Blackbird is hiring a Head of People

Do you enjoy building strong and trusting relationships? Are you the kind of person who reads blogs about feedback, or listens to podcasts about the psychology of habits?

Do you have untapped ambition? Are you a triple threat of creative, thoughtful and efficient? 

If you live and breathe people and culture, this is your chance to put your ideas into action. 

That’s right. We are hiring a Head of People. 

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Putting people first

The heart of Blackbird is our people. And the soul of Blackbird is our culture.  

Since joining last year, I’ve been leading the ‘Building Blackbird’ team, and together we have:

• Built infrastructure for growth and careers, better feedback, fairer pay and funner moments;
• Bumped wellness with new psychologist support, company shutdowns and KitKat days (days to take a break and do whatever feels good, whether it be catching a movie, getting over a breakup, proposing to your partner, dropping your kid off for their first day of school or recharging over an epic Netflix binge);
• Introduced strategy planning and OKRs to uplevel our ambition and focus;
• Lifted spirits during lockdowns with surprises, virtual connects … and merch drops; and
• So much more.
  

While this was all happening, however, Blackbird’s startup founders and operators reached out more than ever for help with scaling their businesses. It’s been humbling to see the investment they’ve made in making work better, their people happier, and their businesses stronger, and as of this year, the majority of my time will be spent helping them with their people and culture.

As my focus shifts, our new Head of People’s sole mission will be to make our own people and culture magical, and to help us set the example of how work can and should be. 

No vision is too ambitious, and no idea too ‘out there’ to try.

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Here’s what the role could entail

1. Set the example on people programs.

We hire unique, incredibly talented people. So, we want to design the programs to support them and unleash their potential. 

Have you read about the psychology of feedback and recognition, and want to try something? Have you been inspired by an onboarding experience that you want to integrate into ours? Have you heard of a new way of thinking about mental wellness that you want to launch? 

Help us design, experiment and launch some of the most ambitious people programs to change how we think about work.

2. Make Blackbird the best place to work.

Our ambition is to make Blackbird the best place to work in Australia & New Zealand. (We’re proud to say we’ve been recognised by the AFR as having the Best Employee Experience in Australia.)

In just two years, our team has grown from 12 to 61 people, and we’re only just starting.

We need your help to not just keep our culture (which has a 96% engagement score), but to help make it even better. 

Nothing is off limits. Don’t believe me? When COVID lockdowns were starting to have a drag on our people’s spirits, I proposed a full company shutdown. Within 30 minutes, it was locked and loaded. We will give you full trust and autonomy so you can do what’s right for the team.

3. Drive learning and growth.

We want our Blackbirds to learn, grow and do the best work of their lives. We give everyone $5k a year to spend on their own learning, but we can do even better than that. 

Every Blackbird should know what’s now, what’s next, and what’s beyond that for them. Want to invest that stipend to create an Apple University? Or another epic idea to make this the best place to learn and grow? Help us bring it to life!

4. Reinforce our values.

Like all of us, you’ll have a deep empathy for the journey of a founder, an enlightened hospitality mindset for those around you, and get a huge amount of satisfaction from unleashing the potential in others.

Like a founder, you’re scrappy, always questioning and obsessed about making our people and culture epic.

If this sounds like you, take a look at our job posting. We’d love to hear from you!