“It’s always been a balance between what’s right for the business and what’s gonna get our company from point A to point B. It’s also true that you are not gonna get your company from point A to point B if your people are not on board with you” – Olya Yakzhina, Head of People, Switchee speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.
As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success.
This week, we had a great conversation with Olya Yakzhina, who passionately juggles a multi-faceted career in people operations and HR. Olya is currently the Head of People at the IT Services and IT consulting firm Switchee, a member of the Leadership of the Slack community, People Stories, and is also the co-founder and podcaster of The Modern Employer Spotify Channel.
Olya’s range as an HR practitioner covers several fields, including recruitment, onboarding, learning and development, employee engagement and experience, employer branding and people strategy. She is a firm advocate that employees must be happy, fulfilled and well taken care of to be the best assets for the organization.
Can you tell us about your journey in pursuing a career in HR?
My psychology degree and my transformational coaching degree helped me understand how to get people comfortable in their own shoes and then how to get them from point A to point B. At that time, I was working in the operations department where I was writing processes, training manuals and coaching team members. Through this, my role evolved into Learning & Development, where I got to set up onboarding, close skill gaps and inspire a high-performance culture.
Learning & Development turned out to be a great stepping stone into the People function for me as I learned how to implement processes and policies, be the “change agent” and promote the culture of feedback. My next roles took me deeper into a more generalist People role, where I got to learn more aspects of the function.
What do you think is the biggest challenge you’ve encountered in your HR career?
– Within the talent acquisition space, I found it paramount to pay lots of attention to the people you bring on board. It’s people who make your culture and lead to it declining, surviving or thriving. Solid talent acquisition techniques such as educating interview hosts, producing great interview templates and carrying out culture fit interviews help with that.
– I’m very passionate about making sure that people feel happy and fulfilled at work. anything to do with employee experience and their satisfaction, but also happiness at work. My role is to ensure that any and all touchpoints and milestones they have with our organisation throughout their employee lifecycle are built to cater to all of the above.
– Inclusion & Diversity is one of my current focuses as well. This year we are dedicating a couple of quarters to realising some of our core beliefs and values when it comes to building a truly inclusive culture where people experience equity and belonging.
You are very passionate about fostering employee experience and happiness. How do you think that translates to the needs of the organization as a business?
You see lots of other companies doing certain things and you get inspired by that, and want to replicate that in your company. And I really feel that it’s the wrong approach. I feel that you can only do what’s best for your company by looking within your company and asking your people what’s best for them. You can’t do that by going online to look for 50 great ways to build a culture and then trying to replicate those ways in your company. That’s a lot of energy that could be wasted in vain, in my opinion.
I really am for asking people what they want and giving them plenty of opportunities to say their piece. I tend to try and involve them in shaping the company they work for. One example is our hybrid working setup. We asked people how they want to work in a hybrid environment. We gave them a few different ways to express their opinion. And then we did what they asked us. We tried it for six to nine months and then we asked them for feedback. They told us what works well, and what didn’t so we just changed it and its been working so well ever since! I truly believe in creating bespoke solutions for your people.
It’s always been a balance between what’s right for the business, what’s commercially important and what’s gonna get your company from point A to point B. But another side of it is that you are not gonna get your company from point A to point B if your people are not on board with you.
You can still do it. You can still have a very toxic culture and very unhappy people and still get results. But it might take you longer and everybody’s gonna be just stressed out and miserable in the process. It’s just emotionally draining to run a company like that for everyone involved. So why not start it right?
What do you think is the best advice you can give to other HR practitioners or those who want to start a career in this field?
Find a support network or a system of like-minded people who will be there to inspire you and who will be there to bounce ideas together with you. I think that there is true power in a support network and a support system of like-minded people around you. And I have grown personally so much from being able to run my podcast and meet people from the industry to learn about their approaches and the challenges they face.
It of course is still possible to grow from mentorship provided by your manager. However, when I found myself in a network of people like that, it just completely opened my eyes and invigorated me, even more, to keep being progressive in this space and to keep putting innovative processes into people operations.
That would be my best advice, to be open-minded and to find a support system. Like in any other part of our life, on a personal level, we need it on a professional level too. It’s all integrated as a part of how we live and what makes us human essentially.
Olya has been with Switchee since May 2020, when she started as a People Manager and eventually became its Head of People in May 2021. Her background in Psychology and a diploma in Transformational and Life Coaching have been such a great foundation for her chosen career path.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.