoy listening to the podcast!

In this episode we cover a completely different topic, which I think will be of particular interest to those of you who have perhaps moved from TA roles in larger organisations, to smaller, more agile companies and start-ups.

During this podcast, I have a conversation with Aaron Beider. Aaron has TA and recruitment experience working and building teams for some of the world’s biggest brands including ASOS, Meta, TikTok and Dyson. He’s now focused on building a TA function to be reckoned with at a new start-up in the electric aviation industry, Vertical Aerospace.

During our chat I asked Aaron about how he’s pivoted his career at a start-up, what he’s learnt there, and what principles he’s used from previous roles to build his new team.We discuss this and so much more – from AI and technology, to internal mobility and creating an internal marketplace for talent.

If you'd like to connect with Aaron to discuss any of these topics further, or are looking for a potential mentor in this area, you can contact him on LinkedIn.

Nurturing talent pools should be so much more than a few email newsletters and a spreadsheet. I wanted to explore new and interesting ways of engaging and nurturing talent that can help businesses to stand out. To help talent to build a meaningful relationship with future employers. In this episode of the Cup of Tea Series, Robin Choy shares his expertise in nurturing talent pools, and gives practical advice that talent acquisition professionals can use today to start nurturing their future candidates.

Robin Choy is the Co-founder of HireSweet – a technology that helps companies hire for roles and increase the quality of talent. His A-players podcast has been running for a long time, sharing recruiting advice and tips from global recruitment experts.

The CA3 Cup of Tea Series focuses on key issues facing HR and talent professionals today. If you have a story to tell, or are interested in being part of our podcast, please get in touch with our host, Sarah Wardle. Sarah is an onboarding and candidate experience expert at CA3 and Eli Onboarding. To find out more about how she helps organisations engage with talent, get in touch!

Right now, we are going through perhaps some of the biggest changes and challenges the HR world has ever seen. The Great Resignation, Quiet quitting, Hybrid working and Skills shortages to name just a few. I don’t even need to mention the effects of Brexit, Covid and high interest rates!

We need a way of dealing with all of these issues as individuals and as leaders. One thing that hasn’t changed is our fundamental need as humans to grow. With all of the things going on the world this fact is sometimes forgotten and people’s careers can become stagnant. So learning how to manage and grow your own career, and develop those of your own team, is critical in creating successful organisations and individuals. Today we have Amy Clark on the podcast. She’s an expert in Growth and is about to launch a book, Growth Point, which focuses on this topic. Amy is based in Delaware, in the US, and is a Chief HR Officer and Executive Coach, with a passion for helping people and organizations be even more successful.

I hope you enjoy the podcast!

Empathy. What does this mean to you? Is it something that comes naturally? Can it be learned? During this episode, I chat with Jodi Brandstetter about the role that empathy plays in the entire candidate lifecycle, and its importance in creating the best possible employee experience. Jodi has 20 years’ experience in HR and recruiting, and her bestselling book, Hire by Design, is used by HR professionals to help them implement design thinking into their hiring strategies.

I really enjoyed this chat with Jodi, not least because it covered one of my favourite topics of onboarding, and how we can use design thinking and empathy to create a really engaging onboarding experience. If you would like to discover more about this topic, then you can get in touch with me directly or follow CA3 on LinkedIn. You can also contact Jodi here.

Thanks for listening!

During this episode we focus on HR tech, and were lucky enough to invite Matt Alder, producer and host of the hugely successful Recruiting Future podcast (and also a recent winner of a Silver Davey Award for Podcast Excellence in the US), on to the show. We chat all things HR tech - including current trends, how to select the best HR tech for your business, and what the future looks like. 

If you are fascinated about the world of HR technology and looking to keep on top of the latest trends, (not to mention AI, virtual reality, chatbots, and automation), or if you're just looking to improve your tech stack, this episode is for you. 

With workplaces facing more change than ever before, an increasing number of organisations are looking to recruit resilient individuals who can overcome challenges and deal well with setbacks, and who thrive in high pressure situations. But with the war for talent on overdrive, and many companies wanting the same thing, how can we accurately assess for 'resilience' in individuals?

This month James Crichton helps us answer this key question and more during our tenth episode of the Cup of tea series. He's just joined Omni RMS as Head of Assessment, helping organisations change the way they resource for the better, and is passionate about improving assessment processes. 

If you'd like to find out more please follow CA3 and Omni RMS on LinkedIn - or get in touch with James Crichton at Omni. 

We hope you enjoy this month's podcast!