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📋 5-3-1 — 5 Culture Plays from 5 People Leaders, 3 Playbooks, 1 Follow the Five
Most of what we write about comes from big names with big people teams. A lot of you work somewhere else: a few hundred people, and a people team of one or two. The CIPD's Good Work Index 2026 found that 38% of employees at UK organisations with fewer than 50 staff have no voice channel at work at all, not even a team meeting or a one to one with their manager. At organisations with 250 or more, it's 9%.
So this week we dropped the guest and the live episode and went looking for people leaders at mid-sized organisations whose work you could copy on Monday. Five of them, one each from Canada, the UK, Australia, the US and Malaysia. A Canadian HR chief who asked every employee to help define the culture after a spin-off. A UK grower where average tenure is reported to have risen from 1.8 years to nearly 3. A Sydney events firm that redesigned a new hire's first twelve weeks. A US engineering firm with a yearly dream sheet. A Penang clinic group that says development shouldn't belong to HR alone.
A few things to know before you read. We haven't spoken to any of the five for this issue, everything here comes from public sources such as award write-ups, trade press and company releases. Most of the results are reported by the organisations themselves, so read them as what each one says it's seeing and not as independent proof. Where a source gives no results, we say so.
Welcome to the nineteenth issue of The Work Life Reporter. This week you get:
5x Culture Plays from five people leaders in Canada, the UK, Australia, the US and Malaysia
3x Micro-Playbooks on the first twelve weeks, who gets a voice, and who owns development
1x Follow the Five: who they are and where to find them on LinkedIn
1x Reader poll: last week's result and one new question
Let’s get into it.
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THE FIVE CULTURE PLAYS
Play 01
Martin Vermette Asked Every Employee at Yoplait Liberté Canada to Help Define Its Culture After a Spin-Off
In January 2025 Yoplait Liberté Canada, which makes yogurt for the Canadian market and has about 420 employees, was spun off from General Mills. The separation brought a string of big projects at once: the carve-out itself, a new SAP system and moving employees across from General Mills to the new company. Martin Vermette, the vice-president of HR and communications, led HR through all of it.
Alongside the logistics, the company ran a culture workshop that involved every employee in defining its values and its culture. "We defined the employee culture, the company values with all of the employees," Vermette said. At the 2026 Canadian HR Awards, less than two years into life as a standalone company, it won both HR Communication and Change Strategy and HR Team Performance for organisations with fewer than 500 employees. What we can't tell you is how the workshop worked or what it changed. The write-up we read gives no engagement or turnover figures, so treat it as a method worth trying and not a proven result.
When a lot is changing at once, people accept more of it if they helped write the new parts. Let them define the values, not just receive them.
TEMPLATE: THE WRITE IT TOGETHER WORKSHOP
| The Write It Together Workshop 1. Pick the one thing that is actually open, such as values, team norms or the new working rules. Say what is already decided, so nobody wastes time arguing about it. 2. Run the same session for every team, in the same format, with managers in the room but not leading it. 3. Ask two questions: what do we want to keep, and what should we stop doing? 4. Publish what you heard within two weeks, including what you won't act on and why. 5. Check back in three months. Which of the written values did people actually see someone act on? |
Play 02
Kathryn Allen Gave Every New Starter at DGM Growers a Buddy and a Care Profile. Average Tenure Rose From 1.8 Years to Nearly 3
DGM Growers, a vegetable grower in Holbeach, Lincolnshire that is part of Fresca Group, won SME of the Year at the 2026 British HR Awards. Kathryn Allen, its Head of People, joined nearly four years ago as the first on-site HR professional. New starters get a clearly identifiable buddy, and each one completes a care profile with prompts such as "When I'm under pressure, it looks like this." Mental Health First Aiders hold the conversation, and HR gives managers a summary of the key points. Allen said, "People will easily leave a business, but they'll stay for the people."
The money side is practical too. Under Your Pay, Your Way, staff can get part of their salary mid-month during tough months, and there's school uniform support and help with debt. The awards write-up reports 93% participation in the employee survey, average tenure up from 1.8 years to nearly 3, total absences down 5% year on year and mental health related absences down 95%. These come from DGM's own award entry and give no base numbers, and several things changed together, so we can't say which one did the work. The write-up also gives no headcount.
A buddy shows a new starter where things are. A care profile shows their manager what pressure looks like for that person. Do both before anything goes wrong.
TEMPLATE: THE DAY ONE CARE PROFILE
| The Day One Care Profile 1. Write three or four sentence starters, such as "When I'm under pressure, it looks like this" and "The best way to support me is". 2. Let the new starter fill it in alone and choose who talks it through with them. 3. Give their manager a short summary of the key points, agreed with the starter first. 4. Pair every starter with a named buddy who isn't their manager, for the first twelve weeks. 5. Review it in month three: ask what the profile got right, what it missed, and update it. |
Play 03
Athena Chintis Redesigned the First Twelve Weeks at Cliftons, and the Company Says Every New Hire Reported Belonging by Week 12
Cliftons is a multi-site events business, and Athena Chintis is its Director of People and Culture. In early 2024 it launched a redesigned onboarding experience. It includes a dedicated buddy, staged content before and after a new hire starts, a Manager's Guide to Onboarding for leaders and a three day paid break before starting, to refresh before onboarding. Chintis said, "We knew we had an opportunity to improve consistency and connection, especially in those first critical touchpoints."
Cliftons reports that 100% of employees surveyed after their first week said they felt welcome and confident, and that by week 12 every new hire reported a strong sense of belonging. That comes from the company's own release and gives no sample size, so it's a claim to test and not a benchmark. Chintis is also on HRD Australia's 2026 Hot List. The detail worth copying is the timing. The survey points are week one and week twelve, so they're checking whether the experience lasts and not just whether the welcome was warm.
Decide what you want a new hire to feel by week twelve, then work backwards. Ask them at week one and at week twelve whether it happened.
TEMPLATE: THE FIRST TWELVE WEEKS PLAN
| The First Twelve Weeks Plan 1. Write the sentence you want a new hire to say at week twelve, such as "I belong here and I know how to get things done". 2. Spread the content out: some before day one, some in week one, some later, so nobody gets one big pack to absorb. 3. Give every manager a short guide: what to do in week one, week four and week twelve. 4. Name a buddy for every new hire and tell the buddy what the job involves. 5. Ask two questions at week one and week twelve, do you feel welcome and do you feel you belong, and share the results with managers. |
Play 04
Sara Walker's Employees at Stellar Solutions Describe Their Dream Job Once a Year, and Leaders Act on It
Stellar Solutions is an aerospace and systems engineering firm in Los Altos, California. Its Great Place to Work profile lists 215 US-based employees, and it ranked 57th on Fortune's 2026 Best Medium Workplaces list. It has no traditional business development function. Sara Walker, its Senior Director of People and Corporate Strategies, told Great Place to Work, "We have never needed one because growth comes from relationships and network connections."
That sets the tone for how people are treated. Once a year each employee completes a dream sheet describing their ideal job, and leaders then hold ongoing conversations about improving their role. In the company's Great Place to Work survey 98% of employees said they are offered the professional and development training they need. Walker also described helping an employee whose spouse had been laid off by sending the spouse's CV to recruiters in her network. Everything here comes from one article on Great Place to Work's own blog, using its own survey, and we haven't seen how dream sheets turn into role changes.
Ask what the dream job looks like before someone has one foot out of the door. The sheet is simple. The conversations after it are the work.
TEMPLATE: THE DREAM SHEET
| The Dream Sheet 1. Once a year, ask each person to describe their ideal job in their own words: the tasks, the team, the size of the scope and what they'd stop doing. 2. Keep it to one page and let them choose who sees it: their manager, you or both. 3. Hold a follow up conversation within a month and agree one thing that can change this quarter. 4. Read across all the sheets for patterns, such as skills people want to build and roles you don't have yet. 5. At the next sheet, show people what moved because of the last one. |
Play 05
Dr Jovyn Ng Says People Development Should Never Belong to HR Alone, and UR Klinik Builds It Into Its Leaders' Week
UR Klinik is a skin pigmentation clinic group based in Penang, with a mostly female workforce. Dr Jovyn Ng, its Chief People Officer, described a programme that won Silver for Best Women Leadership Programme at the 2026 Employee Experience Awards in Malaysia. The problem it set out to solve was supporting emerging women leaders as they moved from outstanding operational performers into people leaders. "We believe people development should never belong to HR alone; it should be owned by every leader," Ng said.
Here's what that looks like in the write-up. Leaders meet weekly to review business performance and people matters. There are weekly study groups for frontline staff and monthly study groups for managers, regular mentoring and engagement sessions, and a twice yearly leadership training called Shine & Bright. The write-up gives no results or numbers, and it's the company's own account in an award interview, so we can't tell you what changed. The structure is the useful part, because it uses meetings a leader already attends.
If development lives only in HR, it stops when HR is busy. Put it in the meetings your leaders already have.
TEMPLATE: THE LEADER OWNED DEVELOPMENT RHYTHM
| The Leader Owned Development Rhythm 1. List the meetings your leaders already hold each week and add ten minutes on people to each: who is stretching, who is stuck. 2. Start one study group for first time managers and let them choose the topic each month. 3. Pair each new people leader with a mentor outside their reporting line. 4. Twice a year, run a short training day on one leadership skill the group picked. 5. Add one question to your next survey, does my leader help me grow, and look at the answers team by team. |
THREE MICRO-PLAYBOOKS
Playbook 01
Write Down the First Twelve Weeks
Both DGM Growers and Cliftons treat the start of a job as something to design, not something that happens. Gallup's onboarding research says only 12% of US employees say their company does a good job of onboarding, and that only 29% of new hires feel fully prepared and supported to excel in their role afterwards. It's an older figure and a US one, from an article published in 2021 and updated in 2025, so use it as a reminder of how low the bar can be and not as a current benchmark.
The same Gallup piece found that when the manager takes an active part, employees are 3.4 times as likely to say their onboarding was successful. So write the plan down in three moments: before day one, week one and week twelve. Give each manager one page that says what they do at each moment. Name a buddy. Then ask the new hire at week one and week twelve how it felt, and keep the answers.
If you only change one thing, change the manager's page. A buddy and a welcome pack help, but the manager is the person whose behaviour a new hire reads most closely.
Playbook 02
Count the Ways People Can Speak Up
The CIPD's Good Work Index 2026, a YouGov survey of 5,074 working adults in the UK published in July, found that a fifth of employees (20%) say they have no voice channel at all. The count includes team meetings and one to ones with a line manager, so it's a low bar. The gap by size is wide: 38% of employees at organisations with fewer than 50 staff have none, against 9% at organisations with 250 or more. The CIPD says this points to the importance of upskilling managers in how to engage with employees.
You can check this in an afternoon. List every way someone in your organisation could tell you something: one to ones, team meetings, surveys, a suggestion route, a rep. Then go team by team and mark any team with none, or with one that depends on a single manager. Vermette's workshop and Walker's dream sheet are two ways of adding a channel without a big budget. One is a group session, the other is a page and a conversation.
Then close the loop. Whichever channel you pick, say what you heard and what you'll do about it, and name what you won't. A channel people use once and never hear back from is worse than none.
Playbook 03
Make Development Part of Every Leader's Week
Jovyn Ng's line about development belonging to every leader has research behind it. Gallup's research finds that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement, and the same page puts manager engagement at 22% globally in 2025. If the person who shapes the most of a team's experience is also among the least engaged people in the building, a development programme that sits only in HR will be fighting uphill.
Start small. Take one meeting a leader already holds and add ten minutes on people to the agenda: who is stretching, who is stuck, who needs something from you. Add a monthly study group for new managers where they pick the topic. Pair each of them with a mentor outside their reporting line. Then ask one question on your next survey, does my leader help me grow, and read the answers by team and not as a company average.
Be careful about what you promise. UR Klinik's write-up gives no results, and Gallup's figure shows how much a manager matters, not that any one programme works. Treat it as a pilot and look at the team level numbers after a couple of quarters.
FOLLOW THE FIVE
NO GUEST THIS WEEK, FIVE PEOPLE LEADERS INSTEAD
Five people leaders at mid-sized organisations in five countries, and where to find them.
We looked for people leaders at organisations of roughly 50 to 500 people, with recent public evidence of work you could copy. We read award write-ups, trade press and company releases. Sizes are our best reading of public sources, and we've said below where we couldn't confirm one. Two leaders on the list work at organisations whose own write-ups gave no figures at all, and we've said that too.
If you know one of them, say hello for us. We'll tag all five when we post about this issue on LinkedIn.
How to read this. We haven't spoken to any of these five. Everything in this issue comes from public sources, and most of the results are reported by the organisations themselves or by the award schemes they entered, which rely on the organisation's own submission. Read them as what each one says, not as independent proof. If we've got something wrong, reply and we'll fix it.
THE FIVE, AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
Martin Vermette, Vice-President of HR and Communications, Yoplait Liberté Canada
Canada. Follow for HR through a spin-off, and getting a whole workforce to help write the values. Find Martin on LinkedIn →
Kathryn Allen, Head of People, DGM Growers
UK. Follow for new starter buddies, care profiles and practical financial wellbeing. Find Kathryn on LinkedIn →
Athena Chintis, Director of People and Culture, Cliftons
Australia. Follow for onboarding built around the first twelve weeks, not just day one. Find Athena on LinkedIn →
Sara Walker, Senior Director, People and Corporate Strategies, Stellar Solutions
US. Follow for relationship led growth and the annual dream sheet. Find Sara on LinkedIn →
Dr Jovyn Ng, Chief People Officer, UR Klinik
Malaysia. Follow for leader owned development and the move from operational star to people leader. Find Jovyn on LinkedIn →
Sources: Canadian HR Reporter, the British HR Awards, Cliftons, Great Place to Work and Human Resources Online. Reply if you'd like the links.
READER POLL
Last Week's Result, and This Week's Question
Last week we promised the results of two questions. Issue 017 asked which is harder: knowing what your people really think, or doing something about it. Two of you answered, and both said acting.
Issue 018 asked whether your organisation measures how worried your people are about AI replacing their jobs. Three of you answered by email: none said yes, we measure it, two said no, we don't, and one said not sure. We're running the same question on our LinkedIn page too. It has no votes yet and stays open until later this week, so we'll share the email and LinkedIn answers together, and separately, next Monday.
These are very small samples, so read them as hints and not findings. Totals only, no names and no companies.
After a week of reading about mid-sized organisations, we're curious how many of you run people work on your own, or close to it. One click is all it takes.
How big is the people team in your organisation?
Next Monday we'll share the result, including how many of you answered and no names, and ask the next question. You can read how we handle your answers on our privacy page. theworklifereporter.com/privacy
THE WORK LIFE REPORTER LIVE
A weekly LinkedIn live series where we take the most interesting conversation from the newsletter into a real room, with guests, debate, and the questions the newsletter doesn't have space to answer.
This Week
No Episode This Week. We Spent the Slot on Five People Leaders Instead of a Guest
Back to a normal live conversation soon.
If there's an episode you missed the first time, this is a good week to catch up on it.
And that's a wrap for Issue 019. No guest and no live episode this week, five people leaders instead. Hit reply and tell us who we missed. If you lead people at an organisation of a few hundred, and there's something you'd like us to look at, we read every reply.
Follow The Work Life Reporter on LinkedIn for what we share between issues, and look out for our post tagging all five leaders. TWL Live returns with a guest soon. New here? Subscribe free at theworklifereporter.com.
PS. Know someone who leads people and would find this useful? Forward it on. Ten seconds to share, a lot longer to write.
PPS. Haven't answered the poll yet? It's one click, up above. We'll share the result next Monday.