How Nicole O'Brien Sets Her Teams up for Success

1. Give your people purpose

“We're a project management consultancy company, so for somebody who's delivered a project, that might be their purpose that week. But they still feed into our overall team and company goals, and they need to understand what they are at any given time. I think that's been the biggest benefit of Frankli for me, allowing people to have that information at their fingertips, always.”

2. Prioritise Praise and Recognition

"Giving praise is something we want to actively encourage, so the fact that Frankli asks, 'Do you want to give praise?' and provides a really easy way of doing it, is really useful. It reminds you to quickly say, 'I thought you were great doing this,' or, 'This was a real standout moment for me.' That functionality actually is really brilliant because it's different. It's unique and it's what people want."

3. Foster an Authentic Company Culture

“In Frankli, you can put in your interests and connect with other people who are interested in those things. So we can make sure that our teams can come together, can communicate, can form professional and non-professional bonds, depending on what they want to do. I think that as an overall piece in the people strategy has been critical. A new team member joined recently and she said, "This is the first time I've ever come into a company, where, although everyone is entirely different, everyone speaks to the same type of purpose and culture.” That's something that we've worked hard on, but we don't overegg. We have a good culture because it's our actual culture. It's not a forced culture."

4. Give Structure to One-on-Ones

"I love those talking point templates in Frankli for one-on-one meetings. Tools like that, especially for new people managers, are really, really useful to help them to focus and have really good, meaningful conversations, rather than a non-structured 15-minute catch-up where you both leave and kind of go, "Oh I actually wanted to talk about several other things.” Prompting those types of meaningful conversations is really important, because it should be a collaborative approach."

5. Support People on Good Days and Bad

"There's some lovely functionality in Frankli, like letting your manager know that you feel a certain way. 'Today, I feel excited' or, 'Today, I feel anxious.' Maybe you don't have the guts to say that out loud, and it's easier to do it in a platform. And our teams really like feedback, so having a touchpoint like that functionality within Frankli, where they can ask people for feedback, and they can connect with their team members, has been really, really key for us."

6. Put People First, Always

"The biggest learning I've had in my role to date genuinely is that you don't ever have the answer to everything. It's a real key one, every day is a school day for me in my role and I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in anything. But I do always try to find the best option possible in whatever we are aiming to do. That's the one thing that has been my guiding principle."

7. Find a Platform that Supports Growth

"When you look at how collaborative the team at Frankli are with us as clients, it makes you want to embrace the platform even more. They're so helpful, and if there's an idea or if there's something that just isn't possible in the platform, they really do look into it and they do make those changes and they do listen to the feedback. 'We've heard you, we've listened to you, we've developed it.' It's a pleasure to use a platform where you actually have quite a lot of input in the grand scheme of things, into how it runs and, and what happens within it."