Open Journal- July Update

It's with great excitement (and very high levels of anxiety) that I announce the start of our commitment at Open Org to drinking our own champagne, and openly sharing our journey as we embark on a mission to rebuild the bridge of trust between employers and employees across the globe.

This is going to be a monthly update from me and the team at Open Org, with no other agenda other than wanting to openly share our wins, f*ck ups, and learnings with others.

This first edition will be slightly longer but the plan is that future monthly newsletters will follow the below format:

?? What's happened at Open Org this month?

?? The Wins

?? The F*ck Ups

?? The Learns

?? The Thank You's

I have to admit, one of the reasons I have held off launching a newsletter is because of my own lack of engagement with newsletters I have previously subscribed to. So true to our own values and advice, I want to start this first edition by making a clear effort to both attract, and repel subscribers.

Open Org is bootstrapped. We have no investors. We have no need to provide investor updates. But we do know there are people out there who are invested in, and aligned to our mission. So these updates are for you ?. You are our investors.

? Follow and subscribe to this newsletter if you:

• Are passionate about building better workplaces
• Believe in transparency as the best way to build trust
• Are a 'People' professional who wants to improve employee-employer trust
• Are a Founder who wants to follow another Founders journey; the ups, downs, learnings...

? Dont subscribe to this if you:

• Have no interest in hearing the ramblings of a tired dad of 2 (almost 3) who is trying to change the world of work
• Don't believe that transparency can improve workplace culture
• Don't believe in Open Org's mission

Hopefully that helps a few of you decide whether to stick along for the ride or not. Although I do appreciate I am now probably typing words to an audience of 1 (thanks Dad).

So, What is Open Org?

I won't talk about this every time but given this is the first edition of my newsletter it feels right to give a quick 2-3 sentence overview.

Open Org's mission is to rebuild the bridge of trust between employers and employee's by helping companies lead with transparency when they attract, hire and retain talent.

We do two things...

We?help companies become more?transparent, trusted employers?through a programme and framework inspired by some amazing companies like Gitlab, Remote and Buffer to name a few.?

We?also act as an official verifier of transparency in these workplaces, providing Open Org accreditation to help employers showcase and celebrate that transparency but also build trust with talent when hiring.

?? Ok, what's been happening in July?

This was my first month full-time on Open Org after juggling some paid projects with a few clients, and whilst stepping away from paid work was a little anxiety inducing, it's really felt worth it- we've gotten so much done.

?? Cohort's - getting ourselves ready for our first ever People Leader cohort, which starts on 12th Sept. We've built out (and continue to build out) an incredible notion hub to house case studies, resources, templates, guidance, and a partner network of expert consultants to help people leaders on topics around compensation, diversity, career development and more.

We've partnered with some very cool platforms in the HR Tech space to try and make sure we can give People Leaders discounted access to the tech they need to help them get their business 'transparency ready'.

?? PR - I classify myself as a reluctant extrovert. Nevertheless I've made an effort to get myself out there on social media and have been honoured to be invited to be a guest on a heap of podcasts and webinars in the last month. Thank you to Ashby , EquityPeople , Luke O'Mahoney , Escape the City , Martin Alderg?rd and Dr. Gerrit Pelzer at Second Crack. It's been fun and look forward to some of these in the coming months! ... Not perfect that these all coincided with me having a chest infection and horrendous cough for the entirety of July though ??.

?? Business Development- We've found a lot of success through consistent LinkedIn posts, trying to focus on just creating and providing people with genuinely useful content rather than generic salesy DM's that get lost in inboxes.

I've spent time chatting to leaders at B-Corp certified businesses, or companies who have already open-sourced employee handbooks, or taken steps towards things like salary transparency. It's definitely helped to try and focus attention on companies that are already aligned to our own mission.

As it stands we have a good handful of companies lined up for our first cohort in September (More spaces available for anyone interested though ??).

?? Branding - We've put a heap of effort into the content and messaging on our site, but 'transparency' is a tough subject to describe and articulate. We threw our MVP out there and it's seemingly done 'OK' but I took to my network of People Leaders recently and am working through 750+ 1st degree UK connections in the people world to ask for some candid feedback. Top recurring themes were:

• You need some case studies / logos (Working on it! Should have these in Aug/Sept)
• You need more information about your assessment. What do you assess, and where
• What are the benefits?

So we've taken this away and will be working in August on refining the site and the messaging around that.

?? Wins

• We have our first 10 or so Open Orgs to verify & accredit in Aug/Sept
• We created a free employer handbook template which we shared on LinkedIn that went viral! The handbook has already had over 8000 views, and I've spoken to 5 companies since who have used this to create their own handbooks! ??
• We passed our first 1000 followers on our LinkedIn Page

?? F*ck Ups

• We wasted some cash (not heaps) on some LinkedIn advertising, which we then paused, so we can take stock and re-think our approach
• We attempted to trial a Slack channel as a Project Management tool (don't advise it).
• I sent a follow up email to a prospect, and their company name was very similar to one I had just emailed. I got the names wrong, apologised, held my hands up. Moved on. Never feels great!

??Lessons Learned

• I've spent waaay too much time getting sucked into LinkedIn posts, and comments at the wrong times. The time spent on this is valuable, but I've not been careful enough to ringfence time to focus on this, which has made me feel pretty unproductive at times. I've very quickly however managed to get some organisation and structure into my days which has helped no end.

?? Thank You's

Long list of thank you's this month and super sorry if I have left anyone out unintentionally (I've tried my best!)... Pat Caldwell , Alistair Fraser , Tamas Varkonyi , Hannah Francis , Sam Ross , Pavania Naidu , ?? Charlie Hunt , Alex Hilleary , Jessica Z. , Maddy Edmondson , Bryan Adams , Mariya Hristova Assoc CIPD , Roos Takken , Shajed Rahman , Ally Jones , Siobhan McKeown , Dan Hully , Antje Mertz , Anisa Aksar Assoc CIPD , Ben Bushby , Halina Wiktor , Miriam Kerbache , Ben Chatfield , Lyndsey Pitt

Thank you. We appreciate you ?