Overview
In August 2023, Nivoda, a rapidly growing B2B diamond and jewellery marketplace, had 230 employees and a dedicated talent acquisition team of 11. Despite their success in scaling their workforce, the company lacked formalised People Operations and strategic HR support. As Nivoda entered hyper-growth, it became clear that to sustain this momentum, robust people infrastructures were necessary, and they didn’t have much time to implement it.
That’s when I joined Nivoda as Fractional Head of People, tasked with laying the foundations for a People Ops function that could support the company’s ambitious growth trajectory while ensuring employee engagement, operational efficiency, and scalability.
The Challenge
Nivoda’s headcount needed to match its expansion plan, which meant more than doubling the team to 500 employees globally within a year. At the same time, the People & Talent team was lean, with 11 team members focused on Talent Acquisition. As a result, the company faced several pressing People challenges:
Efficiency: The lack of standardised processes and effective tools led to inefficiencies, including operational rather than strategic onboarding that affected employees’ experience & time to productivity.
Infrastructure: Manual processes for hiring, onboarding, payroll, compliance and performance management were becoming unsustainable.
Team Structure: The lean nature of the team meant that Talent Acquisition specialists carried the burden of People Ops, making it difficult to have concerted effort on improving effectiveness at scale. The team operated as an administrative function rather than a strategic one.
Strategic Effort: The company needed a strategic roadmap to tackle its People challenges and operationalise key processes such as compensation, performance reviews, engagement surveys and subsequent analysis and action planning to support long-term goals.
“Steph has a remarkable knack for helping start-ups rethink their strategies and helping to guide them to innovate boldly while never losing sight of the most important factor: the people.”
-JP Smit, Head of Accounting
The Solution
To address these challenges, I focused on building scalable People Ops foundations through structural, technological, and cultural changes:
1. Implement an Effective HR Stack
HiBob to streamline HR admin
Ashby & Zinc to optimise recruitment workflows and practices.
Relaunched Culture Amp for engagement & performance management.
Ravio to drive structured and fair compensation practices
2. Restructure the the team along the three core pillars of Talent Acquisition, Growth Development and People Ops
3. Build Processes & Frameworks
Ensure Contracts compliance across regions to safeguard Nivoda
Standardise & updated the Employee Handbook as & when needed.
Build a competitive & transparent pay framework along with effective performance management cycles.
Streamline onboarding to ensure new hires are set up for success.
Establish a Career Framework to clarify growth opportunities & improve retention
4. Foster Employee Engagement by relaunching engagement surveys &
actionable feedback loops.
The Results
By December ‘24, Nivoda had scaled to 500 employees with a team of 11 people. Key results include:
Cost Saving: Scaleups of similar size have an average of 22 team members. Operating in a lean fashion saved Nivoda over £500,000.00 p.a. in headcount.
Operational Foundations for Scale: People systems & processes that support Nivoda’s ambitious IPO goals.
Improved Efficiency: Automated admin. tasks, increasing accuracy, saving an additional 22h of work per week or approximately £39,800.00 p.a.
Enhanced Employee Experience: A seamless onboarding, structured career paths & transparent compensation practices, improving overall productivity.
Effective People Team: A cohesive team structure that ensures accountability & alignment with business goals for better results.
The Future
Nivoda is now equipped to scale effectively, with the foundational systems necessary to meet its IPO goals. As they prepare for the next stage of their journey, the company has hired a VP of People to design a corporate people function, building on the frameworks and systems established during my tenure.