Reduce Your Employee ‘Burn Rate’ to Improve Your Startup’s Burn Rate: 5 Tips for Talent Retention with Secureframe | Seema Kumar, COO @ Secureframe
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Reduce Your Employee ‘Burn Rate’ to Improve Your Startup’s Burn Rate: 5 Tips for Talent Retention with Secureframe Seema Kumar, COO @ Secureframe
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Reduce Your Employee ‘Burn Rate’ to Improve Your Startup’s Burn Rate: 5 Tips for Talent Retention with Secureframe | Seema Kumar, COO @ Secureframe
- 1. Reduce Your Employee ‘Burn Rate’ to Improve Your Startup’s Burn Rate: 5 Tips for Talent Retention 1 Seema Kumar COO Secureframe
- 2. Agenda ●Startup leadership challenges ●Talent retention best practices for startups ●The 5 tips for talent retention
- 4. Alignment & Communication 1 Employee Engagement 2 Connection & Belonging 3 Startup Leadership Challenges Employee Retention
- 5. Alignment Best Practices for Startups Vision Compelling vision that inspires employees, investors, customers and partners to join you on your journey Company Priorities Often focused on product/market fit and growth Strategy The plan for how you’ll achieve your priorities & vision SMART Goals Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant & Time- based goals at company, team & individual levels Core Values Defines how the organization and its employees behave & operate the business
- 6. Best Practice: Align everyone on the vision with clear goals on how each person helps you get there; Measure and communicate progress to goals.
- 7. Communication Best Practices for Startups Regular 1:1s - Top priorities - Progress on individual goals - Celebrate successes - Weekly agendas - Action item capture and follow up Team Meetings - Top priorities - Progress on team goals - Celebrate successes - Roadblocks and needed support All Hands - Bi-monthly - Strategic priorities - Goal status - Welcomes, new hires & promotions - New demos - Customer wins - On camera, off mute Dept Updates - Weekly email to company - Top dept priorities - Progress on dept goals - Call outs of team and employee successes Slack & Email - Slack: Quick questions, updates and approvals - Email: Deeper dive topics, content reviews
- 9. Best Practice: Engage in all-way communication regularly across multiple channels as different team members process information differently.
- 10. Employee Engagement Best Practices Career Growth & Development ● Understand employees‘ career goals ● Collaboratively build a plan to help them achieve their goals Hiring & Onboarding ● Set proper expectations in the interview process on your company, vision, values and pace ● Bring on top talent that continually raises the bar Reward & Recognition ● Celebrate individual and team success ● Recognize individuals in the way they want to be recognized Employee Engagement
- 12. Employee Engagement Best Practices: Career growth & development
- 13. Best Practice: Show employees you care about their career goals and help them build a plan (that they own) to achieve their goals.
- 14. Connection & Belonging Best Practices for Startups
- 15. Connection & Belonging: Feelings Inventory
- 16. Best Practice: Create moments of connection to inspire a sense of belonging and reinforce your employees’ commitment to your business, mission and customers.
- 17. Best Practice: Encourage your employees to bring their best, authentic selves to work every day so that they can focus on your customers and their success.
- 18. 5 Tips for Talent Retention Align everyone on the vision with clear goals on how each person helps to get there; Measure and communicate progress to goals. Engage in all- way communication regularly as different team members process information differently. Show employees you care about their career goals and help them build a plan (that they own) to achieve their goals. 1 2 3 Create moments of connection to inspire a sense of belonging and reinforce your employees’ commitment to your business, mission and customers. 4 Encourage employees to bring their best, authentic selves to work every day so they can focus on your customers and their success. 5
- 19. Let’s chat Security, Privacy & Compliance! Visit Secureframe at booth #508
- 20. THANK YOU
Editor's Notes
- WELCOME: REMIND OF FOCUS OF SESSION TO SET PROPER EXPECTATIONS Good afternoon What a beautiful day here at SaaStr Annual Thank you for joining me today to talk about reducing your employee burn rate to improve your startup’s burn rate, also known as talent retention First, a little bit about me. I’m Seema Kumar, COO at Secureframe I have 25 plus years of experience across business functions, including operations, marketing, sales, product and customer success I’m very passionate about customers and their success, solving their pain points so they can achieve their goals and grow their business I got my bachelors in science from the University of Illinois and my MBA from HBS You can see the companies I’ve worked at throughout my career, all leading up to my role as COO at Secureframe, the all-in-one security, privacy and compliance platform With that, let’s dive into the 5 tips for talent retention
- AGENDA: REMIND OF FOCUS OF SESSION AND WHAT WE WILL COVER TO SET PROPER EXPECTATIONS Briefly, here is what we’ll cover today: First, let’s align on the realities of leading a startup today Then, we’ll dive into talent retention best practices for everyone here, including practical tips you can employ in your business Let’s go!
- SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE PROBLEM It’s so fantastic to be here today, together in person But no doubt this looks familiar to everyone here today The last two plus years have normalized the era of remote working and life inside the four walls of web conferencing apps They often say that art mirrors life, and in the case of the Brady Bunch, they were waaaaaay ahead of their time Now nearly 53 years after the show’s debut on September 26, 1969, many of us spend most of our days living life in what feels like the show’s opening credits…
- SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE PROBLEM While there are some advantages, especially for those startups founded since 2020 like Secureframe who don’t have to carry the costs of physical office space and can hire the best talent wherever they are, life on Zoom has surfaced many challenges that we are all dealing within in our startups First, driving alignment and communicating across our startups are more challenging than ever Presenting, listening and contributing in meetings is difficult via video conferencing because you cant see everyone’s face like you can in a physical conference room, and in larger virtual meetings, seeing the participants may require pages and pages of scrolling Being able to look someone in the eye when you are meeting with them or have a heart to heart is difficult Even then, verbal communication is only part of the story Remote work often eliminates or de-emphasizes other visual cues like body language and facial expressions – it’s hard enough to see through a small camera that often only shows a thumbnail image of someone’s face and worse when their camera and/or microphone are switched off altogether Additionally, there’s generally low employee engagement in most businesses today There’s less and less separation between work and personal life when both occur in the same physical space, and virtually no connection to the office or fellow co-workers The lack of time spent physically together in offices, traveling to conferences like this and for offsites All of this combined has put more distance between individuals and their work Seeing each other in person, the conversations at the water cooler and grabbing lunch or drinks together during or after work have been replaced by walking the dogs, checking in on the kids and folding the laundry As a result, it is very difficult to create a sense of connection and belonging in today’s remote-first and remote-only workforces – and both are critical to retaining your top talent In fact, this era, the last year and a half or so, has been commonly referred to as “The Great Resignation” as businesses large and small are seeing an increase in the number of employees who are leaving But as business leaders, we can combat this, especially in startups
- THE SOLUTION: ALIGNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS Let’s start with some best practices for aligning your entire organization around your customers and their success, which ultimately aligns them around your business’ success Most startup founders understand the need for an inspiring vision for how their company is going to change the world and make lives better for customers That’s often born out of the frustrations startup founders experience themselves that lead to an aha moment where they create a new category, industry and/or product For Secureframe, our founder Shrav Mehta experienced the pain of the time, money and focus that’s diverted to achieve SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance simply to be able to prove your security, privacy and compliance posture in order to sell products and services to customers Just like with DocuSign, AirBNB, [other examples], Shrav knew there had to be a better way than the status quo We’ve all faced this in our startups – it’s one of the last areas of business that hasn’t yet been modernized, automated and streamlined That vision of enabling trust in global business by automating and streamlining governance, risk and compliance is a clear and compelling need delivering real customer value with a massive market opportunity – all of the things that make for a compelling vision that inspires your employees, investors, customers, partners and others to want to be a part of your journey Next it’s about identifying and clearly articulating your priorities as a business so that when anyone comes to a decision point in your business, the path is clear – whichever move helps you advance on your priorities and gets you closer to achieving your vision And most company priorities, especially as startups, are about product/market fit and growing the business – capturing as many customers and revenue as possible Of course, we all know how resource constrained many startups are - We have to focus, prioritize and sequence our work on the most important things by outlining our strategy – It may be a 3 year strategy or your fiscal year strategy, but identifying the strategies and tactics that each department will execute to move the business forward is critical That strategy has to be rooted in SMART goals – goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound – at every level of your business: the company, department, team and individual contributor so that every individual knows how they contribute to success, and can be held accountable to their role, responsibilities and contributions And lastly, at the foundation are your core values. These tell every employee, your customers and partners how you will behave and operate as a business, and they must be followed so that everyone can trust and rely on them
- THE SOLUTION: ALIGNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS So let me reinforce the obvious, but sometimes overlooked best practice because everyone is moving at a million miles an hour inside a startup: Aligning everyone on your vision and having a compelling strategy with clear goals so that every individual knows what success looks like and how they positively impact it are all critical to running your business and retaining top talent; as is measuring and communicating progress to goals.
- THE SOLUTION: ALIGNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS As a rapidly growing startup, keeping every employee informed and in the loop is mission-critical You can’t afford to have team members focused on the wrong things If priorities or goals change, you need to be able to quickly communicate to your employees so everyone is working in the same direction I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but people process information differently and often need to hear a message seven times before they truly hear and understand it What’s more, there are different people and personalities with different backgrounds, skill sets and learning styles in your business; Communicating in multiple ways – written, verbal and visual – all help your employees to process information At Secureframe, we have company All Hands meetings twice a month to bring everyone together virtually to talk through the latest updates in our business and our progress against our strategic priorities and our goals We compliment that with weekly updates sent out by department heads to everyone in the business to keep them informed of what we are working on and how everything aligns in our business We use Slack and Email, but have communicated guidelines – dos and don’ts – so that we are using these tools effectively We dive deeper with team meetings that focus on how individual team’s are helping us achieve our strategic priorities through their work And similarly, we have regular 1:1s between managers and direct reports – as well as skip level meetings – to focus specifically on how that team mate is contributing to our success You’ll notice the golden thread that weaves through all of these communications – that’s because it is important to stay grounded in our vision, values, strategic priorities and goals across all of them to maintain that alignment company wide
- THE SOLUTION: ALIGNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS For those regular 1:1s, we use a company-wide template for consistency, especially when team members get promoted or we have changes in reporting; New managers can see what the employee was working on
- THE SOLUTION: COMMUNICATION Engage in all-way communication regularly across multiple channels as different team members process information differently As part of the all-way feedback, ask employees to give you feedback – both positive and constructive – to reinforce an environment of continually learning
- THE SOLUTION: EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT We already talked about communications, otherwise it would be the fourth part of this continuous cycle of employee engagement So let’s focus on the other elements of employee engagement within your start up The first up in the employee lifecycle is Hiring and Onboarding We have a very rigorous interview process at Secureframe because hiring top talent onto the team is so critical We want to ensure that we’ve set proper expectations of what work is like at Secureframe: We are passionate, focused on customer success, everyone rolls up their sleeves and does the work But we still want to bring on top talent that raises the bar for all of us and challenges us to be better Celebrating the successes of the company, team and individuals through reward and recognition is critical to our team members feeling fulfilled beyond their salaries This helps to ensure our people are proud of the work they are doing and feel part of something bigger (linking back to our vision) We have recognition both formally in our all hands and with a formal emails that go out to everyone in the company, and informally through our #props Slack channel Both encourage peer recognition, engaging employees to reward and recognize the best among us But for reward and recognition to be meaningful, it is important that you get to know your people and recognize them in the way they want to be recognized. For example, for individuals who hate being put on the spot and called out in large groups, recognition in the company all hands may have the opposite effect And last, and in particular with all of the opportunity in the talent marketplace that exists today, giving your employees opportunities for career growth and development is critical to retaining them
- THE SOLUTION: EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT As part of onboarding, managers meet with new hires twice in their first week and typically weekly thereafter with skip level meetings sprinkled in Additionally, at the 45 day mark, we do a new employee check in
- THE SOLUTION: EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT Now, to be clear, I firmly believe that employees must own 80% of their career growth and development That starts with understanding what they want to accomplish At Secureframe, we have a form we use as part of the 1:1 that asks a series of questions to help them narrow in on what matters to them in their career. Questions like: Where do you want to go in your career? (Not just the next promotion) What does success look like in that role? What education, skills and experience do successful individuals in that role possess? Of those, what do you already have in your arsenal in terms of education, skills and experience? Where are your opportunities for growth and development in rounding out your education, skills and experience to grow into that role? With that as the foundation, what will you do to fill in any gaps and what support do they need from me as your manager? The process natural leads to a SMART action plan for their career growth and development that you can make part of their regular 1:1 conversations Taking the time to do this demonstrates to your employees that you care about them and helping them achieve their goals Your role is to coach, mentor and challenge them, and ensure they are making progress towards the goals they created for themselves – removing roadblocks and providing rotational assignments and budget for training or education as appropriate And it goes without saying that if an employee is not meeting expectations in their role, their development plan first focuses on helping them improve to meet and exceed expectations, before diving into their career development plan
- THE SOLUTION: EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT Show employees you care about their career goals and help them build a plan to achieve those goals.
- THE SOLUTION: CONNECTION AND BELONGING Ultimately, employees who feel connection and a sense of belonging to the company, their team and especially their manager, are most likely to stay That means getting to know each individual employee And in the era of working remotely, you already have an entre in – you are already in their home most every time you are on Zoom So ask about the little one in the background, the dog you hear barking or something interesting in their background In 1:1s for example, I start with the personal in an exercise that may at first sound a little cooky, but is quite effective in lowering guards and barriers, and getting team members to open up honestly…
- THE SOLUTION: CONNECTION & BELONGING Typically I will start to demonstrate that it’s okay to be vulnerable I’ll pick out two to three feelings and share why I am feeling that way, and then will ask the employee to do the same This provides a safe and structured way to share what’s going on in their work and personal life so we are better connected and I have a better understanding of where they are at and what’s going on I’ve found this creates a deeper relationship of trust, connection and belonging In addition to this, there are a variety of other tactics we employ like virtual happy hours, and the photos you saw a few slides ago from our in-person, all company connection event in Miami in June. Creating this moments of connection help employees to feel a sense of belonging, and reinforces their commitment to the business, our mission and our customers
- THE SOLUTION: CONNECTION & BELONGING Creating moments of connection help employees to feel a sense of belonging, and reinforces their commitment to the business, our mission and our customers I mentioned earlier my passion for customers and their success I am also very passionate about creating a work environment that encourages employees to be their genuine, authentic selves; an environment that celebrates diversity The reality is that everyone of us, as startup leaders, serves a diverse audience of customers, partners and investors. And I don’t know how you can serve a diverse audience if you don’t understand them The best way to understand a diverse set of customers, partners and investors, is to have that diversity in all manners represented at all levels of your business – diversity of thought, experience, education, upbringing, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, sexual expression, ability and more And being in an environment where you see people like you in roles throughout the business, further creates connection and a sense of belonging among employees
- THE SOLUTION: CONNECTION & BELONGING So my final best practice to share with you today is to
- KEY TAKEAWAYS So in total here are the five tips for driving employee retention in your startups
- CALL TO ACTION We’d love to see all of you visit Secureframe’s booth #508 to chat about how we can help your startup automate and streamline your security, privacy and compliance so you can focus on growing your business and serving your customers.