Case Study: Plugable Technologies
An established electronics company recreates its employee experience, lowers turnover, and continues to achieve sustainable growth.
Challenges:
Ad-hoc people practices that lacked a foundation
Global HR requirements with employees in Canada
Difficulty attracting top talent
Turnover that was costing money
Objective
In 2019, when we began our engagement, Plugable was already an established electronics company who had been making successful products for ten years. They were Founder-led and had some basic people practices, but were approaching 30 employees and needed to build a strong people foundation. Turnover was becoming a problem and leadership wanted to create a better employee experience. Swift HR Solutions was recommended by another service provider of Plugable, and we began our engagement at one day per week.
Solutions
Our Consultant began by doing an HR Assessment to get to know the existing practices, business strategy and key players. She gained an understanding of the current culture and also the desired culture. From there she worked with Founder/CEO Bernie Thompson to set priorities from the identified areas for improvement.
“We really recreated the end to end employee experience" she recalls, "and it was done in a strategic, thoughtful, collaborative way that was culturally appropriate for them. I was able to show the CEO that there is a different way of doing HR, and it can be so much more than just compliance."
With HR taken care of, the CEO had the space to think about what was next for Plugable and determine who in the company was ready to take on more responsibility. As our Consultant implemented the key pieces from the assessment, she acted as a strategic advisor to the leadership team. When the company needed to add people from outside, she brought in SwiftTalent™ consultants to recruit them. She also utilized SwiftLeadership® workshops to train company leaders. As the company grew, our Consultant worked with the executives on organizational design to support that continued growth. Adding in a layer of middle management provided additional guidance to the employees and freed up the CEO to focus on strategic thinking and overarching initiatives. In 2021, three years into our engagement, Bernie moved into a CTO role and our consultant worked closely with him to bring in a new CEO, Lynn Smurthwaite-Murphy. Around that time it made sense to transition the HR responsibilities to an internal HR Manager, and our Consultant played a key role in onboarding and integrating this new manager. After a few months, however, Lynn decided that she missed the strategic HR element and re-engaged with Swift HR Solutions. Because Lynn really values continuous learning, she needed someone experienced enough to develop the programs, resources, and paths to support continual growth. Their new Swift HR Consultant has been supporting Plugable two days per week since 2022 and truly enjoys the partnership. Together, they do regular employee surveys and take action from what they learn. The leaders indicated that they wanted more development so our Consultant has been facilitating training from the SwiftLeadership® Cafe since early 2023.
Our Consultant remarked, "Lynn is a fabulous CEO. She has such a rigor around ensuring there is a clear vision. I feel privileged to work with her and implement tools and processes to help Plugable maintain their industry leading employee experience."
In 2022, our Consultant helped Plugable open a Canada office. Today, they are one of the top five brands globally for docking stations. They have over 57 employees and their competitive advantage is their customer support, so employees are key to their success!
Results
Lower turnover: With an agile and flexible employee experience foundation, they are now able to keep people and valuable product expertise.
Renewed focus on strategy: By building in a level of management underneath the CEO that wasn't there before, top leadership was freed up to think strategically.
Developing and hiring top talent: The company now has resources in place for supporting continual growth of employees, and a robust total compensation structure so they are competitive in hiring.
Employee Connection: As the company grows globally, employees are able to feel connected through regular employee events and advanced communication tools.