Industry: Tech
Number of team members: 1,300
Location: San Francisco, Denver, New York + remote
Gusto’s people are affectionately called Gusties and managers are called People Empowerers because, well, that’s exactly how the company sees them.
The Mintable’s Co-Founders Melissa Miller and Lauren Humphrey met at Gusto where they worked as department heads prior to founding their platform built for managers. It’s safe to say Gusto’s commitment to People & Culture is the genesis of The Mintable. And this management love story continues to blossom today.
Gusto is a platform that helps growing businesses onboard, pay, insure, and support their teams with payroll, benefits, and more. With 1,300 team members across San Francisco, Denver, New York and other remote locations, their people are crucial to their success.
The company has now supported over 50 managers through The Mintable’s program. It’s no surprise they’ve taken on The Mintable with such (ahem) gusto, given the unique and intentional culture at the company.
Lisa Robinson, Head of Customer Success and Riley Bingham, Head of Benefits both have the enormous privilege of managing managers. As such, each is uniquely positioned to reflect on Gusto’s relationship with The Mintable.
Management Problems = Mintable Solutions
Gusto is known for its depth of commitment to its people, with their CEO prioritizing investing in team and culture. That being said, they are aware gaps in training can be supplemented by specialist third-parties, like The Mintable.
“At Gusto, one thing we do really well is promote folks internally into management roles. People have a lot of room for internal mobility… For some of our new managers filling in any gaps in the general training is where the Mintable has made a huge difference. In the past, we had team specific initiatives but we didn’t have a full scale solution that everyone had equal access to,” says Lisa.
The Mintable provides a solution by placing managers in programs that meet them exactly where they are at, addressing personal management hurdles while providing a network of managers and resources from which each individual manager grows.
The beauty of The Mintable, according to Lisa, is that the program doubles down on what Gusto is already doing internally: investing in their people.
“We’ve tried operational routines and rituals, doing inventory checks and midday productivity checks, etc. There’s programming and math you can apply to a day, to see indicators move in the right direction. But that somewhat misses the mark. It’s important but only insomuch as the foundation of trust between the team members,” says Riley.
Both Riley and Lisa see The Mintable as a way to supplement what they already do at Gusto: supporting their People Empowerers. Both managers see the investment in The Mintable as an investment in their people.
The Impact of The Mintable?
The results, according to Lisa, speak for themselves.
“We have managers at all different levels but specifically for new managers, I notice more confidence. When they’re faced with something new, they feel confident they can face that situation, which builds trust and performance within the team at Gusto,” says Lisa.
One of the core aspects of The Mintable’s program is redefining how managers think about ‘soft skills’, encouraging them not to see these as innate or indefinable. Not only are these skills learned, they’re essential to a manager’s success.
According to Riley “especially with first time leaders (and all of our leaders) The Mintable can help us begin to programatize [soft skill] attributes into rituals which will create better outcomes for everyone.’
Because of the success of the program, Gusto are looking at how their People Empowerers can grow with The Mintable. Their hope is The Mintable will continue to provide programs that support their people on every step of the management growth journey.
Lucky, because that’s exactly what The Mintable intends to do.
Advice to other People Leaders?
Gusto’s love of its people is self-evident in how Lisa talks about empowering individuals, to strengthen the collective. So, what is Riley and Lisa’s advice to other leaders who are equally passionate about their people?
Riley’s firm advice is, “don’t wait. Especially if you intend to grow quickly, it just becomes a lot harder to instill rituals, programs and frameworks when you have 100s of managers as opposed to a few or a couple of dozen. Start now and keep at it.”
Lisa says “just because you’re going fast doesn’t mean you can’t slow down and be intentional about how you train your managers, making them ready to empower a group of individuals. You want to make sure as you grow, your team is growing with you.”
And that’s precisely why it’s a love story between Gusto and The Mintable: shared values and passion about the importance of supporting managers.
At The Mintable, we supercharge managers’ success.
To set up a program and empower your team, book time to talk to us today.