Kick-starting strategic Learning and Development in a hyper growth startup in niche technology
Lyytinen, Sanni (2021)
Lyytinen, Sanni
2021
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2021113022628
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2021113022628
Tiivistelmä
In the world that changing more and more rapidly, Learning and Development – a coordinated response to change – is a crucial priority for any organization that desires to exist also in the future. However, for Flowhaven Oy, the commissioning party for this thesis, there is also another driver for strategic Learning and Development (L&D): Flowhaven is operating in the niche business field of brand licensing, which means that there are limits to how much talent with industry experience Flowhaven can find from the job market. Therefore, growing talent internally, and aiming at high levels of retention, are key strategies for Flowhaven Human Resources (HR).
Combining this niche industry with operating in technology, where the talent war is on, has its challenges. In addition to the ‘technology plus licensing’ combo, Flowhaven needs talent that is skilled on Account Management (or Customer Success). This ‘triple niche’ can present quite the bottle neck for Flowhaven growth if not addressed accordingly by company leadership. To help solve this problem, the objective of this thesis is to kick-start strategic L&D efforts, starting with Customer Success as a piloting unit.
The selected research approach is service design for HR. Service design is traditionally known as a customer-oriented approach for product and service development. In the context of this thesis, the commissioning party is the customer, and its employees are the end-users. Service design is a highly collaborative and pragmatic approach to innovative improvement, and therefore a good fit for developing new HR structure for this young and agile hyper-growth startup, where high-quality employee experience is a must.
Final outcomes include an analysis of the current status of HRM as well as an analysis of the current status of L&D, and thus establish a good understanding of the starting point for strategic L&D. As a third outcome, a short-term strategy was created to kick- start the L&D efforts. Three additional outcomes were developed including processes for Flowhaven L&D, competence-building programs and templates for building learning paths and career path examples.
The expected outcomes were achieved, and according to the feedback, the project had a great impact on creating much needed L&D structure inside the company.
Combining this niche industry with operating in technology, where the talent war is on, has its challenges. In addition to the ‘technology plus licensing’ combo, Flowhaven needs talent that is skilled on Account Management (or Customer Success). This ‘triple niche’ can present quite the bottle neck for Flowhaven growth if not addressed accordingly by company leadership. To help solve this problem, the objective of this thesis is to kick-start strategic L&D efforts, starting with Customer Success as a piloting unit.
The selected research approach is service design for HR. Service design is traditionally known as a customer-oriented approach for product and service development. In the context of this thesis, the commissioning party is the customer, and its employees are the end-users. Service design is a highly collaborative and pragmatic approach to innovative improvement, and therefore a good fit for developing new HR structure for this young and agile hyper-growth startup, where high-quality employee experience is a must.
Final outcomes include an analysis of the current status of HRM as well as an analysis of the current status of L&D, and thus establish a good understanding of the starting point for strategic L&D. As a third outcome, a short-term strategy was created to kick- start the L&D efforts. Three additional outcomes were developed including processes for Flowhaven L&D, competence-building programs and templates for building learning paths and career path examples.
The expected outcomes were achieved, and according to the feedback, the project had a great impact on creating much needed L&D structure inside the company.