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Lauren Dick from Relier Group on how to train employees and build high-performance teams

We interviewed Lauren Dick, the founder and director of Relier Group. Lauren has over 10 years of experience working for Australian owned retail brands such as Kookai, Aje and Tigerlily. In her experience working as a national training and development manager for Tigerlily and a National Retail Manager at Aje, she was responsible for coaching and developing hundreds of individual sales associates all across Australia.

She has now launched her own business, Relier Group, which is a HR consultancy business with the goal of making enterprise training and recruitment accessible for all businesses. Lauren uses her skills to build bespoke training programs and talent acquisition programs which help her clients build high performance teams who achieve consistent business results.

What are the company values of Relier Group and how do you uphold these values?

Relier is a french word with an English translation which means to connect. Connection is my founding value and my two other values are community and communication. My goal is to help businesses connect with their staff so that they can generate customer loyalty, client loyalty, and employee engagement. The communication value is based on open, honest, transparent and kind communication.

The reason I started Relier is because not all companies can afford to have an in house training manager or an in house HR support, so I started Relier so that no business would have to miss out on the benefits that HR can establish between an employee and the business.

What are some things you’ve learned by working in HR?

One of the biggest things I’ve learned by working in HR is to get feedback from the staff who are customer-facing because they tend to understand the customer best. Some businesses make the mistake of making assumptions about what their customer wants when they are quite removed from their customers. A better strategy is to ask their customer-facing staff for feedback.

Another important lesson I’ve learned is to coach your team to make decisions for themselves. I’ve worked in roles where I would have 300 people reporting to me, so it would be impossible to dictate every decision everyone makes. Instead, I learned to coach my team into being autonomous.  By asking them the right questions which are thought-provoking and solution-focused. In the long term being able to coach people into making the right decisions instead of telling them what to do will mean you will develop a team of amazing leaders that are ready to take on new challenges.

Where do you go to learn?

I think that the best way to learn is to look at what other companies are doing well, what they’re not doing well, and then developing an innovative strategy based on that. I would probably say a lot of my learning is self driven and is about understanding the competitive climate.

How do you ensure that a new hire is a good fit for your clients?

In my experience with recruiting for large companies for several years, what I’ve learned is that the culture first approach gets the best outcome in the end. The culture first approach means that you hire people based on cultural fit first, rather than their technical skill. The reason why I use this approach is because I believe that the best outcomes don’t always come from the people who have the best technical skill. Culture fit is especially important in a client and customer facing role, because the employees are representing the brand to customers and clients in everything they do. In my experience, a culture fit is always more important than a skill fit because skill fit is easier to find.

What tips would you give someone who’s just starting out in HR?

In any HR role, you have to start by really mastering leadership and mastering people management. Theory can only teach you so much it really comes down to getting practical experience in leadership and management roles. In these roles you will be able to learn how to manage different personalities, learn how to be an effective communicator and how to take on feedback to give feedback.

Education comes next when you’re at the point where you do want to step into a generalist role or a HR specific role. However, experience comes first because it’s hard to give advice when you haven’t been in the situation yourself. That’s why it’s important to pick your field, get experience, lead people, become an amazing leader and then go from there.

What are some of the best things that you’ve learned about leadership?

I think good leadership starts with communication. One of the best things I’ve learned is how to communicate effectively and drive learning for different personality types. Learning that different people have different needs has been really beneficial for me.

I’ve learnt to tailor my communication based on the needs and innate motivations of each individual team member and this has certainly been fundamental to my success. For example, I consider who in my network is an intuitive leader, who is driven by analytics, who is driven by individual success, who is more driven by shared team successes and so on. This then determines how I lead, coach and personalise their training to optimise outcomes. Communicating differently with each personality type is a skill I’ve learnt through retail training courses and consistent applied practice throughout my entire career.

How do you lead, coach and strategise with clients to achieve great retention rates for them?

It depends on what service they need, whether it be hiring and performance advice or developing customer service models.

My approach is to collaborate with the entire team, get to know the customer and develop a model which is customised for them. This helps to improve the retention rates and get better results on the shop floor.

Adjusting the focus and roles of the team to ensure that the right people are in the right roles is also important. For example, moving team members to focus on KPIs or moving them from a KPIs focus to a networking focus. This process ensures that my clients can retain talent and save on costs associated with having to hire or train new employees.

How do you ensure that new hires of your clients have a great experience?

I work on the onboarding process for my clients as a first step. An example which comes to mind is when I developed a digital onboarding experience using Flare for one of my clients. This client was a holiday and travel business, so I developed an onboarding process which was aligned to their values. In this onboarding process, it would take new starters on a digital journey which was really unique to the client’s business. I believe that a new starter’s onboarding experience sets the tone for what they can expect on their first days at work.

Are there any final words you’d like to share with our audience?

The best thing you can do is communicate regularly with your team and lead with kindness. This can help you ensure that you are staying productive and working towards your goals.

Some businesses are afraid to share results with their team, however I believe that it’s important to educate your team on the results, why they’re important and how they can impact the business in a positive way. Showing your team that they are important and they can make an impact is my biggest tip.

Nadine Blackie from Flare on how to build high-performance teams and great company cultures

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 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.

What do you enjoy about working in Talent and HR?

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.

Where do you go to learn about HR and leadership?

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. 

What are some new ideas from other companies which have inspired you?

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. 

What is the culture like at Flare?

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.

What are Flare’s company values and how do you uphold these values?

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:

  • People first is a value that drives our decisions and creates a strong sense of community at Flare. We have a culture of people constantly looking out for one another and working together. We have an engaged and supportive team where people feel welcomed and have a safe place to show up as themselves.
  • Bat .400 is a value that encourages our team to swing the bat to achieve 10x growth, and at the same time, allows us to embrace failures as a part of the process. I played softball for a large part of my life, so the terminology resonates well with me, but for those who are unfamiliar, Bat .400 is a baseball term. If you have a batting average of .400, it would mean you have the highest batting average in the Hall of Fame. To get that high of an average, you’ve actually struck out or failed more times than you’ve had success.  The idea behind Bat .400 is how can we continue swinging the bat even if we might fail or have failed.  If you don’t step up to the plate, you’ll never hit that homerun.

What do you do in the recruitment process to ensure a candidate is a good fit?

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: 

  1. Understanding motivations. Understanding the motivations and ambitions of candidates can help us understand the type of learning and achievement that a person would need to be successful in a role. 
  2. Learning about their experience and way of thinking. We like to see people in action by giving them a technical challenge like a coding test or a specific challenge relating to a role. This helps us remove bias from the hiring decision and helps us see how people approach and perform the challenge. It also gives the candidate a good understanding of the types of challenges they could face in the role.
  3. Explore mutual fit. The final stage is diving deeper into getting to know the candidate and exploring a mutual fit. Interviewing is a two way street, so candidates are encouraged to ask just as many questions as we do in the process. Alongside the hiring team, we want candidates to have all their questions answered about starting a new adventure at Flare.

What is important for great leadership?

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. 

Where did you learn your leadership style from?

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.

What are some leadership strategies which work well for you?

  • Always being clear and consistent in communication, expectations, and showing up as yourself.
  • Being empathetic and objective while balancing the bigger picture and execution.
  • Being an open book and constantly evolving. Always asking for feedback, constantly learning and observing and comfortable admitting when you don’t know, but look for a plan to figure it out. 
  • Focus on the team. Giving them the space to create the norms and define how, when and where they work best.
  • Hiring up so you can surround yourself with the best team.
  • Empower your team to do their best work by removing any roadblocks. both current and in the future. While supporting them through the challenges and celebrating their wins.

How have you engaged employees during the COVID-19 pandemic?

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: 

  • Creating community Slack channels like lunch time workouts (#thegym) or grabbing an after work beverage (#palisadeshappyhour), which we see employees engage in regularly
  • Celebrating birthdays with gifts delivered to employees’ homes
  • Iterating our weekly all-hands meeting, so we have a format which supports our remote work structure
  • Setting a company-wide “no meeting policy” from 12-1pm to help promote this time to get away from computers, reset and take a break
  • Creating new initiatives and activities through our Vibe Team. Many fun and diverse ideas from this group have been implemented across Flare

How do you keep retention rates high at your company?

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.

How do you ensure new hires have a great onboarding experience?

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:

  • Use Flare to preboard and onboard new hires digitally. This gives our new hires a seamless way to auto-sign and complete employee documents (ie. employment contracts, policies, and bank, tax and super information) – no paperwork required. We also gather information to shape our employee’s first day experience. For example, on an employee’s first day, there are a series of personalised welcomes and things that happen to make it memorable
  • Send out an onboarding pack before someone starts
  • Welcome them on their first day with a hand written note from their manager, their favourite coffee and treat, and arm them with a prepaid coffee card to the neighbourhood cafe which allows them to treat and  get to know their new teammates
  • Set them up with a buddy,  so everyone has a go to person for questions, over lunch they will learn more about the company from a different perspective
  • Add them to the #newbies slack channel. The channel has resources like company acronyms, a map of where people sit, other helpful channels to join.  Plus, it’s a space to ask questions or see what’s already been asked  
  • Run induction sessions with different leaders within the business, so they can learn how the business operates, put faces to names, and better understand how their role impacts the bigger picture and mission at Flare

How do you promote employee wellbeing?

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. 

Any final advice you’d like to share with our audience about how to lead people better?

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.

LinkedIn’s Top Startups: Growing the team at Flare



LinkedIn has named Flare as one of the top startups to work for in 2019! We’re excited to be featured alongside so many fantastic local companies who are pushing the envelope with innovation, tech and – yes! – with culture.

The list went live just last week, and we feel it was a testament to who we are, what we believe, and how we work. As a company grows, it’s incredibly important to keep growing into and with your values, and we think this list is a great example of how Flare was able to do just that.

The past twelve months have been a transformative time for the team, and the accomplishments that we can put our names to have made every one of us prouder than ever to be here!

We have a really engaged culture here at Flare. We live by our People First value, we support each other, and we are building that rare mix of team, family and community. Our people get together for team outings, we celebrate our wins together every Friday, we share movie nights, grand finals, and family picnics.

It’s not just a place where we work – it’s a place where we belong.

…And the great part is, we’re growing fast and hiring!

We’re on the hunt for amazing candidates for roles across a number of teams including customer support, marketing, product, tech and sales. These are all roles that will allow you to have a deeply personal impact on the company’s mission, future and achievements throughout the next few years. If that’s a challenge that you’re up for, you’ll find a support network of professionals who will become more than just co-workers – they’ll be your fellow travellers on the Flare journey.

Flare’s Values…

People First

At Flare we put our people first, every time. We believe an employee centric focus will always result in better customer outcomes. 

Bat .400

Flare gives everyone the opportunity to swing the bat. We believe great things are only achieved when we promote an environment that encourages trying, even if you fail. 

Trust the Process

Flare understands that success and growth are not a straight line –  the path is more like a walk of discovery. 

Do the Right Thing

We empower our people to do the right thing when faced with conflict. We know that this yields long term success and sustainability. 

Act like an Owner

We encourage everyone to take responsibility for the company and the mission. This value is at the centre of our culture and our teamwork.


Check out our listings right here, and apply! https://lnkd.in/dPKvqWt

LinkedIn has named Flare as one of the top startups to work for in 2019! We’re excited to be featured alongside so many fantastic local companies who are pushing the envelope with innovation, tech and – yes! – with culture. The list went live just last week, and we feel it was a testament to […]