Sajida joined tiney in March 2020 as our Selection Manager. Let's find out more about what she does - and how she got here...
Tell us about what you do here?
My role is all about selecting and supporting our new childminders through their learning journey with tiney so that they can go on and open their own businesses. I work closely with our education team on our selection criterias to make sure we're accepting the highest quality of candidate possible and most importantly families and children are kept safe. Once a childminder is selected into train with tiney, we then take them through their onboarding journey. This involves supporting them to complete numerous background checks, motivating them through their training units and being there to support them with anything that they need. I'm currently leading the squad within the onboarding team, making sure we're constantly looking for ways to build scalable processes within the product to improve the customer experience.
On a day-to-day basis, who do you work with and how does the team run?
To be honest, I work with the majority of the company in one shape or another. We're now 40 people and move around in different squads depending on the quarterly business goals. My home team is Customer Experience and I lead the onboarding squad. I work with the product team on a daily basis to fix bugs and talk through app improvements and efficiencies. From a quality perspective I also work with our Education team on making sure we have a thorough selection criteria for our childminders.
How did you find yourself in tech startups?
It's not been straight forward, that's for sure. I started my career in investment banking and had the chance to move to New York, loved the city but knew this wasn't quite the right role for me. I wanted something that was more people-centric. Once I returned back to the UK, my aunt who had been a flight attendant for many years encouraged me to consider this as a great opportunity to work on my people skills, so I gave it a shot. Nearly six years later I experienced both commercial and private jet flying, and got involved in recruitment and training for new flight attendants. It was a fantastic experience to explore and understand different cultures, but I missed my family and decided to come back to London.
I got such a great feeling when recruiting people I knew this is what I wanted to do long term. I started working at a financial technology company but this time in a recruitment role, where I learned how to hire from the ground up - it was brilliant. After four great years, I came across a Monzo card during a dinner with a friend, and fell in love with the mission and how it wanted to revolutionise banking. I joined the hiring team when they had just over 100 employees, grew them to around 1,600 people and after experiencing such a fast paced environment, with a mission I believed in, I knew startup life was for me and I could thrive.
What are you most proud since joining tiney?
Since March, I've been able to work on lots of different projects around the business. In my first few weeks, I put together our company wide training for how to use Slack which I hope was impactful to the wider team. I'm part of our Diversity, Belonging and Equality working group who meet on a monthly to work on our roadmap, it's something I'm really passionate about and think adds so much value. I'm proud of learning about the education sector, understanding the importance of early years education and being able to on-board exceptional educators, connect them to families and ultimately helping young children flourish and thrive.
If you weren’t at tiney, what would you be doing?
I'm currently studying for a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy so I would love to have my own practice. I want to give people the place and space to reflect, and process their thoughts and feelings. Ultimately wanting to support them to become their best self.
3 words to describe working at tiney?
- Thoughtful. With every decision we make, we systematically think about the impact on children, parents, the industry, our childminders and our internal team. I've been blown away with how fast we can move whilst being so considered
- Playful. When we're adults we forget how to play and just be in the moment. Tiney has made me realise how important humour and play is, and how this can be incorporated into the workplace and our daily lives. We've done ukulele lessons, banana dancing and have Story-time each week with an activity!
- Caring. I really feel cared for and valued at tiney. Everyone is celebrated, our thoughts are listened to and our executive team has incredibly strong morals and values - it makes a real difference. I've seen the term 'tech for good' be put into action in all areas of our business.