A People Club Case Study: proSapient
We often get asked by clients and interested parties “what is People Advisory?”, which is a valid question! So, with that in mind, we’ve put together a case study to cover some of the work we‘ve recently completed with one of our fantastic clients, proSapient.
Who are proSapient and what was the challenge?
proSapient is a rapidly growing, global company that introduced the first Primary Research platform into the expert networking industry. They are laser focused on the way their customers access critical knowledge and make better informed investment decisions, and they work with some of the biggest Management Consultancies and Private Equity firms on the planet.
proSapient was founded in 2017 and closed a Series A round of $10m in early 2021. With offices in London, Toronto, North Carolina, Ukraine and Moscow, and a growing headcount despite the COVID-19 pandemic, proSapient was a really intriguing project for People Club to take on.
We began the project with the scope of reducing staff turnover, improving company wide communication and building a “Manager Essentials” playbook and training programme. Exciting stuff!
Where did we start?
As with all of our projects, we like to lift the lid of the business and really understand its people, processes and past (as well as some ideas on the present and future). We spent 4 weeks talking to employees of all levels, tenure and experience, finding out what was great about proSapient, and any areas they thought we should focus on.
This process is always key to how we attack the project, and the information we gather during these calls and meetings are crucial.
We spoke with Board and C Suite Members, Investors, Management Teams across the business, new joiners, people who had been there from the start, those that opened new offices and the Co-Founders (and everyone else in between!). This process gave us a rich and deep insight into what makes proSapient, and its people, tick.
Part of why we do this is to ensure our clients are set up for growth. Do they have any major flaws in their teams or services? Are they missing a key hire or two? Are their processes fair and consistent?
This also gives us a clear picture of where to start, given each project typically takes 8–16 weeks to complete; we know from this moment on where we need to invest most of our time.
What we did next…
Our first port of call was to look at the Strategies and Structures of proSapient, as well as looking at the how, where and why of the Talent Attraction processes. We love spending time with the Founders as it gives us a real insight into how their businesses have gotten to this point, but also what they are planning next. This enables us to help them figure out what they expect from their people and culture as the business grows, but also helps them understand that environments change (especially with COVID!) during the same period, and with moves into new geographies.
After this we spend time observing team meetings and the odd 121 to understand how people communicate, set priorities and KPIs, and what they do to achieve them.
All of these meetings lead to a number of work streams; for proSapient and People Club this meant a number of things, including (but definitely not limited to!):
- a deep dive in High Potential employees, how we engage and develop them.
- An overhaul of the technology the business uses; automating and introducing cutting edge systems to enable better time and people management.
- Manager Development; a key focus area to enable us to build great teams and develop brilliant people.
- Internal Communication Reboot; Town Halls to 121s, performance sessions to individual development conversations.
- Learning & Development for all employees. From Excel training to intensive Manager Bootcamps, this was a big focus area.
- Building a best in class People Team, including a Chief People Officer.
We’re really pleased with how things turned out, and some of the key achievements are listed below. Alongside the measurable stuff, we were delighted with how engaged the proSapient team were throughout the project, and just how bought in the entire organisation was.
- We substantially grew the Global People & Talent team (3 > 13 colleagues), with a number of additional hires planned in 2022, and created a brand new Learning and Development Team.
- Employee turnover reduced considerably.
- Glassdoor reviews moved up from 3 out of 5 when we began our work in April 2021, to 4.3 out of 5 in November 2021. Huge improvements!
- We took 18 new managers through intensive one week “Manager Bootcamps” between June and August 2021, with extended sessions planned for December for 12 more managers.
- All Managers across the business have been through an interview training course to ensure proSapient’s interview process is as fair and consistent as possible.
- We helped reboot Communications at proSapient, from Manager 121’s to company wide updates.
- Kicked off Career Development Pathways, enabling proSapiens to understand where their careers can go. We also worked with the Client Services team to ensure all Managers understand how to help develop their staff, and also be rewarded in a more consistent manner.
- We increased the thoroughness of promotion panels and introduced a clear L&D path for successful and unsuccessful colleagues.
- Led the selection of a new HRIS and performance management system, and oversaw the implementation.
It’s always a really positive sign when a company engages People Club, as it shows they care about their people and the company culture, and proSapient perfectly demonstrated that.
We had an absolute blast working with proSapient and all of the proSapiens, we can’t believe it’s been a whole 9 months! Overall, we feel the collaboration was massively successful, and proSapient truly is a great place to work.
What did proSapient say about us?
“Jason and Mike from People Club have been instrumental in proSapient’s last 12 months of extraordinary growth and associated organisational change. Initially brought in as consultants to support us with culture and especially in designing and building the structure of our People teams, they became so much more.
Jason took the recommendations from their own report and really led from the front, even becoming our interim Chief People Officer for a period. He helped us deliver cultural change as we grew from 70 to over 200 people as well as recruiting leaders for both People Ops and L&D, and ultimately also a great Chief People Officer. I really respect consultants that don’t just advise but also deliver real change and that is very much the People Club ethos!”
Very kind words from Mike Wroe, proSapient’s Chairman.
If you’d like to learn more about People Club, you can visit us here or get in touch with us at info@peopleclub.co.uk.
