HR - A Catalyst for Growth!

It's clear that Andrea has a profound love for her work, with a particular passion for developing HR departments. She dedicated eight years of her career to building the HR department at Plantvision from scratch, a stable company that was ranked as one of "Sweden's Best Workplaces" by the Great Place to Work Foundation in 2023. Now, she has embraced a new challenge at Enerpoly, an up-and-coming scale-up company focused on developing and producing zinc-ion batteries for stationary energy storage.

Andrea shares her enthusiasm:

"It was time for something new, and indeed it is new! Being one of the first 15 employees at Enerpoly feels amazing and is incredibly fun."

A catalyst for growth

Investing in an HR system for a smaller company can be challenging, but Andrea was convinced it was the perfect time as Enerpoly was on the brink of a significant growth journey.

"I was well aware that the ROI on an HR system doesn't really pay off until a company reaches around 50 employees. That's when you truly start to see the value of the system. But I wanted to have system support before we reached that point," Andrea explains. "I aimed to establish efficient processes, routines, and communication channels right from the start within a system, making HR a true catalyst for growth."

Thorough research leads to Hailey, again

Although Andrea had previous experience with Hailey, she made a solid business case to find the HR system that best suited Enerpoly.

"After a detailed requirements analysis, I carried out a market analysis to choose the right system for us. We didn't choose Hailey just because I had previous experience with it, although knowing the system was an advantage. Ultimately, we selected Hailey for its flexibility in workflows, hiring process, and user-friendliness," Andrea explains.

Scaling the right way - an agile approach

As mentioned, Andrea worked with the system to build processes from the ground up, instead of retrofitting existing practices.

"I built the processes directly in Hailey, documented them, and then rolled them out across the organization as they were finalized. In a growth journey, we need to be agile and quickly respond to what the organization needs. One of my requirements for the HR system was that it needed to be scalable and flexible, to support us through all the changes that accompany such a journey."

Scalability also applies to the selection of additional services, as Andrea explains:

"Rarely does one system suffice for everything we do in HR. As the HR function scales up with the company, the auxiliary systems I'm considering need to be able to integrate with Hailey, so we can keep master data in one place. This will be an exciting puzzle to solve moving forward, with Hailey, of course. The possibilities that come with all the new technology today make the work completely different compared to building an HR function eight years ago."

In a growth journey - dare to try!

Andrea emphasizes the importance of being open to testing new ideas and processes.

"It's good to challenge what you initially think you need, simply because it's how things have always been done. Dare to try and see! A company in growth has one need today – and a completely different one in six months."

A final piece of advice from Andrea to her industry colleagues:

"Stay close to the business and understand what it needs now, but also what it will need in the future – and build accordingly. My approach is to always ensure basic processes are in place to support the business, and then we develop everything else as we go," Andrea concludes with a smile.