Culture framework with Yasmin Ahmed

Thomas Kohler:
Today’s guest, Yasmin Ahmed, VP People of the simpleclub. In the hiring process, how do you or where do you evaluate culture? Because I think there are different aspects or ways on how to do it. Some do a cultural interview, some have a group of cultural ambassadors or cultural interviewers that are just doing it. Or also some people say we do it in every step of the process. Right. And everybody who is interviewing needs to have a certain training that they could also assess it. So what’s your approach to that? And then also maybe your perspective.

Yasmin Ahmed:
Yeah. So the way we’re doing it. So right now, there’s not a hundred percent, like we have a mix of everything that you just said. But we’re actually this next week, I think we have a training with leadership where we are going to unify this a little bit more. The reason why I wasn’t so strict around this unification before is that till today, every person that is hired into simpleclub has a last interview with either both Nico and Alex, our founders, or with one of them where they do this final culture check with them where, you know, talking about the mission, talking about exactly those values and what we’ve done with a lot of departments right now, because that is also not something that is scalable. Right. If you grow, like, I don’t know, Amazon when they started and now they’re over a million employees, I’m sure Jeff Bezos would have not been able to meet every single person in the company. So this is when we started bit by bit as well, to consider, okay, how can we make this step redundant? And we’ve started in some department to it exactly how you mentioned.

So, for instance, in the recruiter screening, next to some of the functional, technical things that the recruiter needs to check before we do the we genuinely care part. Then, for instance, when I hired for the TA role and my team, the recruiter checked that bit. I checked that we go beyond value along with some technical things that I defined, like competencies that I defined, and we use behavioral questions. That is, for me so far, the best method that I found helpful. And then the step afterwards was that I wanted that person to meet their peers and the peers also to see how much of a team fit that person is. And with that approach, I’ve asked them then the team to ask the we are a team value, and we’ve created a catalog of questions that can be asked and how to assess based on that so that it’s not just like a question and then it’s subjective. Also how it’s evaluated, but rather some examples. And then what are like how to score based on the answers that people are giving.

Thomas Kohler:
Yasmin and I talked about culture, on how to define it, how to roll it out, how to systematically integrate it in the hiring process and also in what stages the hiring process should develop from a cultural aspect, then how to deal with lateral moves, but also how to end employment relationships and also what it means in terms of a cultural aspect and also what companies and talent can do to make it a great process and nurture the culture.

Yasmin, happy to have you here. I love simpleclub. I think from back then when I was still in university watching some YouTube videos, and now we are talking about how to build a real meaningful and also in depth culture that is connecting, that is also not just a buzzword but really talking about how to live it. Right. And what does it take and mean. And first of all, we would like to understand a bit more about yourself. And of course welcome and hi, thank you very much.

Yasmin Ahmed:
Thomas. Very happy to be here with you today. So yeah, for people that haven’t noticed yet. Ah, Yasmin Ahmed. I’ve been in the HR space for around 18 years now. So I’ve been around and worked mainly in big corporates. So simpleclub is my first startup experience. I was before in a scale up as well, but with over 1000 employees, so it’s hard to say it’s a startup environment. Yeah, I’ve also worked quite internationally so long time in Egypt and then when I moved to Germany I’ve worked with international teams.

So yeah, as I said, I’ve been around a little bit. I still love the HR work very, very much and I think there’s a lot of room to do, especially in the space of culture and really being enablers to the business and the companies that we support.

Thomas Kohler:
Yes. And when you joined simpleclub, what was the setup of your team there and how big was the organization that we just can understand a bit the context first.

Yasmin Ahmed:
Yes. So basically there was no real people team. So there were two team members, very valuable team members that were supporting the operations and they’ve set up already very good foundation. And the thing is that simpleclub’s culture was already so positive that there was no need at that point or before that for a dedicated people department. But with the growth, they realized, okay, we really need someone to come in and professionalize this culture and put it into some tangible things and help us foster, scale and grow it as well. And this is where then I came into play. So I’m a bit older, so I hadn’t used simpleclub when I was in school or hadn’t heard of it. But then when I was contacted and started my research and saw what simpleclub is doing in the world of education, and it’s always nice to hear, Thomas, like how you said, when people have used simpleclub, have learned from the YouTube videos or used the app, and that helped them get good grades and learn a little bit more.

Yasmin Ahmed:
And when I did my research, I found out exactly that and immediately fell in love with the company and thought that this is a match made in heaven, how they would say, because I also noticed early in the process that Niko and Alex are the type of founders that really help the people team do the job. They listen and they do this check in. The first place to see is that person coming in. Understanding of the culture that simpleclub has. Trust is the first that they have. And if you show that you’re up for that trust, they let you do your thing. And that was something that was very important to me because that wasn’t necessarily the setup everywhere where I’ve been. And yeah, it’s been, we’re coming close to three years now working together, which is the startup world is a long time, definitely.

Thomas Kohler:
And how did you then approach to build a culture? Because I think this can mean anything and nothing. So what was actually the steps and the process?

Yasmin Ahmed:
That is a very good question, because that is also the thought that I had. So when I joined the company, I realized there is a culture, but it was very hard to put it into words and also to, for instance, in the hiring process, to be mindful, not to be too subjective when you hire people. So what does it really mean? And that was one of the first things that I thought was very, very important, and that is the values creation. And I know that it’s a bit of a tainted word that, you know, that a company comes up with some buzzwords, puts it on a wall, that when you come into the office in the morning, you see. And that’s it kind of, in a way. And this is what I wanted exactly to avoid. So the approach that I went with was that I said, I don’t want us to sit as leadership in a room and start writing that down and what we feel, on the contrary, it’s that we wanted to do it a bottom up approach. We involved everyone in the company and asked them questions like, how would you put this culture into words? What are behaviors that you see? What are behaviors that you think are missing from us?

And that should be part of that culture and values that we have. And bit by bit, we went with that feedback into several workshops, and this is what resulted into our for company values. And I think those represent very much the culture that we have. So in a nutshell, the first one is we genuinely care, and it’s that we care about our customers, but we also care about the mission and the vision that we have. The other one is that we go beyond what is thought possible, so kind of unlocking this underdog mode and that we always learn and that we always want to grow and we make learnings from mistakes. The third one is we are a team that lifts each other up. Our word is commitment. We’re there for each other. We help each other. We give each other feedback and are open.

And the last one is that we love life in all its colors. We’re optimistic and that for us, we don’t have work life balance. It’s more that we live a certain lifestyle. So that is what we really, really felt represented the culture that we have. And we’ve integrated that into our interviewing process. For example, we’ve made that the core of the 360 feedback that we provide because we feel if you show these behaviors and the values, that also is a representation of how you perform and do your work as well. But I hope it helps.

Thomas Kohler:
No, a lot of things, a lot of things happened there already. So I think that’s very clear and very nice because it’s not something generalistic. And what you did specifically was defining it. Right. And this is by just doing a clear discovery. Secondly, then you integrated in hiring and in also how you rate, I would say performance or not even rate performance, but how you give feedback to each other, yes.

Yasmin Ahmed:
Because development, yes.

Thomas Kohler:
And also do you also have a certain component on how somebody’s getting a salary raise, for instance, or how compensation is affected and combined with culture?

Yasmin Ahmed:
Not necessarily with, well, a little bit, to be frank. So basically what we’ve done is that before coming up with a compensation model, which the reason why I delayed that or had delayed that a little bit was that I wanted to remove then that subjectivity part. So we all, not for everyone and for most people, these salary conversations are not very comfortable. And then you go in with a negotiation strategy and trying to get the best out of things. Not fun basically for most of the people. And that is exactly the thing that I wanted to avoid. But before being able to avoid it, it was important to set up a mechanism, mechanism that takes out the subjectivity to some extent. And this is where we came up with our growth model.

So basically a leveling model that we’ve shared transparently in the company. We’ve done it together, as you can see. Like I’m not the kind of people lead or the people department that I lead, where we come up with ideas and then force them on people. We think that we do them for the people, so we have to involve them. And all levels and all seniority stages. Of course, not every, everyone, but like at least a representation. And this is how we came up with those levelings and how you can actually come up with the next level and how you’re mapped into the level where you are. And based on that, we’ve then come up with salary ranges.

By the way, every individual at simpleclub know exactly their salary range. So we try to make that very transparent. I don’t know if you’ve seen, but also now all our job descriptions, we have salary ranges because we think that this is exactly the point of trying to take away from people this negotiation aspect. And then the most important part of how you link your salary is then the scope of your role. But you grow into your role through, through how you perform and how you live these values and accordingly bring in the results. So for instance, if someone has, for example, a really good output, but their word is not commitment, for example. So we say that, I tell you, hey Thomas, I’m going to send you this by tomorrow, and I don’t do this while you’re depending on me to do it, that could be a reason why you don’t get into this new level and accordingly don’t get a salary increase because you’re not living an important aspect of our culture. So this is how we’re putting it into.

And because we have these values now, or the culture defined into the values to a great extent, you have the data that you share with the people and help them understand the reason for your decision and the other way around as well when you live it and when you absolutely role model it as well, to understand that naturally you’re growing if this is what you want to do and that that is tied to compensation as well.

Thomas Kohler:
In case you like my show, please subscribe I would really appreciate it. And in the hiring process, how do you or where do you evaluate culture? Because I think there are different aspects or ways on how to do it. Some do a cultural interview. Some have a group of cultural ambassadors or cultural interviewers that are just doing it. Or also some people say we do it in every step of the process. Right. And everybody who is interviewing needs to have a certain training that they could also assess it. So what’s your approach to that? And then also maybe your perspective.

Yasmin Ahmed:
Yeah. So the way we’re doing it. So right now, there’s not a hundred percent, like we have a mix of everything that you just said. But we’re actually this next week, I think we have a training with leaders where we are going to unify this a little bit more. The reason why I wasn’t so strict around this unification before is that till today, every person that is hired into simpleclub has a last interview with either both Nico and Alex, our founders, or with one of them where they do this final culture check with them where, you know, talking about the mission, talking about exactly those values and what we’ve done with a lot of departments right now, because that is also not something that is scalable. Right. If you grow, like, I don’t know, Amazon when they started and now they’re over a million employees, I’m sure Jeff Bezos would have not been able to meet every single person in the company. So this is when we started bit by bit as well to consider, okay, how can we make this step redundant? And we’ve started in some department to exactly how you mentioned.

So, for instance, recruiter screening next to some of the functional, technical things that the recruiter needs to check before we do the we genuinely care part. Then, for instance, when I hired for the TA role in my team, the recruiter checked that bit. I checked that we go beyond value along with some technical things that I defined, like competencies that I defined, and we use behavioral questions. That is, for me so far the best method that I found helpful. And then the step afterwards was that I wanted that person to meet their peers and the peers also to see how much of a team fit that person is. And with that approach, I’ve asked them then the team to ask the we are a team value and we’ve created a catalog of questions that can be asked and how to assess based on that so that it’s not just like a question and then it’s subjective also how to evaluate it, but rather some examples. And then what are like how to score based on the answers that people are giving.

Thomas Kohler:
And how does a training process look like to be trained as an interviewer?

Yasmin Ahmed:
So right now, the training that we have set up is to educate them about the first of all, the importance. Like we start with the process in itself. When you have a role that you really start drawing out, what are the different steps that you want and need, and more importantly, the people that you think are important to be involved in the process so that you have like a holistic view of it. Not just you as a hiring manager, but they will be working with other people, they will be having peers in their team, they will be having stakeholders that they need to work with. Like, none of our roles is a standalone role and that you already early in the process map out. Okay, not just, hey, I want to involve Thomas and I want to involve that person. I would need to tell Thomas what I need him to evaluate and of course get feedback as well.

Like as a stakeholder: What do you think is something important that you need to figure out? And that is because that, I feel also unifies the whole process. You make sure that no questions are duplicated. That is, I think one of the most annoying things candidate. You go into every interview, people are not really prepared. They don’t know what they really need to be asking and that you’ve set that up from the beginning. So really talking about the importance of that process, about the competencies that you really need in the role, what are nice to haves, what are important ones. And then the next bigger part of the training is then the concept of behavioral interviews, be it for both the technical part of things, or the functional part, or the company values. And then the other one is how you do then the assessment correctly, and then also in a fair, consistent way.

And the last one, which I think quite a lot of people not ignore, but I feel are a bit of a burden. And where we think that is actually one of the most important aspects in the candidate experience is how to give feedback and how to provide feedback because this is what we aim at. We’re not a fan of ghosting. I think that’s, it’s for me still unbelievable how much that happens. And I just think we’ve all been interviewed, we’ve all been in a process and we all know how shitty, excuse my french it is, you know, to be ghosted. And that’s why we also have a special part for the feedback. I hope that none of the people that go to the training next week hear this podcast already, because I’m spoiling for them the whole training. But yeah, that is mainly how, how we’re setting it up right now, I can tell you maybe released later. So it’s all good. I can give you feedback how they found it, but so far how we’ve set it up I think is a very good start. Yeah.

Thomas Kohler:
And I think especially when organization is scaling because I think how you described it was very accurate. At first you start maybe with a cultural interview or whatever, right. But at some point it’s just not doable anymore or scalable anymore. So you need to drafted out along the process and at some point you then also need more people that could be trusted ambassadors for the company. And then also at some point I think it’s not just evaluating about does it fit the culture, but also how could we even transform or not change, but maybe double down on the culture to also add certain pieces in terms of diversity. Right. And also in terms of maybe aspects where we are maybe lacking a bit of skill sets, behaviors, personality types, whatever it is. Right. Because I think a diverse team can achieve way, way more than when everybody’s like the same.

Yasmin Ahmed:
Absolutely. And that is, that was also one really important aspect when we came up with our company values. We know we have a great culture, but we also said this is the time that we really look ourselves in the mirror and confront ourselves with the things that we think are missing and that we add them. And for instance, I focused in the hiring of the roles that I had in my team on the things where I’m okay. That is something that is missing. Not because the team is not doing a good job, it’s because they are good at what they do. But there are certain things that I feel need to complement the rest of the team and that I focused, for instance, very heavily on this. I’m one of the advocates of drive and attitude. Beats experience anyway.

And this is what I always need to see in the interviews. We can have 20 years of experience. I would still choose a person that maybe has one year experience, but they bring in hunger, they bring in curiosity, they want to try new things, they want to learn. And the other way around could be as well. So it doesn’t mean that you have 20 years of experience and that you got lazy or anything. I mean, I’m now in that group, right. And I know that like alone this month and this past week, I had to work on things that I had never had to do before and I got deep into it and it got me really excited to dive a little bit deeper. So yeah, just stay hungry and look for people like that, especially if you feel that it’s maybe not fully represented in your team or whatever skill or knowledge or behavior is missing. If you have a role, it’s the golden opportunity to find that puzzle piece.

Thomas Kohler:
And when we now look further down the journey of an employee, do you have certain steps when there is hired and there is feedback, at some point somebody is leaving, or maybe also moving into another role. Do you also have cultural aspects or considerations into a lateral move, for instance, or also into somebody leaving a company?

Yasmin Ahmed:
Yes, definitely. So if, for instance, someone is moving in the company, it’s usually part of like a growth plan they had for themselves. So I still think we can do a much better job in marketing internal opportunities. But we’ve had many, many, many examples of people. Like just a couple of weeks ago, someone made an internal move from a content writer position to an expert position within our education team that is responsible for the content and design of our content in our apps. So that is definitely something that we very strongly support and that we encourage. So, yeah, that is part of that growth culture. We are also, that is a big topic that we have right now, is to continuously advocate for growth can be in your role right now. Like, you don’t have to go up that ladder, that famous ladder that you could do a sideways move. We have someone even that went from a certain salary structure to a different one because they realized they were not, like, it could even be considered less advantages, but because that person said, you know what, I’m not happy with what I do. And I know there’s an opportunity here, I would like to go for it. And we absolutely supported that because the person, you know, was a culture fit. They’re eager to stay in the company, and why have them be miserable when we have another opportunity available?

So that is something that we very, very strongly encouraged also, when people decide to leave, we have many, many, many working students working for simpleclub. And we had cases where people were in an expertise part of their studies and were doing inheritedly a role at simpleclub that they dragged out for a very long time and where they reached a point where they said, you know what, I studied now for that expertise, and I need to be an expert in this. Like becoming a teacher, for instance. And where with, with tears on both sides, we say, we totally understand it’s the right move for you. “Thank you so much for the time you spent here.” And these people go out and be advocates for a simpleclub still.

But because of, you know, the experience they’ve had, and I’m originally Egyptian and in Arabic we say you see the core of people at separation. And I think if you, it’s not just about how people are when they are with you, but it’s also from both sides on how you end things. And I think how you do that just shows who you are.

Thomas Kohler:
Definitely. And what do you think, where can you then see the cultural aspects when terminating or ending a relationship, employment relationship from an employee perspective and an employer perspective, yes.

Yasmin Ahmed:
So from an employee perspective, I think it’s like being upfront with things like just being honest and direct and you have your reasons. I would say you don’t own anyone an explanation, but I think it just shows very well how it’s always an opportunity also for the company to get feedback. We send people like the usual off boarding surveys, have exit conversations with them to get to know exactly what could be things that hopefully you could have prevented, by the way, in order not to find that out in exit interviews. We’ve introduced last year stay interviews to ask exactly these questions before people think of leaving the company. And so that you avoid people taking that step on the employer. On the employer side, I think honestly, I would summarize it with common decency. We’ve seen, especially in the last two years, some not so honorable examples of how people were let go in their companies by getting emails at two, three in the morning after 13 years, 15 years of working in the company. And I think even if a company needs to make those tough decisions, just put yourself in the, in the shoes of that person.

I know, and especially bigger companies, it’s not always easy to reach out to thousands of people, but I’m sure there are also other ways than just sending emails in the middle of the night, closing excesses. I know there’s also labor law and mandates here and there, but still just be decent, like be, be how you want to be treated and reflect the culture that you’re talking about, you know, so much. And I don’t mean it dis at a certain company. It’s really just in general, every company tries to show their best sides and the great things that they do. And I think that’s also important to do when there’s a time where a company decides to separate, especially that you’re doing this for a reason and hopefully that things get better afterwards. And it’s a lot of times that you separate from people that don’t necessarily have an issue with performance because you need to reprioritize or need to shift things and you want that those people that know you well, even when you separate with them, that they feel treated respectfully in light of the culture. That if opportunities come up afterwards, that they come back to you or become advocates for you. And that was something that happened to us.

So we had, even from resignations for the reasons that I mentioned from you, that, for instance, things related to studies, we had more within that year, we had more than ten to twelve people coming back to us in the company. It’s something we’re very, very proud of, and it’s something that we don’t take for granted and appreciate. And that’s why we invest the culture. From the day that people applied or we reached out to them, to the day in some cases, where people, either they or we make the decision that the working relationship is ending. But we’re humans. We stay connected, we stay in touch. You build ambassadors, and you want your company to represent it for who you want it to be. And that is in the positive culture that you’re building.

Thomas Kohler:
In case you have any feedback or anything you want to share with me, please send me an email on thomasseoplewise.com or hit me up on LinkedIn. And in case you really enjoy the show, please subscribe. I would really appreciate it. Did your coaching business, or maybe not business, but also the trainings you do or get from it, did they also help you set all of these up? Because I think that’s a skill that sometimes is seen. Culture is so fluffy, but you made it very structured and very systematic, and I think that’s something where a lot of organizations can benefit from or also learn from.

Yasmin Ahmed:
Yeah, the reason why I do it is because I’m. I mean, I have to say I was very lucky that when I first had my, like, real big corporate experience, I landed in a team or in a company where HR was really a strategic function. And I was in my early twenties, and presenting people plans to executive teams of the departments I was responsible for. So it wasn’t like nobody would just come and put a paper and tell me, here, fire that person or promote. It was that I was empowered by my leaders and the business to say, no, I’m not doing that, or that decision is not correct, or, I understand your, like, when there were strategy discussions, we were a crucial part of it, because if we don’t understand the strategy, we cannot come up with initiatives that enable the people to achieve that strategy. And that’s why I’m not a fan of fluffy things in general. And I try to be very reflective and try to advocate for HR teams that are really enabling businesses. And that’s why just talking about we have a great culture.

And then naturally, the question that you exactly said is, okay, what does it mean? I don’t want to sit there and just like, well, everyone’s nice. Well, that’s my opinion. Maybe somebody else does not see it, or maybe it’s just my very own perception. And to really go deep and make it tangible so that, you know, when you make a hiring decision, let’s not underestimate the person that applies to your job is probably checking their emails several times. They want to know an update. I know that we are very much able at simpleclub to hype people up. So you want to make sure that when you select them or not, that it is in a tangible way and not just, well, they’re nice or they talked about this or that, or they were extroverted. For instance, we have, like, some of the very obvious culture people at simpleclub. Some of them are extremely introverted and they are very valuable. And it’s not that introverted people shouldn’t be. But I know that we can give this impression of we’re loud and yes, we are, but we like, just live those aspects. And that’s why we’re very careful in the wordings that we’ve used in the values to help people understand if they also want to be a part of it. You know, it’s not just our way, it’s the other way as well.

Thomas Kohler:
Thank you so much. So is there any big learning, what you could give to the listeners in terms of building a culture or nurturing a culture?

Yasmin Ahmed:
So I have, maybe I can share my biggest learning, and I hope it doesn’t sound too depressing, but I believe that you can be the best people person in the world. If the founders and the leadership team don’t live up and role model the culture, you will not be able to do it. So when you choose a company that you work for, that is my biggest advice. Even if you join, you know, not just as a, as an HR person, but as an employee, try to look at what are the values of the company and how you see the founders live it. Nowadays, you can easily see through LinkedIn posts. Most of the big people, like, big people up the ladder, have Instagram accounts, have things like that. What, what are the employees saying on websites like Glassdoor and Kununu? And if you see that there’s a big, like an alignment between what the company is preaching and how the leadership is leaving it, don’t think twice, because that is a healthy culture where you will be empowered to enable.

Thomas Kohler:
Thanks. I can also highlight and agree to that. So that’s very, very good advice and also very good hint. Thanks so much.

Yasmin Ahmed:
Thank you. It was very nice talking to you, and I hope you and the listeners find it helpful.