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Canva Hr

To build the team that makes design accessible to everyone by becoming the world's most valuable visual communication platform

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To build the team that makes design accessible to everyone by becoming the world's most valuable visual communication platform

Strengths

  • CULTURE: Industry-leading 4.9/5 Glassdoor rating reflects strong company culture that attracts and retains top talent globally
  • DIVERSITY: 40% female representation in technical roles, exceeding industry average of 25%, creating a diverse talent ecosystem
  • LEARNING: Robust development programs with 92% participation rate, enabling continuous upskilling of workforce for future needs
  • BRAND: Employer brand recognized as top 10 in tech sector, driving 35% of quality hires through direct applications
  • ONBOARDING: 95% new hire satisfaction with structured 90-day onboarding program, reducing time-to-productivity by 22%

Weaknesses

  • SCALING: HR infrastructure struggles to support hypergrowth with current 3:100 HR-to-employee ratio vs industry benchmark 2:100
  • ANALYTICS: Limited people analytics capabilities preventing data-driven decision making across talent lifecycle
  • RETENTION: Rising mid-level manager turnover at 18% (vs 12% target), especially among high-performing females
  • LEADERSHIP: Inconsistent leadership capabilities across rapidly promoted managers, creating engagement score variations of 20%+
  • GLOBAL: Fragmented HR policies across 20+ countries creating compliance risks and inconsistent employee experience

Opportunities

  • REMOTE: Expanding global talent pool through remote-first approach could increase qualified candidate pipeline by 300%+
  • SKILLS: Implementing skills-based talent management to address 35% of roles facing skill obsolescence in next 3 years
  • WELLNESS: Comprehensive mental health programs could reduce absenteeism by 32% based on industry benchmarks
  • AUTOMATION: HR process automation potential to reduce administrative tasks by 45%, redirecting resources to strategic initiatives
  • ECOSYSTEM: Building talent ecosystem with educational institutions to create specialized design technology curriculum for future pipeline

Threats

  • COMPETITION: Intensifying war for tech talent with FAANG companies offering 30%+ higher compensation packages
  • BURNOUT: Industry-wide burnout crisis affecting 42% of tech professionals threatens productivity and retention
  • LEGISLATION: Increasing global employment legislation complexity requiring 3x more compliance resources in next 18 months
  • RECESSION: Potential economic downturn forcing difficult workforce decisions while maintaining innovation velocity
  • EXPECTATIONS: Rapidly evolving employee expectations around flexibility, purpose, and growth that outpace HR capability to deliver

Key Priorities

  • TALENT: Build scalable talent acquisition engine to support global hypergrowth while maintaining quality and cultural alignment
  • ANALYTICS: Develop robust people analytics capabilities to enable data-driven talent decisions across the employee lifecycle
  • LEADERSHIP: Strengthen leadership development programs to support rapidly promoted managers and reduce turnover
  • EXPERIENCE: Create consistent global employee experience while adapting to local needs and compliance requirements
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To build the team that makes design accessible to everyone by becoming the world's most valuable visual communication platform

TALENT MAGNETISM

Attract and retain world-class diverse talent globally

  • ACQUISITION: Implement AI-powered talent acquisition platform reducing time-to-hire by 40% while maintaining 90%+ quality metrics
  • EXPERIENCE: Deploy global onboarding experience with 95% satisfaction and reducing time-to-productivity from 90 to 60 days
  • RETENTION: Decrease voluntary turnover of high performers to <10% through targeted retention initiatives and stay interviews
  • DIVERSITY: Increase representation of underrepresented groups in leadership by 15% through inclusive talent practices
PEOPLE INSIGHTS

Build data-driven people decision capabilities

  • PLATFORM: Launch integrated people analytics platform connecting all 15 data sources with real-time dashboards for all leaders
  • CAPABILITY: Train 100% of HR team and 85% of people managers on data-driven decision making and analytics interpretation
  • PREDICTIVE: Implement predictive models for retention, performance and engagement with 80%+ accuracy validated quarterly
  • ROI: Establish quantifiable ROI measurement for all major people initiatives with >3x return threshold for new investments
LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE

Develop world-class leaders at all levels

  • ACADEMY: Scale leadership academy to reach 100% of people managers with 90%+ completion rate of core curriculum
  • COACHING: Implement AI-powered coaching platform providing personalized development to all 1,200+ leaders monthly
  • FEEDBACK: Establish continuous feedback culture with 85% of employees receiving monthly structured development feedback
  • READINESS: Increase leadership bench strength to 3:1 coverage for all critical roles compared to current 1.5:1 ratio
FUTURE-READY

Build a resilient organization ready for tomorrow

  • SKILLS: Implement comprehensive skills taxonomy mapping with development paths for 100% of roles across the organization
  • WELLBEING: Deploy global wellbeing program reducing burnout indicators by 50% and increasing resilience scores by 25%
  • AUTOMATION: Automate 75% of transactional HR processes, redirecting 15,000+ hours annually to strategic initiatives
  • FLEXIBILITY: Establish industry-leading flexibility framework balancing employee choice with business needs across all regions
METRICS
  • Employee engagement score: 85% by end of 2025
  • Voluntary turnover: <12% overall, <8% for high performers
  • Leadership effectiveness: >80% manager effectiveness scores across all business units
VALUES
  • Empower others
  • Pursue excellence
  • Be a good human
  • Make complex things simple
  • Set crazy big goals and make them happen
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Align the learnings

Canva Hr Retrospective

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To build the team that makes design accessible to everyone by becoming the world's most valuable visual communication platform

What Went Well

  • ACQUISITION: Achieved 92% of hiring targets while maintaining quality bar and reducing cost-per-hire by 17%
  • ENGAGEMENT: Increased employee engagement scores by 6 percentage points to 82%, strongest performer in company surveys
  • DIVERSITY: Improved gender diversity across leadership roles from 32% to 38%, exceeding annual target of 35%
  • DEVELOPMENT: Successfully launched leadership academy with 94% of managers completing core curriculum within 6 months

Not So Well

  • ATTRITION: Voluntary turnover increased to 16% vs target of 12%, primarily in mid-level technical and product roles
  • AUTOMATION: HR technology roadmap execution delayed by an average of 3.5 months, creating continued manual workloads
  • WELLBEING: Mental health metrics declined with 28% reporting burnout symptoms, up 8 percentage points year-over-year
  • GLOBAL: International expansion HR support lagged with 4 markets still lacking dedicated HR business partner support

Learnings

  • COMPENSATION: Need more competitive and transparent compensation philosophy to compete effectively for senior talent
  • FLEXIBILITY: Work flexibility policies need greater consistency across regions to ensure equitable employee experience
  • FEEDBACK: Quarterly pulse feedback model more effective than annual surveys in rapidly changing business environment
  • SKILLS: Skills-based workforce planning provides 25% more accurate headcount forecasting than traditional role-based models

Action Items

  • REDESIGN: Complete total rewards strategy redesign with market-competitive benchmarking across all regions by Q3
  • TECHNOLOGY: Accelerate HR technology transformation with focus on core HRIS implementation and self-service capabilities
  • ANALYTICS: Build people analytics center of excellence with dedicated data scientists and visualization capabilities
  • MANAGER: Launch comprehensive manager enablement program focused on remote team leadership and performance coaching
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To build the team that makes design accessible to everyone by becoming the world's most valuable visual communication platform

Strengths

  • ADOPTION: Early AI adoption in HR with chatbots handling 65% of tier-1 employee inquiries, freeing HR team for strategic work
  • SCREENING: AI-powered candidate screening reducing time-to-hire by 32% while improving quality-of-hire metrics by 18%
  • LEARNING: Personalized AI learning recommendations increasing skill development completion rates by 47%
  • PREDICTIVE: Early success with predictive modeling for flight risk, identifying 78% of voluntary departures 90+ days in advance
  • EXPERIMENTATION: Culture of AI experimentation with dedicated 'People Tech' innovation team showcasing 5+ successful pilots

Weaknesses

  • INTEGRATION: Fragmented AI tools across 12+ HR systems creating data silos and inconsistent employee experience
  • EXPERTISE: Limited AI/ML expertise within HR team with only 3 professionals having specialized qualifications
  • GOVERNANCE: Underdeveloped AI ethics and governance framework for people data raising potential bias and privacy concerns
  • MEASUREMENT: Inconsistent ROI measurement methodology for AI HR initiatives limiting ability to secure additional investment
  • SCALE: Current AI initiatives remain primarily pilot-based without clear path to enterprise-wide implementation

Opportunities

  • INTELLIGENCE: AI-powered workforce intelligence system could provide 85%+ accuracy in workforce planning scenarios
  • EXPERIENCE: Hyper-personalized employee experience through AI could increase engagement scores by 23% based on pilot results
  • COACHING: AI-enabled coaching platforms could extend leadership development to 100% of employees vs current 22%
  • EFFICIENCY: End-to-end HR process automation could reduce administrative costs by 38% while improving satisfaction metrics
  • INCLUSION: Advanced natural language processing to identify and reduce bias in all communications could improve DEI metrics by 29%

Threats

  • RESISTANCE: Employee resistance to AI-based HR decisions with only 54% expressing trust in algorithmic people decisions
  • ETHICS: Emerging ethical concerns around AI use in employment decisions with potential regulatory impact in key markets
  • COMPETITORS: Leading tech competitors investing 3-5x more in HR AI capabilities creating competitive disadvantage
  • SKILLS: Accelerating AI skills gap with 68% of HR team reporting low confidence in working with advanced AI tools
  • DEPENDENCY: Over-reliance on vendor AI solutions creating potential strategic vulnerabilities and loss of proprietary approaches

Key Priorities

  • PLATFORM: Develop unified AI-powered people platform integrating all HR touchpoints for seamless employee experience
  • CAPABILITY: Build internal AI expertise through dedicated upskilling program for HR team and strategic hiring
  • GOVERNANCE: Establish comprehensive AI ethics framework for people decisions with clear guidelines and oversight
  • PERSONALIZATION: Implement hyper-personalized employee experience through AI that mirrors Canva's customer experience