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Get in touchTo kick off the HR and leadership series, we will be interviewing Nadine Blackie.
Nadine is the Head of Talent Acquisition at Flare HR. She has over 10 years of experience in talent acquisition for high growth startups in the tech sector. She has built high-performance teams for venture-backed startups that have experienced rapid transformation and growth. She’s worked at well-known companies in the startups space including Flare, Ansarada, Relic Entertainment and Hootsuite across Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada.
Nadine’s passion for people and high growth companies led her to working at Flare where she’s built a world class, mission-driven team and a balanced culture that is working towards Flare’s mission: to help every working Australian live their best financial life.
Here are the highlights from our interview with Nadine on talent acquisition and human resources.
In the world of Talent and People, you have the ability to positively impact others and brighten someone’s day. Whether it be putting a smile on someone’s face by calling out their win, or removing a roadblock for someone to be more productive in their day to day, or coaching a manager through a tough conversation. It’s super rewarding work to be able to help others.
I lean into my talented network and my mentors. They have a wealth of knowledge.
HR Open Source (hros.co) is also a great open source community and Facebook group where HR professionals share resources and tools with each other, such as: case studies, tools, engagement initiatives and wellness programs. When people are willing to share knowledge and give their perspective, we can more quickly level up and improve upon each other’s work.
I am inspired by companies and People leaders who challenge the norm and make proactive ideas come to life.
The global pandemic has caused companies to evaluate the current landscape and plan for the future of work. For example, Twitter and Facebook are now allowing their staff to work from home permanently if they wish.
In response to this pandemic, we will see new ideas emerge from People and business leaders and a new landscape will unfold.
At Flare, we have a startup culture of taking big swings, building quickly and sharing in the impact of driving growth and positive change. We are constantly innovating against the status quo and learning new things.
Our team is a passionate and talented group. Culturally, the team is down to earth, doesn’t take themselves too seriously, works at a fast pace, has full ownership to drive change and is accountable for delivering ideas. We are empowered to deliver quality work we are really proud of.
We have five company values which are embraced at Flare: People first, Bat .400, Trust the Process, Do the Right Thing and Act Like an Owner.
I’ll discuss my two favourites:
At Flare, we have a thorough recruitment process with a series of key stages to ensure a candidate is the right fit. Here are few things that are important to us in the recruitment process:
In my experience, great leaders are authentic, open, honest and always have the best intentions for their teams. Leading by example and showing up like that everyday is important to me, especially in challenging situations.
I believe that creating ways to help teams feel safe and supported leads to a healthier and engaged workplace. At Flare, we aim to share information and feedback as timely and honestly as possible, and we encourage open and honest communication. For example, we have an “ask_Flare” anything Slack channel, where employees can ask questions truly anonymously. These questions are responded to in the Slack channel, as well as, addressed every Monday in our all-hands meeting. We’ve found this to be a simple and effective way to hear what’s on our employees’ minds and address these sentiments in a transparent way.
I grew up playing team sports my whole life so my leadership style was initially developed from many years of playing on high performance sports teams.
I also have two strong, intelligent female leaders as mentors. They both really push and challenge me on how to approach conversations with my team and define how I wanted to show up as a leader.
We’ve looked at ways to keep people connected and engaged from their remote work environment, as we shifted to a ‘work from home’ policy during COVID-19. Here’s some strategies we’ve implemented:
Gathering and actioning employee feedback is critical to employee retention. We use employee engagement surveys to consistently checkin and understand how people are feeling in their roles.
During COVID-19, we’ve made these surveys monthly as things are changing so quickly. The feedback is helping us identify specific action items directly from our teams on ways we can improve their experiences. It’s important for us to create a place for people to share their thoughts, how they are feeling and share ideas around improvements while giving us insights to any undiscovered frustrations.
At Flare, our onboarding process is designed to help new hires transition into their new role in a smooth, informative and welcoming way. It is an exciting time for a new hire joining a company and a team welcoming a new teammate aboard, so both the big and little things in the onboarding experience matter.
Here are a few things we do to support our new teammates:
We rolled out a new Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to proactively approach employee wellbeing. The EAP supports a wide variety of topics like mental wellbeing and manager coaching, while leveraging technology to create an accessible employee experience.
Through Flare Benefits, our employees have access to discounts and benefits from a wide variety of retailers like Woolworths, KMART and JB Hi-Fi.
We are currently working on other employee programs that focus on wellness (physically and mentally), and learning and development.
In these unprecedented times, creating a people-first engaged workplace will help businesses thrive in the long run. At Flare, I’ve seen many people step up to lead initiatives, rise to the challenge and lean in to support each other. It’s incredible and inspiring to watch, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Finally, remembering that we are all human and everyone is being faced with unique stresses during this time. As leaders we don’t have all the answers, but being open and admitting when ‘we don’t know the answers’ is important. When leaders are transparent and honest, organisations become stronger and greater trust is built within people and teams. From my experience, when this happens, teams begin to work together more closely to solve problems, and can make the most out of whatever comes next.
To kick off the HR and leadership series, we will be interviewing Nadine Blackie. Nadine is the Head of Talent Acquisition at Flare HR. She has over 10 years of experience in talent acquisition for high growth startups in the tech sector. She has built high-performance teams for venture-backed startups that have experienced rapid transformation […]