How I switched from a corporate environment to working in a dynamic, agile company

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When I left Microsoft 3 years ago to take on a role in project and events management, my manager that time, Carol Mc Namara, told me that I will be back in human resources soon, because it's what I was born for. She was right. Now, 3 years later, I'm celebrating my first anniversary of working at Revolgy as a People Success Manager, and a proud member of the People Success team. You may ask what brought me back to HR? And what is a girl like me doing in a company selling cloud services?

First of all I must admit that coming back to HR wasn't part of my plan. HR can be challenging. You try your best to be the voice of the people in the company and often you aren't being heard. Sometimes you're forced to put business interest first before the interest of the employees. And when it comes to working with people, you have to have the nerves of steel to deal with all the complaints. When something goes wrong and people are dissatisfied HR is usually blamed first.

But when I received a call from Revolgy's headhunter to apply for a position in the People Success team, and went through the hiring process, I just couldn't say no.

Upon my first visit to the Prague office I couldn't help but be moved with the overwhelming positive vibe. The hiring process itself was a bit longer, but I didn't mind that. I was really glad to get an opportunity to meet my whole future team - Bára, Helča, Terka and JJ - even before I was hired, and before I spoke with our CEO, Mirek. It gave me a chance to ask questions that were important to me about the company's values and mission, how people work and what Revolgy's culture is like. It also allowed us all to align our expectations better. When I was offered the job a few days later, I didn't hesitate a second and said yes straight away.

I believe that in order to grow both as a professional and human being, it is important to stop once in a while to do a recap of the period that passed. Evaluate all the successes and failures and make a note of important learnings for the future.

Over the past year there's good and bad days. Some of them were quite tough and I shed a tear here and there. But those are growing pains. They help me become the best version of myself and an even better colleague, who brings real value to the people and an environment I choose to be part of.

Life at Revolgy can sometimes seem a bit chaotic. Some decisions take a long time to be made. I also usually work on several topics simultaneously and have to learn new skills on the go. It's not for everybody. But my efforts are rewarded with the ability to actively participate in building new things from scratch, improving processes and inventing new approaches. I can clearly see that I can actually make a difference. There's no comparison to working in a large corporation, where I could only dream about this kind of agility. Don't get me wrong. I'm really grateful for the time I spent at Škoda Auto, or Microsoft. I learnt so much that I'm now building on!

At Revolgy though, I found my place. I'm a part of a super smart, curious, enthusiastic and inspiring bunch. I have the freedom to work on almost any new idea as long as it is in line with the company's vision and overall strategy. Sometimes it's difficult to keep the growth mindset, simply because there's just too many ideas we want to explore, and not enough time for execution, or a clear ownership might be missing. But I know that whenever I need advice, I can always pick up the phone and call our founder, Bob or our CEO, Mirek. They're always happy to share their thoughts on the matter and help where they can. My teammates JJ, Helča, Terka and Bára are always there for me to brainstorm ideas and lend a helping hand. I can openly talk to anyone within the company and I am being heard. Also, as long as I'm bringing results, no one cares where I work from and how I manage my time.

Thanks Revolgy for taking me on this joyride. :)

So, what happened during the past year from the HR perspective?

  • I saw 407 profiles of interesting candidates, who wanted to join Revolgy.
  • 26 great people joined Revolgy and became one of us.
  • There are currently 61 full-time Revolgians, more than 10 people cooperating with us on a regular basis, across 9 different countries in Europe.
  • 25 % of those are women
  • Some successful people left, some new talents will be joining us soon.
  • Sandberg Capital invested in Revolgy. That opens new doors for us for development, fresh ideas, networking and mentoring.
  • The whole company seamlessly switched to a remote-first approach.
  • We managed to do a complete online team building with positive feedback. But we still hope that in 2021 we'll be able to meet in person on an offline retreat.
  • We all managed to keep a stable job during the difficult times of Covid. Thanks for that.

And what's ahead of us now? A long journey, as there's always space for improvements. Some of the projects I'll be working on are: people development, Revolgy academy, performance monitoring, employer branding, and many more. But as long as I can contribute, I feel honoured and humbled to stay aboard.