When I joined Granton as an HR, Marketing and development assistant, the role came with a huge advantage but also a disadvantage because I had an opportunity to create company’s back-office from the ground. The advantage was that I could set up my own system and didn’t have to adjust to anything. On the other hand, I needed to quickly get my head around the company’s needs without anyone spending more time with me. Let me show you closely 5 areas of Granton’s back-office and its transformation from a few men show to the growing company of today.
HR
HR simply was non-existent. Honza (our CEO) was doing it all including filing which meant unfortunately that few documents ended up in an imaginary binder called untraceable. Currently we have a fully functioning HR run by three people, binders are real and full of documents and in general we manage everything regarding Employer- Employee or Granton- contractor relationship. We do know all too well, that our employees and contractors aren’t just documents that needs to be filed, we carry evidence of all birthdays and come up with various workshops and teambuilding events for them and all of us. Some events were of course happening B.B. (before Bara), but nowadays it is bit more elaborative and complex as the company grows and there is usually twenty of us.
Recruiting
Recruiting of new people used to happen the way that we just used the network of already hooked colleagues and based on their reference we were hiring the new ones. Now we are a team of almost five brave recruiters. We professionalized and unified the process of looking for new candidates and the whole recruiting itself actually. Apart LinkedIn we have also created a profile at Welcome to the jungle platform and have been actively looking for new possibilities how to expand.
Finance
There was one excel spreadsheet were all the financial transactions were noted down. Invoices past their due date were chased up by Honza based only on the feeling that more money were outgoing rather than incoming. I took over the financing/invoicing and have started to register the due dates, filing, booking sheets of consultants or their timesheets. Apart that we have expanded the filing of the invoices to more levels – for example we created managerial accounting which didn’t exist prior to that.
Office management
Honza was originally taking care of running the office. If he needed something he just went and bought it. Well, it still kind of works like that now but either I or the HR girls go and buy it. We like to keep our office in condition that people enjoy coming here and that they have everything they need for work handy. The longest HDMI cable that exists? After short debate they were happy with just 3m long one, but surely, we could get it if they insisted.
Office
Our office as such was at Budejovicka, but it was mainly me who was coming there. As Granton was growing, we needed to find a bigger space, for a moment we were thinking of renting or buying an apartment. But at the end the option of an office with maintenance and reception won. Nowadays, we have regularly occupied four tables with monitors and slowly it is not being enough. But for sure it is a good tactic how to make people to come to work early enough. Who comes first gets the monitor.
There has been of course so many more changes in the firm but someone else more suitable might tell you about those in the near future 😊
PS: And just to make it clear that it wasn’t me who came to Granton and saved it all; it all happened in cooperation with my talented colleagues that I call friends now too. ❤️
