Building a Culture from Day 1 at Monte Carlos Consulting
As a new virtual firm, Monte Carlos Consulting prioritizes developing a meaningful company culture from day 1. Their CEO, Charlie X.W. Liu knows that attracting top talent and having a healthy company culture is what will set Monte Carlos apart from their competitors. In a world where many finance firms often hire individual contributors who work in their own silos, Charlie knew that was not going to fly for Monte Carlos and their clients. The firm needed to grow their headcount quickly while maintaining their vibrant virtual company culture that included many international hires; so they used YourCultureHub to support with their internal recruiting practices, 1:1 support, internal announcements, recognition program and company fun events.
Monte Carlos Consulting is a brand new firm, and has quickly solidified its rank as the #1 implementation partner of an established FinTech software company, Vena Solutions - all within the same year. They were quickly outpacing their competitors and objectively has one of the best teams in the niche CPM (Corporate Performance Management) industry.
Challenge: Growing quickly in headcount whilst maintaining a vibrant virtual corporate culture.
The newly-recruited C-level suite had to quickly grow their teams without an internal HR team in place to help with recruiting practices.
New team members needed extra attention and support to thrive.
C-levels were too busy with client-focused initiatives to also divert attention on non client-focused activities.
Existing team members and new team members needed a platform to communicate and share.
Continue to value all team members as deeply complex human beings.
Managing an international virtual team with members working from many locations.
Solutions: Prioritizing recruitment training for C-Suite executives, internal support for team members, including specially curated team building activities.
For a company this fresh, there really was so much that we could do, but we agreed to focus on team headcount growth and corporate culture support to maximize the immediate impact.
Bespoke executive coaching sessions with C-level executives on how to recruit talent with the company’s values of accountability, honesty and transparency were highly valued. These practices were put into place immediately as the team expanded in headcount.
Regular check-ins with new hires to encourage communication with existing team members and identify specific needs and skill gaps.
Company-specific internal communications to acknowledge country-specific holidays, and the uniqueness situations in the countries that team members work in.
In addition to the existing weekly team meeting to discuss individual blunders each team members faced, we added a few virtual fitness events and a specially curated virtual holiday fun event with online games such as GeoGuessr and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.
Results: Improved science-based recruiting practices, closing skill-gaps and recognizing team members as human beings.
Most of the C-level executives that originally came into recruiting meetings with vibe-check-type questions, changed their tactics to a more science-based, standardized approach. Monte Carlos’ hiring practices were instantly elevated and they became more confident in what they were looking for in future hires.
A regular check-in with a new hire revealed that there was a skill gap with using GSuite and this was quickly mitigated through personalized training and coaching sessions delivered directly by YourCultureHub’s career coach. The skill-gap and situation was monitored over 2 weeks to ensure that the skill-gap was effectively closed.
Acknowledging and creating a special policy to allow team members to recognize country-specific holidays set team members at ease ahead of the holiday season (December).
Internal announcements were made to recognize Remembrance Day and specifically to also acknowledge that many of Monte Carlos’ team members continue to live in a war-ridden Ukraine and the hardships that come with that situation. Peter Lay, COO at Monte Carlos immediately recognized the importance and care that came with this acknowledgement. Many team members, including those from Ukraine quickly reacted positively to this internal announcement.
The professionalism of the virtually organized holiday event hosted by YourCultureHub with details such as a formal e-invitation, holiday e-backgrounds used during the event and preparations to personalized the experience for all was appreciated by the Monte Carlos team.
TL;DR
Company Name: Monte Carlos Consulting
Website: montecarlos.consulting
Industry: Finance
Challenge: Growing quickly in headcount whilst maintaining a vibrant virtual corporate culture.
Solution: Bespoke training for C-Suite executives on talent recruitment to support company values and a helping hand with corporate culture and 1:1 team support.
Results: Improved science-based recruiting practices, closing skill-gaps and recognizing team members as human beings.