#ATP22: How not to F*CK up your Company’s Culture in your Early Days

Jonathan Hutchinson Updated: January 26, 2024

How you structure people operations departments and policies early on ensures success. Nora Jenkins Townson (Founder @ Bright + Early) – all for failing forward (and avoiding major f*ups) – walks us through how.

"Onboard employees like you're welcoming a customer. Our employees are going to have such an impact and should be treated like the VIPs they are."

Key takeaways from the session:

Have an exceptional careers page.
Use personas for different roles and have creative job postings.
Turnover may happen because employees think a certain policy or program doesn’t exist and leave instead of just requesting one.
You’re not measuring enough.
Measure application sources and diversity, candidate feedback, offer patterns, onboarding feedback, employee engagement, DEI statistics and patterns, performance patterns, manager effectiveness, and turnover patterns.
Steal from your design team and iterate.

About All Things People:

All Things People is Venture for Canada’s annual conference. The 2023 conference took place on April 4, 2023, at Toronto Metropolitan University, with the theme of unlocking the potential of multigenerational teams.

All Things People 2023 aimed to break down generational stereotypes and provide actionable insights or tools to managers and leaders through workshops, keynotes and stage talks. The conference featured 40+ industry speakers and experts, like Hamza Khan, Future of Work expert and author of Leadership, Reinvented, and Jenn Harper, Founder and CEO of Cheekbone Beauty.

The first All Things People was hosted virtually in March 2022, and had nearly 300 attendees. Focused on implementing diversity, equity and inclusion best practices at startups, over 40 speakers hosted workshops, keynotes and networking sessions.

To learn more, visit our All Things People website.

About Venture for Canada:

Venture for Canada is a national charity focused on accelerating the careers of Canadian youth through immersive opportunities at innovative startups and small businesses. Through our three core programs—Intrapreneurship, Internship, and Fellowship—young Canadians gain the skills, experience, and networks they need to lead more entrepreneurial and impactful careers. In 2022, Venture for Canada supported over 1,000 startups and small businesses across Canada to hire entrepreneurial young Canadians.

To learn more, read our 2022 Impact Report.