Creating scale-up cultures that founders can be proud of
The Pioneers is a digital agency that designs and builds modular people management solutions for scale-ups who care about their people and culture
Discover the secret to creating seamless people experiences
DOWNLOAD The peopleOS playbook
We help you to develop
a culture that drives your growth and gives you
a competitive advantage
A culture you can be proud of
A culture that fits your purpose, strategy, vision and brand
And a culture that helps you stand out from the crowd so you can attract, engage and retain the talent you need to grow
Our clients
As your company grows, your culture has to evolve...
Because you can’t run a company of 1,000 people in the same way you run a company of 10
The people stages of growth...
Family
0-9 people
8 people =
28 relationships
Tribe
10s of people
24 people =
276 relationships
Village
100s of people
100 people =
4,950 relationships
500 people =
124,750 relationships
City
1000s of people
1000 people =
499,500 relationships
When you’re a start-up, you need to keep it fluid. Too much structure will slow you down.
That’s why successful start-up founders manage their people through personal influence.
But the human brain can only stay on top of a limited number of relationships and as you grow, you accumulate social complexity exponentially.
This creates transition points in your growth, where the ways of working that had been driving your success suddenly start feeling clunky, ineffective and inefficient.
To grow through these inflection points, you need to create people systems that make your people happy, help work to flow and nudge the distinctive culture you’re looking to create.
The People and Culture mistakes scale-ups usually make…
- They kill what’s special about their culture by introducing management practices from other companies and buying off the shelf products without appreciating whether they’re a good cultural fit.
- They focus on short term fixes and initiatives that create people debt, rather than building products that can scale.
- They don’t integrate their HR tech or people data so the user experience becomes increasingly incoherent and it becomes more difficult to get reliable insights as you grow.
How we can help you avoid these mistakes…
- We can help you design and build a peopleOS that brings your brand, values and vision to life in your people experience and ways of working.
- We can get all your people data onto a single platform so it’s easy for you to make evidence based decisions as you grow.
- And we can build modular products that solve specific challenges and fit together to create seamless people experiences and a workplace that flows. This gives you control over your ways of working and the flexibility you need to respond quickly to evolutions in your business model.
Chantal Wilson
People Director at Honest Burgers
If you really believe in the importance of people and if you want to create a culture that sets you apart, you need to work with The Pioneers. They bring this magical mix that stretches your thinking and helps you to build groundbreaking stuff really quickly, while keeping you laughing along the way.
Why partner with The Pioneers?
We’re insightful
We do the legwork of keeping on top of the latest research, so we can help you to see round corners and spot the opportunities others miss.
We’re applied
We get under the hood of your business to build digital solutions that fit seamlessly into your peopleOS and that get results.
We’re pioneering
If you want to create a culture that sets you apart, you need to work with people who’ll give you the challenge and confidence to forge your own path.
Some content to get you started
March 14th 2020
The 4 ways rapid growth companies kill their culture
June 9th 2020
What does a great peopleOS look and feel like?
September 2nd 2020
Scaling up? Here's everything you need to know about people and culture