The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the way we live and work. Hamish Forsyth caught up with Sean Kelly, Founder and CEO of Caroo.com (formerly SnackNation), to discuss how leaning into the entrepreneurial mindset and embracing employee experience personalisation set Caroo on a new path to success. 

As a two-time Inc 500-listed entrepreneur, Sean’s reputation precedes him. He has been recognised as one of America’s most promising CEOs under 35, and listed as one of the top 25 young entrepreneurs by Business Week, Generation Next, and Entrepreneurs from CNN. It is always a pleasure to work with him as part of OneLeap’s entrepreneur community, tackling bold corporate innovation challenges across the US and Europe.

MOVING FROM SNACKS TO ALL ROUND CARE

One of the most systemic challenges the pandemic presented to businesses was the war on talent - the steady lowering of moving costs, making talent retention all the more difficult. Caroo seeks to counteract this by delivering recurring and continuous employee care.

Formerly SnackNation, Caroo’s business model was predominately focussed on office-based workers. However, when the pandemic struck and full companies were forced to work from home, necessity became the mother of their invention. They found ‘unmined gold’ by truly meeting a customer need: SnackNation’s audience were not purchasing just snacks, they were investing in all-round employee care.

“It's around making people happier, more engaged, more productive, giving them energy. And we recognized that people don't care whether it's in the office or somewhere else.”

FOCUSING ON THE ENTIRE HUMAN

Despite HR conferences throughout the 2010’s touting the idea of treating employees as unique individuals, this practice was not readily adopted by companies before COVID. There was a general acceptance that if you were working, you were sacrificing something else – your child’s Sports Day, a friend’s birthday party – life moments that accumulate over time. For CEOs, it can be difficult to acknowledge that your most productive, or ‘best’ people are often those in the office the longest. However, employee expectations have now changed. We have all had more time at home, presenting a unique opportunity to re-evaluate our personal lives, and how this integrates with our working lives.

“Now we can say, ‘What is best for my company in order for us and our teams to do the best work of their lives, but also what's best for the individual?’”

This comes down to two fundamental shifts – an expectation of personalisation, and a greater need for empathy. The pandemic has caused the personalisation of everything, and employers must adapt to understand and respect individualism to win the talent race. Looking at employee needs through a customer lens can help with this transition.

“We're no longer going to feel this dearth of connection because presence doesn't equal connection.”

Some team members will continue to embrace remote or hybrid working, and others will not. It’s up to the employer to implement working practices and to develop capabilities that allow employees to connect, wherever they are.

EMBRACING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET 

For leaders looking to spot reset opportunities, knowing where to begin can be challenging. Caroo’s trick has been to embrace curiosity and start experimenting, rapidly. Leaders do not need to have the answer every time: The companies that do the best are not the ones with one brilliant idea that they commit to, they’re the companies that use data and experimentation to guide their decision-making.

The best place to start is with your team, and by asking plenty of questions. Do you want to focus internally on HR and culture, or perhaps externally on customers? Create an experimentation log (separate to individual’s objectives and KPIs), with at least one OKR per team focussed on experimentation. The goal of this is to be more robotic and remove the emotional risk around trying new things. The goal is not to gain points for success, but to encourage people to prove something different.

“You don't get points for conviction, you don't get points for right…Just understand that if you get through that testing methodology, you're going to iterate so fast that you're going to crush the competition and provide wonderful value for your employees and customers.”

Following Reid Hoffman’s philosophy, sometimes you need to do things that don’t scale so that you can iterate faster and learn quicker.

Top Takeaways for Leaders and HR Managers

1. Use this unique chance to have a different perspective on your mindset and empathy. Be deliberate with these moving forwards.

2. Employee expectations have changed, and this is just as important when looking at your applicant experience, as it is your employee lifecycle.

   Ask yourself these questions, and design experiences to match:

   • How am I connecting with my employees, wherever they are?

   • What do they care about?

   • How am I personalizing for them?

3. Push yourself as a manager to understand that there is huge benefit in letting people live the life that they want, whilst working for you. This will fuel your retention and build a much better work culture for everyone.

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