Committed To Inclusion? Start with Changing This Employee Policy.

At Dollar Shave Club they saw female attrition rates rising. One explanation was that the benefits offered by the company hadn’t matured at the rate the employee population had. Also, feedback from both female and male departing employees mentioned better benefit options at their new or future employer as a consideration when thinking about leaving.

The team was no longer single twenty something’s, they had matured and the team was starting families. Furthermore, the company hired different levels of talent and needed to compete with mature competitors to attract experienced talent.

On a discovery of benefit options and realizing that the world of parental leave was a mine field, as Chief People Officer for Dollar Shave Club, Peter Moore worked with his team to create a policy and process that simply meant that any employee, regardless of company tenure, the path of delivery, and sexual orientation were all offered the same benefit and that was to be guaranteed leave, job protection, and pay continuation for a total of 12 weeks/4months. They even introduced a Paw-ternity policy for their employees fur-babies.

As a result the company saw higher engagement from its employees recognizing its support for parents. They also saw attrition decline, in line with the anecdotal feedback that employees felt more valued and the benefits were richer.

The connection between employee engagement and the workplace is paramount to productivity.

It was clear that employees were struggling to find quiet space to work and meet while spread across multiple hub offices and after quickly outgrowing its 26,000-square-foot office, the company knew they needed to expand.

Peter Moore, Chief People Officer for Dollar Shave Club enlisted Rapt Studio assess the needs of a growing team to ultimately design a dream space that focused on connection, collaboration, and comfort for employees and visitors alike.

The new HQ brought all the employees together under one roof allowing everyone to work more efficiently, and to increase creativity. and engagement

Companies have invested resources and money into attracting a diverse workforce but when managers are not confident in giving feedback it’s often protected classes that are impacted.

Partnering with our client on a restructuring plan which resulted in a headcount reduction impacting 25% of the company it was clear from the analysis that the client was projected to impact a disproportionate amount of females and African Americans.

On discovery with managers it was apparent that early career managers felt uncomfortable giving feedback to this protected class of employees. Therefore, when those employees were not clear on their role and responsibility they were seen as underperforming in their role. In fact, they were just not clear about what they had to do.

Pivoting, we shifted the reduction plan focusing on critical role vs. nice to have, and the last in first out approach.

Secondly, Bou developed a manager training curriculum that was implemented across all managers and leaders. New performance management processes were introduced to better support managers and employees in giving and receiving feedback.

Immediately we saw a lift in productivity and saw talent in the company take on new roles and projects better suited to their skillset.

The biggest question for companies in 2022 was "should we be fully remote, hybrid or bring everyone back to the office?"

A complicated question, especially for startups that hired many employees during the pandemic across many geographies. Hiring without knowing the future ways of working while trying to grow the business was a gamble leaders needed to take.

Our client had hired 70% of their team during the pandemic but really felt like connectivity and collaboration were breaking the more people they hired. Leaders felt like work was not being done but at the same time employees were lost and stuck on projects and often shifted to rapidly changing priorities.

Once we aligned the client with their company vision and goals for the remainder of the year we were able to determine which employees needed to be on site. We also determined what work needed to be done. During our time with the client we also introduced a leveling structure for decision making, a revised schedule for meetings with the appropriate stakeholders, and the introduction of new tools to better support and drive communication. As a result we identified that the company was well positioned not only to be hybrid, but they could significantly reduce the office footprint and opex.