Client Story: Taking Root
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How our bespoke compensation strategy solutions propelled this innovative Vancouver, BC-based company ahead on new government legislation and positioned them for growth.
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Celebrating Our Clients’ Successes
We are proud to work with a diverse set of clients from tech companies to non-profits and Executives to new managers. These are some of the stories we’ve gathered highlighting how Talent Collective works in partnership to achieve our clients’ goals.
Client Story: Minerva BC
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How our interconnected slate of compensation, career development and coaching solutions empowered this progressive Vancouver, BC-based charitable organization to level up and walk their talk.
Click the video above to watch Tina share more about her experience working with Talent Collective
Who is Minerva BC?
Minerva BC is a charitable organization dedicated to advancing leadership opportunities for girls, women and non-binary folks. They offer programs and services for an array of participants, ranging from those early on their journey in high school up to mid-career professionals.
As an organization that advocates for women, CEO Tina Strehlke didn’t feel confident that they were “walking the talk” with their people operations systems. They reached out to Talent Collective to ensure their processes aligned with their purpose and values.
The Challenges
Minerva recognized that their team was seeking a better understanding of how their work connected to the organization’s bigger picture, how their day to day work contributed to the organization’s larger mission and how it was connected to compensation and career growth.
Tina Strehlke
CEO
“We didn't have all the support structures in place to advance our HR practices and to make sure that our teams felt really supported, that they could build their careers at Minerva and they knew where they were going and what their compensation could be.”
The Solutions
We collaborated with leadership and team members to create a new compensation philosophy and framework from the ground up.
Compensation & Career Development Health Check
• Audited Minerva’s processes to understand what they had in place already, how they engaged with their teams, made decisions and more
• Provided a summary of what was already working and what needed improvement, with an action plan outlining what should be done first and what could be addressed later on.
Education & Communication
• Engaged leaders and team members through the process
• Hosted education sessions and workshops on compensation and performance management
• Ensured everyone had a consistent picture of Minerva’s processes moving forward.
Coaching
• Coached leaders to support them through the change process and help them navigate its more complex challenges.
• Provided insight into how to ask questions, whether what is being said is resonating and ensure parties are in alignment
• Practiced skills for more effective conversations.
“Often non-profits have a reputation for paying less or less competitively. Doing this work, and aligning what the market says with the rules for the unique environment that we are, I feel like we really came up with something that is valuable, something we can be proud of when we talk to employees.”
Career Growth Framework
Creating Job Success Profiles (JSPs) enabled Minerva to connect each responsibility and expectation in a role to a clear measurement of what success in that role would look like.
Building on the JSPs, Talent Collective developed career levels and a core competency guide to visually establish what success looks like across the organization as a whole. By outlining Minerva’s approach to work, the organization’s values and team culture, Talent Collective then built out the desired team member behaviours for every career level. From there, they could determine how the organization’s core competencies show up in each role, create pathways for team members to move up and across the framework and how compensation works at each point.
Market Review & Salary Structure
Based on the Career Growth Framework, Talent Collective was able to conduct an in-depth market review and develop a salary structure that can grow and scale with Minerva.
The Results
“As an organization, we’re feeling confident that we have really transparent, well thought out, researched, defendable structures in place for how we make HR decisions. It's a bit more formalized, more structured than what we had, but it’s much more aligned to the individual, their role and their goals, and then knowing what Minerva needs to be successful.”
We had such a positive experience working with Annika and Crystal.
“They get smaller organizations, they get nonprofit, they get larger organizations … the breadth and depth of experience really spans a lot of realities.”
- Tina Strehlke, CEO
Client Story: Accelerate Okanagan
/How our compensation and career development approach is helping this Kelowna, BC, based technical non-profit live up to its values.
Who is Accelerate Okanagan?
Accelerate Okanagan (AO), is a tech business accelerator that supports entrepreneurs through programs, mentorship, coaching, and community. With a small core team, they are tasked with supporting an ever-expanding entrepreneurial community in British Columbia’s interior.
While the organization knew their team would remain lean, they also recognized their leading role in modelling talent attraction and retention for the companies they work with. To do this, we partnered with AO’s Senior Leadership Team to develop a holistic compensation and career development framework that could scale and be replicable for other organizations.
The challenges
Bandaid solutions were ineffective, revealing cracks on the verge of fracture, like lack of clarity in roles and career progression resulting in department silos.
Brea Lake
CEO
Leading our community by example required us to take action “We work with start-ups and growth companies every day and see the challenges that come with scaling and sustaining an organization, like retention and engagement. We wanted to lead by example but didn’t know what frameworks and practices were needed to build a sustainable model.”
Thuy Tran
Programs Manager
Wanting employees to have clarity in their career development “We really wanted our employees to have clarity within their role and feel productive, but were lacking the skills as leaders to have those raw and real conversations around people's careers.”
D’arcy Schaerer
Finance Manager
Managing compensation was challenging as we lacked structure “When employees were asking for a raise, we didn’t really know what to say. We wanted to be able to share that we pay fair market rates but we didn’t have the data or the structure to back it up.”
The Solutions
With a people-first, holistic approach, we designed and coached the leadership team in a way that would build capacity internally while role-modelling these frameworks externally.
Compensation Strategy
• Created a clear compensation philosophy to help employees understand how AO values and rewards them
• Designed a market-based base salary structure
• Developed a career level framework and performance steps that align with the compensation structure
Career Framework
• Developed job success profiles, career levels and performance steps to support individual’s career progression
• Created a career mapping solution to help employees in planning longer-term career goals
Leadership Development
• Coached managers on having career development and performance conversations
• Provided frameworks for giving performance-based feedback to support employee’s growth
• Coached managers to develop leadership skills
“Objectivity was key to making this a successful project.
We recognized this work could have been biased had we conducted it in-house. Further, as a small team we lacked the bandwidth and expertise to do it. Now, thanks to Talent Collective, we are able to maintain our system and they are available to support our iterations along the way,” said Brea Lake.
The results
Accelerate Okanagan now has a clear, collaborative and performance-based compensation and career program.
Compensation Program
Developed a solid compensation philosophy to support the company’s efforts to reward and value its employees fairly
Conducted a comprehensive market review and developed a market-based base salary structure and pay grades
Implemented career levelling and a stepped base salary and performance review process
Career Development Plan
Standardized job descriptions and developed a common language around roles, responsibilities, and competencies of each role
Provided coaching and career strategy guidance for the leaders
Established a performance improvement process creating a fair, self-reflective structure that is empowering for employees
Employee Communication and Leadership Development
Provided career & compensation tools and frameworks to support the management team’s communication
Continue to support manager’s with ongoing coaching to accelerate their leadership skills development and navigate through ongoing employee conversations around careers and work in general
The Whole Project Brought Our Team Closer Together.
Don’t wait! We're the most productive we've ever been, having eliminated silos and helped our teams to perform at their best.
Believe it or not, I use the compensation market review document weekly.
- Brea Lake, CEO
Client Story: Moz
/How our people-first approach helped this Seattle-based SEO software company thrive in a changing company landscape.
Who is Moz
In 2004, Moz (formerly SEOmoz) began as a blog and online community, designed to connect the world’s first SEO specialists through a platform where they could share their ideas and interact with like-minded experts from the industry. Their journey into software development began in 2007 when Moz received funding to develop new tools and ideas. In recent years, Moz made the decision to simplify their business strategy and re-focus on what their customers valued most: search.
We met Moz in 2018 when STAT Search Analytics - one of our existing Vancouver clients - was the first acquisition made by Moz. The acquisition and the transition management that followed became our focus: coaching and advising on change communication and integrating cultures have been defining pillars of our work together.
The Challenges
With all the complexity of the company’s changing landscape, how could we focus on putting people first?
Rebecca Clements
Chief People Officer
We were bringing two different companies, cultures and business practices together. Initially, we felt it would be (relatively) easy as we perceived our cultures to be similar and already had familiarity with each other. We underestimated the challenge and the differences that existed culturally.
Jana Mutch
Director of Operations
With the acquisition setting the stage, we recognized the need for leadership and management alignment across the merging companies. We wanted to be speaking the same language. Knowing that there would be distractions, overwhelm, and confusion amongst the integrating teams, shifting business strategies, and merging companies, we needed help providing the personalized and targeted support needed.
The solutions
Focusing on a people-first partnership, we provided career and leadership coaching, along with a cohesive compensation structure supporting the company in its cultural transition and alignment goals.
Transition Support
• Supported Stat Analytics senior leadership team while navigating the transition and Stat’s company-wide change communication plan
• Provided one-on-one coaching for employees making the transition to the new Moz culture
• Produced remote readiness workshops to enable employees to work in a distributed team with multiple offices and WFH employees
Compensation Market Review
• Helped to align Stat Analytics and Moz compensation approaches
• Collaborated with the leadership team on job market data reviews and expectation setting
• Developed a market-based base salary structure that can scale effectively
Employee Retention and Engagement
• One-on-one leadership training and management coaching for managers, directors and executives
• One-on-one career development, productivity and well-being coaching for individual contributors
• Developed coaching focused training sessions
“Adaptable, collaborative and responsive
We had support in working through the culture/team dynamics, via coaching, and in aligning our compensation programs. Talent Collective’s only interest is in meeting our needs and challenges, nothing else matters. I appreciate that they are completely focused on adding value to our business.” said Rebecca Clements.
The Results
A partnership with Talent Collective resulted in a smooth transition into a more unified company.
Career Development
• Employees have the opportunity to address their professional development with ongoing one-on-one, in-person, and remote coaching sessions available to them
• Managers participating in coaching are empowered to have career-growth conversations with their direct reports
• Individuals and managers have space in coaching sessions to define and refine their career goals and develop development plans
Compensation Strategy
• Successful integration of two different compensation philosophies into one cohesive company-wide approach
• Roll-out of a comprehensive market-based salary structure that can grow and easily adjust with scale
• Education of Moz Canada managers on compensation principles contributed to a successful company-wide roll-out of the new compensation program
Improved Communication
• Increased awareness of communication and working styles in a distributed work environment
• Coaching participants feel more equipped to initiate and engage in difficult conversations surrounding the changes that come as a result of the transition
• Managers participating in coaching have increased their leadership toolset in managing and motivating for performance, giving direct feedback and building strong team cultures
Improved Productivity and Well-Being
• Expanding bandwidth of management through external coaches to dedicate time to topics like career development, conflicts, stress, productivity
• Employees having a confidential, safe, objective third party to discuss work and life topics that impact their work while feeling supported by Moz
Client Story: Avenue HQ
/How we helped them grow from a self-funded startup, into a thriving tech company backed by a skilled and dedicated team of employees.
Who is Avenue hq?
Avenue HQ began as a small, bootstrapped startup. At first they simply wanted to provide a marketing solution for those who were in need of support. The business was built based on a hunch that they could help realtors by providing an all-in-one platform that could simplify the lead generation process, and it quickly grew into technology driven organization.
When we met Avenue HQ, they were a small team of six. To prepare for rapid growth, our team was brought on to help coach and guide the founding and management team as they transitioned into a larger entity. Within two years, Avenue HQ grew into a 32-person team with 1,200 clients, with plans to grow to 120+ employees, and to expand their market across Canada and into the US in the coming years.
The challenges
Bogged down by bumps in the road and blind spots, the team knew that they needed help.
Chris Troelstra
CO-founder, CEO
The quick transition from hunch to high-growth meant expansion, and fast!
“We didn’t have any people management plans, or firmly-held beliefs or values. We didn’t have a foundation or a long-term vision. We just operated. There were no set goals.”
Rebecca Troelstra
co-founder, coo
Frustrations in defining their corporate values:
“We were faced with so many questions: How do we live the values we want to live and believe them? How do we make them a part of how we want to run this company? How do we honour the principles that we have as founders/human beings and make that a reality in the company that we want to run?”
Steven Mulcahy
chief of staff
Needed help changing from short term thinking into making decisions for potentially thousands of customers and hundreds of employees.
“How do we evolve the organization’s way of thinking?
How do we manage our human capital and implement processes?”
The Solutions
With a people-first focus, we worked to design and implement strategies that aligned with Avenue HQ’s objectives and values while keeping size and scaling top of mind.
Talent Attraction and Experience
• An employer brand strategy
• An effective hiring process with inclusive processes to ensure a broader pool of qualified applicants are considered
• Managerial training throughout the hiring process including behavioural interviewing, candidate selection and collaborative decision making.
Employee Retention and Engagement
• Core Values identification and implementation
• Leadership Coaching Programs for people managers, emerging leaders
• Career Development Coaching for individual contributors
• Advised on employee engagement strategies
Compensation Strategy and Performance Management
• Created a compensation philosophy and individual career development guidelines
• Developed Performance Management Program
• Designed positive exit strategies and severance programs
“Talent Collective is not afraid
to ask hard questions; objectively looking at our business, helping us focus on areas of our business that often get overlooked as a startup: like culture, people and team development - until they start to go wrong!” said Chris Trolestra.
The results
Avenue HQ continues to harness their people centric competencies we developed together.
Core Values
• Identified and co-developed company’s core values
• Facilitated the incorporation values in the decision making process through coaching
Career Development
• Standardized job descriptions and a developed common language around roles, responsibilities, and competencies of each role
• Provided coaching and career strategy guidance for the leaders
• Established a performance improvement process creating a fair, self-reflective structure that is empowering for the employees. As a result, the people who are promoted to become managers have become better managers
Compensation Strategy
• Developed a solid compensation philosophy to support company’s efforts to reward and value its employees fairly
• Supported a market review and development of market based pay bands
Clearer Communication
• Put tools in place to strengthen the management team’s communication processes (ie: coaching managers on how to conduct effective one-on-one meetings with their team members)
• Articulated the company’s core values to employees. An internal process has been developed teaching leaders how to pass the core values on to their team members
• Trained the leadership team on giving positive and critical feedback in a timely and compassionate manner
• Increased conflict resolution skills: The company now has a process in place for dealing with layoffs and resignations in a fair and compassionate way that is beneficial for both parties involved
You kept us focused on the north star.
I strongly believe if we hadn’t made the investment in coaching we wouldn’t be where we are today.
For our leadership team, you kept us focusing on the north star, and through coaching, you kept pointing us back in that direction.”
Coaching became a space where I could unload, and get some tangible ways to not feel so stressed at the end of the day. It allowed me to walk away from the overwhelm, I was able to let go and prioritize.
At first, I really resisted the coaching process, I would say things like, ‘I don’t have time for this’, but thinking back now, we wouldn’t have the team we have today if we hadn’t done all the work. Now I’ve caught the bug, and am eager to continually learn and grow.
- Rebecca Troelstra, Co-founder, COO
