Kristin Lewandowski, CDR’s Post

Insights on org planning based on REVENUE, not ratios 🤑 According to Jim Miller, setting a budget per resource for departments like customer success, and tying it to revenue milestones can create a sense of unity within the company towards growth. Even departments like engineering can cheer on sales because they know that new engineers will be hired as the company grows and revenue increases. This approach also provides levers for micro adjustments, allowing finance teams to make small changes without huge implications on the company. By giving them this capability, extreme events like layoffs can be avoided altogether. Check out all of Jim's insights in The Headcount People pod: https://lnkd.in/ex8VmEhy #Ashby #RevenuePlanning #OrganizationalGrowth #FinanceTeam #CompanyUnity 💼💰📈🚀👥

Hello world 👋🌍 I parted ways with Oyster in their recent round of lay-offs and after taking some time off to relax and reset, I’m now back on the job market! I’ve spent a lot of the last month reflecting on my journey at Oyster. It started with a call with Tony Jamous about what was at that point, just an idea. A belief that there was a better way to work and access talent around the world. Fast forward three and a half years and it blows my mind what we’ve achieved. First came the early milestones - launching our MVP, getting our first customer and employing our first Team Member on the platform, followed by years of extreme growth, both for Oyster and for myself. I’m well aware that very few people get to have this kind of experience in their career, and I am incredibly grateful for that. I would not be the professional I am today without it, and I thank everyone at Oyster that helped me along the way. I will always be a friend and supporter of the company and I’m excited to see what’s next. Talking about what's next, I am actively looking for a Chief of Staff or Head of Operations role. My role at Oyster was 3-fold. Here are some highlights: ⚙️ As an operator: building and evolving Oyster’s operating systems to help the business scale, including: - Implementing OKR’s company-wide - Driving project management standards to achieve our OKR’s - Setting internal communication and collaboration best practices 🫡 As a 0-to-1 Swiss army knife: owning strategic projects across the business, including: - Helping raise a $25m Series A with Tony - Founding the Marketing and People functions - Launching Oyster’s community, People Builders 💭 As a thought leader: a public face for the company, acting as a source of knowledge and inspiration to others, including: - Speaking at conferences, webinars and community events - Creating content via social, the New World of Work podcast and Oyster Academy - Coaching customers 1-to-1 on their operational challenges So with that said, if you are a SaaS startup, or you know of one, that is feeling the growing pains of becoming a larger, more complex organisation, and might be interested in someone with my profile, please reach out or tag others in the comments below. Thank you all 🙏 #careers #layoffs #chiefofstaff #operations #opentowork #oyster

I was fired (many years ago). It was the lowest point in my career as an architect. But I think about it often. Here’s why: I was a young architect working in SF for a small but well-known high end residential firm. I did some of my most incredible work at this firm. And I worked extremely hard (as many children of immigrant parents do!). Nights and weekends, just like many other hard-working architects. But there were problems that kept happening. Week after week… I kept getting feedback that we were way over budget on our fees. But I didn’t know what to do. I was never made aware of: → Fees → Risks → Metrics That I should be monitoring. The principals would spend a month closing the books and another month to get the report they needed. As a team, we failed to budget effectively. We didn’t understand the risks. And we didn’t make changes fast enough. In the end, I was fired. It caught me by surprise given my work ethic. But, over time, I’ve come to understand that work ethic can’t protect poor business practices. → We didn’t understand why we were going over budget. → The clients didn’t understand why we were going over budget. → The principals didn’t have the right tools and data accessible to them. → No one was equipped to talk about project-level metrics or risks. → And we tracked time for all the wrong reasons. (fees instead of data) Years later, my co-founders and I started Monograph to give architects agency and transparency in these metrics. And I regularly think back to my time at this firm… Would Monograph have helped me? Would it have helped the principals?  Would I enjoy using it every day? Would it have improved the experience of the clients? Would it have prevented the pain of layoffs? I find a lot of pride in knowing that the answer is “Hell yes!” 🙂 I will do whatever I can to make sure no other architect has to experience what I experienced. We built Monograph for you and we hope you like it! Learn more about the design-centric project management platform built exclusively for architects and used by 1,200+ firms at Monograph.com :)

On average 30% of hires leave within the first 90 days (Harvard Business Review), citing factors like cultural misalignment and mismanaged expectations…💔 Just how much is this lack of alignment and transparency costing your company financially? 💰(work it out i dare you 👀) According to data from our peoplemetrics.fyi beta, average cost of hire for startups and scaleups is £10,000. Thats just to hire. Not all the lost costs in time and onboarding and re-hire. The fix is simple 🔧 Clarity Transparency during the hiring process on 👉 Culture (NOT just socials & fun!) 👉 Role expectations 👉 Environment 👉 Ways of working Have you ever started a role and found it to be different to what was sold to you? 👇 Would love to know!

We’re growing! We just hired another employee inside our acquisitions company 🔥 This means… ✅ Scalability ✅ Growth ✅ Delegation ✅ Time Freedom Almost everyone I talk to says they want time freedom but they don’t usually do what’s needed to attain it. Oftentimes they don’t even know what they need to do. Finding, hiring, training, and retaining the right employee isn’t easy. But nothing worthwhile is ever easy. If you want time freedom, you need to position yourself to attain it. No more procrastinating. This year is the year for growth in commercial real estate. Here’s a brand new opportunity for you… I’ll help the next 6 people who drop “Sign Me Up!” below make their first 6 figures this year through real estate. Don’t miss this… Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity 💯

The Costly Lessons in Team Expansion: Our $67,000 Mistake! 💔💸 Our business hit a near-collapse when we rushed into hiring. Learn from our $67,000/month lesson – avoid these hiring pitfalls!

Your favorite e-scooter company just laid off workers post-acquisition, and it's time we took a hard look at the micro-mobility business! 1. Redundancies Point to a Bigger Problem: Bird's recent layoffs post-Spin acquisition aren't just about streamlining, but suggest deep-rooted challenges in the micro-mobility sector. 2. The High Cost of Operations: Maintaining fleets of e-scooters isn't easy. It involves regular servicing, battery replacement, and dealing with vandalism. Add to that, the regulatory hurdles in different cities, and you have a cost-heavy business model. 3. The Difficulty of Generating Profit: Despite the popularity and growth of micro-mobility, many companies struggle to break even. High operational costs combined with low ride fares make profitability a challenge. 4. The Sustainability Question: While e-scooters are marketed as eco-friendly alternatives, the short lifespan of these vehicles, coupled with the need for frequent replacements, might just be offsetting their environmental benefits. 5. The Need for a Business Model Overhaul: It's clear that the current business model needs rethinking. Companies need to find a balance between offering affordable services and maintaining profitability. The recent layoffs at Bird serve as a wake-up call. It's time to rethink and reinvent the micro-mobility business model for a more sustainable future. Let's roll up our sleeves and brainstorm some solutions! Share your thoughts in the comments!

Every year, as the financial year draws to a close, many companies come to a sobering realization: they've fallen short of their objectives. Rather than addressing the root cause by improving project management performance, they often opt for short-sighted solutions. Hiring freezes are activated, and layoffs ensue, creating a temporary band-aid solution. As the new financial year dawns, the cycle repeats. Plans are made to do better, but the backlog of unfinished work from the previous year looms large. Hiring freezes are lifted, and the process of rehiring begins, consuming precious time and resources. By the time progress is made, valuable months have slipped away, and the company finds itself once again playing catch-up. This cycle perpetuates a concerning trend: executives responding to financial targets by resorting to mass layoffs to meet short-term goals, only to reverse course once bonuses are secured and the new year begins. This reactionary approach ultimately results in unnecessary spending, failed projects, stagnant ways of working, and a revolving door of personnel. It's a costly and unsustainable cycle that undermines long-term success. But the cycle continues… #delivery #projectmanagement #people #waysofworking

How do we lead through change? As many of you know, this week has been a difficult week for everyone at Farmers Insurance as 11% of the employee population were laid off. As I was on day 1 of a temporary assignment in a completely new department as a leader originally to lead through (yet another change) of Return to Office, I had to switch gears immediately to lead my team through this sudden loss of colleagues, friends, co-workers, and supervisors. I myself lost my supervisor in an instant. The sheer uncertainty of the situation was unsettling. I frantically googled and tried to find resources online for how to lead a team through layoffs (for those who remain). But throughout all of this, what I have learned is -- #BeHuman. Be Human first and foremost, to yourself. Then, Be Human to your team and lend a ear and shoulder for whatever the team needs. It is only through being human that we can heal, find our grounds, and stand together to move forward. Difficult times call for rallying together to lend support.

Real story of some friends. At the start of the year at a tech giant, a friend is told that their bonus is a function of company performance, team performance and her performance. At the end of the year. Company beats the revenue and EBIDTA targets, team beats the targets, the individuals beat the targets. Appraisal discussion - You are fired. Company needs to save cost and fire your team and hundred other teams, because our investors asked us to. Those friends are fully convinced that the appraisal is only a function of the investor mood and which way the CXO dice rolls in their wild pursuits. Counterthoughts? #masslayoffs #massfiring #techgiants