Strategic HR HR at WeWork
WeWork around the
corner from my house in
Amsterdam and I’d see
people happy, and dogs
running about, and there
was just this vibe. I
remember thinking ‘oh my
god that looks amazing’,”
she says.
Houston explains that
the community vibe
WeWork is renowned for
isn’t just for members but
runs through the internal
culture too. Part of this
comes down to the fact WeWork
employees work among members
in the co-working spaces,
encouraging the same networking
and collaboration between
members and employees as among
members, feels Houston.
“It’s not a member space and
then an employee space,” she says.
“It’s very much one community.”
Culture interviews
In true start-up fashion the two
founders used to interview every
prospective employee. It was
“difficult to tell founders that ‘we’re
now too big, you don’t have enough
hours in the day so you’re going to
have to just trust us’,” says Houston.
Part of the solution has been
“cross-functional interviews”.
“We get the leadership team to
nominate people in the business to
be our culture interviewers. So we
have a list of people who are
WeWork ambassadors,” she says.
“And we trust them with the most
valuable part of the hiring
process, which is the values
and culture piece. It’s more
important than the skills
part, more important than
being able to do the job.”
But new hires don’t have
to come from a start-up
background. “I didn’t,” says
Houston, who spent the
first 10 years of her career
in oil and gas where there
was “a lot of red tape”.
“You can come from a
mature company that’s
100 years old or from a one-person
start-up. Culture is something from
within, it’s about your behaviours
as a person .”
As well as culture interviews,
Houston has also implemented
the “power of veto” where her
recruiters can challenge and
overrule hiring decisions made by
managers if they feel an individual
is “not a culture add”.
Houston admits that “not
everyone will necessarily agree
with” this, but it has taken off
thanks to her function’s growing
credibility: “We’ve had to work
hard to build that trust.”
Data, tools and process
Data is one way trust has been
built. “In the past it was very much
people saying things like ‘I think we
don’t have enough candidates’,” she
says. “But now we can say ‘actually
the data is telling us you have
plenty of candidates but we’re too
slow to arrange a second interview
so that’s what we need to work on’.”
Houston has introduced tools to
help predict trends in hiring speed,
source of hire and blockers, as well
as playbooks for interviewers.
“It gives them autonomy and
that feeling of being an
entrepreneur. As instead of putting
red tape around them and saying
‘you can’t do this’ or ‘you have to
interview this way’, we’re saying: ‘if
that’s what you want to do then
perfect, here’s some tools to make it
successful’,” she explains.
The way the recruitment strategy
is presented to the business (or not
as the case may be) is important.
“I say the word ‘process’ and
people switch off but we need
processes in place,” says Houston.
“So we don’t call things a ‘process’
to the business. We’ll say ‘do you
want to hear what this manager
does differently that means they’re
able to find better talent or hire
someone twice as quickly?’ We
know there’s a process there and
steps being followed but they don’t
need to know that.”
It comes back to that balance
between start-up culture and
enough formal process to allow it
to scale. And if recent events are
anything to go by it’s certainly time
for WeWork to get this right.
As Houston says: “I’d liken it
to being a teenager. Your teenage
years are kind of painful. You’re
figuring out what’s right and
wrong, finding yourself and finding
what your brand is, and WeWork is
no different.” HR
WeWork
ambassadors assess
whether new hires
are a good cultural fit
You can
come from
a mature
company...
or from a
one-person
start-up.
Culture is
something
from within
30 HR November 2019 hrmagazine.co.uk
/hrmagazine.co.uk