A few years ago, the owners of DoneDeal set themselves a target of becoming Ireland's largest classified website by far. Today, they have not only achieved that target but as I learned from a recent visit to their offices in Wexford, they have also got to be one of Ireland's coolest and best places to work!

I am curious to learn about the "people factor" in successful companies in Ireland and having heard Fred Karlsson (co-founder of DoneDeal) speak at an event in Cork, I reckoned that there was something very special happening in DoneDeal. And believe me, I was not wrong.

The first thing that struck me when I contacted DoneDeal was the positive response that came immediately from Emer, their Office/HR and Culture Manager at DoneDeal. Very few organisations that I know of have a "culture manager" – so already this was telling me something was different about this place.

My work with organisations very often involves shining a light on their existing culture and examining the effect it may be having on their success. Here at DoneDeal, everyone is very clear that their culture is one of the most important contributing factors to their success.

At the heart of the DoneDeal culture is a deep care and respect for people. Everyone I spoke to had their own individual stories of how they felt important, listened to, cared about and trusted in DoneDeal. Words like "family" were used frequently to describe the growing team of 24 staff. As a result, every single one of them was passionate (and I am not using that word lightly here) about contributing to and maintaining the success of the DoneDeal business. DoneDeal's success was their success.

One of the little differences that demonstrate the culture in action in DoneDeal is the "compulsory tea break" at 10:30am – where everyone gets to sit and chat together in the kitchen. Very few excuses are accepted for missing this tea break!

This culture of care and respect is extended out to the DoneDeal customers. The staff really care about the customer's experience and believe that everybody should be heard – meaning that exceptional customer support is what is expected all of the time. This poster from their office sums up nicely how their culture infuses everything they do.

One thing I have learnt from my years of experience is that success starts with hiring the right people and that is one thing that comes across very strongly in DoneDeal; from the very beginning, great care and attention was paid to selecting and hiring their staff. They look for much more than technical ability. They look for people that will fit in well with the team, that will enjoy and enhance the culture of the place and that will bring the right attitude to their work.

Fred Karlsson and his wife, Geraldine, started DoneDeal in 2005. They took on Donna, their first employee in 2009. At that time, Donna was a single mother, working to put herself through college by cleaning houses. She was cleaning Fred and Geraldine's house and it was her desire to always want to do better and her attention to detail like folding in the corners of the toilet paper that impressed Fred and Geraldine so much. They decided this is the type of person they wanted looking after their customers. Donna has gone on to become DoneDeal's social media guru – a critically important role in a business like DoneDeal's.

One thing that became obvious to me in my work is that people development is about so much more than just sending people on training courses. 70% of what we learn is picked up on the job so it is critical to create an atmosphere that is conducive to questioning and learning.
Because of the open, relaxed and encouraging culture that exists in DoneDeal, people feel safe to ask questions and to put forward ideas, no matter what their role is. They are given every support they need to develop and learn. As the business has grown, individuals have grown with it. A classic example of this is Melrona, who looks after customer support. It is obvious from listening to her that she infuses that role with passion and pride. One of Melrona's proudest moments is giving a talk last year on fraud to criminal intelligence officers at the Garda Training College in Templemore. This September she is travelling to America to give a presentation at a fraud summit. Ask her what her qualifications are for doing this and she'll say "none, people are my qualifications"! But four years ago, Melrona could never have seen herself delivering talks to criminal intelligence officers. She credits her development to the belief that Fred and Ger had in her. As she said herself, because she feels they are interested in her as a person, she performs better.  

Over the years I have spent many long days working with leadership teams to help them craft a compelling vision for their organisation. That is why I loved the simplicity of Fred's take on a great vision.  According to him, a great vision has to do two things:

1.     It has to energise you

2.     It has to give you focus

Fred and Geraldine started out with the vision to make DoneDeal the biggest classified website in Ireland. And what did that mean? It meant having the most customers posting up the most ads of all the websites in Ireland. They put this up on the wall of their office and it motivated them every time they read it. But here is how it focused them…

Fred is a techie at heart and was full of ideas about how to bring all sorts of flash technology and cool features into their website. But, the chances were that many of their customers would not be able to use these features on their PCs. So would these flash features bring them more customers and closer to their vision? Probably not.

So, to keep them focused on achieving their vision, DoneDeal have introduced the "mother-in-law test", which is quite simply "could my mother-in-law use this?". This has contributed to DoneDeal's website being extremely accessible and easy to use for everyone.

As any business person will tell you, it is having effective, efficient processes is where the rubber hits the road when building success. DoneDeal have many, but two stand out that are worth mentioning here.

The first is that every staff member gets to have a "job chat" with their manager every six months where they talk about their progress, their goals and the support they need for further development. Each staff member has KPIs and what was refreshing was that the KPIs were ones that made perfect sense to them. They could see how they contributed to the success of DoneDeal and could buy into them completely.

The second is the process used for developing new features on the website (the bread and butter of DoneDeal's success and growth). For this they use an agile development process called the Scrum Methodology. There is plenty of information available on the internet for anyone interested in checking out more about this.

Without a doubt, a huge source of pride and motivation in DoneDeal is the fact that every two months they give 10% of their turnover to charity! And every staff member gets a chance to pick a charity to be the beneficiary of this very generous donation. In March 2013, €34, 466.70 was raised and donated to Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin. You can check out their website to see the list of charities that have been helped by DoneDeal to the tuned of about €500,000 to date!

Meeting with the staff at DoneDeal has opened my eyes and has confirmed my belief that great people and great people practices can lead to outstanding, sustainable success. My heartfelt thanks goes to Emer, Donna, Renata, Melrona, Philip, Peter, Cathal and Fred for so generously sharing their thoughts and their experiences with me.

Have you any thoughts and experiences to share on the People Factor in your organisation? 

What could Pepsico Ireland , DoneDeal and Mamukko  (a new, up and coming upcycling business based in Kinsale) possibly all have in common?

The first answer is they are all exciting companies that are experiencing success, albeit at vary different stages.

The second answer is very simple, and it is what all businesses have in common, people. But it is a bit more than that; they pay particular attention to the "people factor" of their business. They are conscious of the pivotal role that people play in their business success and rather than take it for granted, they give time, care and attention to how they manage their respective "people factors".

Your people factor could refer to the culture of your organisation, your recruitment practices, your employee engagement practices, your change management practices and not least, your leadership.

My work is all about helping organisations get their people factor right. For years now I have helped leaders deal with people crises, engage positively with change and build successful engaged workforces. It is a subject I am passionate about. I believe getting your people factor right is critical for success for numerous reasons.  It is what is going to deliver you innovation, creativity, flexibility, loyalty, accountability and responsibility. It's a no brainer really!

But I recognise that there is no one way to get your people factor right. It is different for every organisation depending on size, environment, history, context, leadership and industry sector.

There are many organisations in Ireland already getting the people factor right in their own unique way. I think we can all learn from them. I am not suggesting that we try to imitate any of them but we can take inspiration from them. We can take ideas to apply to our own particular situations and we can grow our own unique, successful people factors.

Over the next number of months, I intend to seek out and interview organisations where it is obvious that there is something special happening with the people, where you can see that they are making a huge contribution to the organisation's success and where that contribution is recognised and acknowledged. I am going to share the stories of what I learn here with you.

I fully expect to be inspired by and to learn from these organisations. And if you are a leader, owner, manager, HR professional or any interested party, my sincere hope is that you will join me on this journey of learning and that you too will find inspiration and practical guidance for your own organisation.

If you have an interesting people factor story you want to share with me, don't be afraid to contact me, either through the comments below, or at miriam@spaceforchange.ie.