Jeuneora is a New Zealand beauty and wellness company that has experienced rapid growth over the past five years. As its founder, I went from a high paying corporate role and jumped in full time to dedicate myself to developing the business. From my perspective, failure was not an option.
From solely managing almost all aspects of the business – packaging, marketing, finance, logistics – Jeuneora grew from a team of one to a business comprising almost 20 employees, outgrowing multiple premises, while maintaining our first to market advantage by continuing to innovate and develop new products to expand our range. As with many businesses we were also faced with the impact of COVID-19 and despite initially being a time of immense uncertainty, our team really pushed through and created a new level of engagement with our customers and online community.
Our story right now is one of success and opportunity. With our business strategic plan formulated and a defined pathway for long-term growth, we knew that we needed to hire more staff. I can honestly say however that my strength is not managing people. It was becoming clear that our biggest challenge going forward was people management.
When it comes to managing people and organisational design, we knew we just needed to start somewhere – we literally needed help to organise the chaos. Decipher Group were recommended to us and our first interaction started with a conversation about where we “thought” we were at. We had questions around how we make people feel welcome, how do we build a good culture, how does everyone fit in, how do we define roles, how do we resource and scale the business?? What I really appreciated about Decipher’s approach was that it started with them meeting each member of our team one-on-one to gain insights into the employee experience and their respective roles. It was a light bulb moment; I mean how can you grow a business if you do not know what is happening in it?
Decipher Group gained a strong understanding of our people and they did it in a way that was empathetic and kind. Everyone felt comfortable providing their feedback and Decipher developed a good rapport with our team. The information gathered has led to some specific HR projects which we are currently embedding in the business and will provide that strong people foundation we need to help us continue to grow.
Our partnership with Decipher Group has evolved and we now use them as our outsourced HR provider on a retainer basis. It means we can tap into HR guidance and support on an as needed basis, providing critical and timely advice, while also having a permanent and independent HR contact for our wider team. For a business that is in the business of wellbeing, it is important to me that we also demonstrate that ourselves by caring for our people and making them feel important and valued. Our partnership with Decipher Group is helping us achieve this.
For where we are right now as a brand and a business, having the support of an external human resources consultancy works for us. For anyone running a business in the early stages of growth, I would recommend they do this sooner rather than later – start your HR/people journey early! We are fortunate to now have Decipher Group working alongside us.
“For a business that is in the business of wellbeing, it is important to me that we also demonstrate that ourselves by caring for our people and making them feel important and valued. Our partnership with Decipher Group is helping us achieve this.”
Monique Kaminski
