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Scaling up at Camena Bioscience
Biotech start-up Camena Bioscience wanted strategic HR support to scale. Working with People Puzzles has opened up substantial opportunities to bring their pioneering technology to customers.
Camena Bioscience was founded in 2016 by scientists from Cambridge and Pasadena (California). Together, they had developed a groundbreaking technology to produce long and complex synthetic genes, which promises to bring exciting new applications to biotechnology.
CEO Steve Harvey recognised the need for an HR expert to guide the business from the initial inventions, through to product-market fit, and approached People Puzzles for help.
In May 2021, People Director Liz Allan started this work with them, helping with recruitment and development of their principles-based vision of culture development.
Creating an employer brand for smarter recruitment
“Prior to working with People Puzzles, our recruitment process was really messy,” says Steve. “We hadn’t put in place a robust and scalable recruitment pipeline.”
As the team’s HR Director, Liz focused on recruitment to boost the business capabilities. Having already created the people plan, Liz helped the team develop an ‘employer brand’ designed to attract talented scientists into the company.
Using Team Tailor an online platform specifically designed for this purpose, they created a bespoke careers website to enable potential candidates to find and easily connect with them. Internship and graduate recruitment programmes were also set up to ensure the business could attract emerging new talent, and Liz has also helped to implement a diversity and inclusion strategy, including, for example, training on unconscious bias. Ensuring a diverse and engaged workforce has been proven to give businesses a competitive advantage in both performance and talent attraction.
As a result of the new pipeline, Steve feels their recruitment processes are “a lot smoother and we haven’t struggled to fill roles this year and are now able to recruit quickly.”
Another huge benefit of the improved talent attraction process is cost saving. While headcount has trebled, the majority of these have been direct hires, with only two incurring agency recruitment fees, representing a significant saving.
Coaching and building team capability
Once the new structure clarified the leadership team’s areas of responsibility, Liz coached CEO Steve Harvey throughout the process in building up his team’s capabilities, bringing the company’s core principles to life and setting out its vision and strategic goals.
To keep the people aspects of the business running smoothly, new people policies and procedures have been implemented, including a HR platform for day-to-day HR management. A new salary structure with salary benchmarking has been established to help the business retain staff and keep it attractive to career-young scientists.
Securing investment for further growth: the outcomes so far
All of this has laid the groundwork for the business to expand its presence. Having increased its headcount from the founders to eleven staff, the business is now going from strength to strength. In fact, the company has now signed multi-million-pound contracts and attracted venture capital funding, which will further increase the business’s size and scope.
Commenting on the improvements in the talent attraction pipeline, Steve added, “It’s given us something to sit back and critique, and an opportunity to think more deeply about the types of candidates we’re seeking and how we can improve our recruitment process.”
People Director Liz Allan has thoroughly enjoyed the journey with Camena Bioscience as well. “It’s been fantastic to see how this values-led, entrepreneurial business is bringing a pioneering new technology – that could change all our lives – to market. I’ve really enjoyed helping the team and culture develop and can’t wait to see where they go next.”
A crucial piece of the puzzle
Steve feels that working with the People Puzzles model has been critical to the success of the business to date. “This arrangement has been beneficial to us because typically early stage companies will not have enough work or enough money to support a full time HR Director, but it’s a critical part of the business that’s needed, so the arrangement of having a part time director and the experience that they can bring to the company has been really quite an incredible benefit to us in this early point.”
If you are a new business in the early stages of growth, or an established business taking that next step, our part-time model could just the support you need to achieve your ambitions. For a complimentary 30-minute consultation with a trusted people expert, just call us on 0345 646 5201 and discover how a part-time People Director can help your business thrive.
