Portfolio
Onboarding
Shopify Plus Walkthrough
The Problem: Shopify was growing dizzyingly quickly, nearly doubling in size each year. Cohorts of new employees were beginning biweekly, and needed to be impactful as quickly as possible.
The Solution: Build out a comprehensive onboarding program, reaching back to the first employee touchpoints, through to their first days, continuing with check-ins through 30/60/90 days.
The Results: Decreased time to first Pull-Request by 25 days (36%) and an average increase of almost two years in employee retention.
Leadership Development
Core Leadership Intensive Program
The Problem: Internal pulse results revealed that frontline managers were struggling and employee engagement was flagging.
The Solution: Build out a leadership program for front line leads, including biweekly peer groups, 360-feedback coaching, and a culminating gathering to cement learnings.
The Results: 90% participant satisfaction; 6% average improvement in participants’ 360-feedback scores
People Strategy
Shopify Bursts
The Problem: In response to COVID, Shopify quickly announced it would close its offices permanently and become a Digital by Design organization. Teams could collaborate virtually, but had no obvious in-person opportunities.
The Solution: Develop a strategy around bringing teams together, at the right time, for the right combination of projects and trust-building.
The Result: Produced playbook used by 1K+ managers, reaching 10K+ employees, resulting in 400+ unique events to drive alignment and accelerate product development.
Empmloyee Engagement
The Burn Box
The Problem: In May 2023, Shopify completed its second mass reduction in force in less than a year. A week later, 80 of the most senior leaders were gathered for a strategy session that had been planned months in advance. Every one of them had laid good people off and emotions were very raw.
The Solution: Design an activity for leaders to purge their frustrations. The Burn Box was an opportunity to secretly write anything that would prevent them from doing their best work, and I promised to burn the box at the end of the week.
The Result: 85% participation rate, over 50 direct messages expressing deep gratitude, and shared widely with the company to allow other employees to engage, who hadn't been at the leadership strategy summit.
Team Connection
Camp Core
The Problem: In an organization of 1300+ RnD professionals, most employees had spent no time together to build understanding, empathy, and trust.
The Solution: Design a series of 120-person gatherings in an idyllic mountain setting outside Seattle, WA. Leaders gathered for a 1-day summit before the rest of their team joined for another 2 days of activities to foster alignment and collaboration.
The Result: >80% participation rate (1125 people over 9 events), 98% satisfaction rate, decrease in regrettable attrition in the following 6 months.
