Grove Collective

SIZE + Grove Collective

HR Support

A leading sustainable home essentials brand, partnered with SIZE to provide interim HR leadership, optimize talent acquisition processes, and enhance employee engagement, positioning the company for continued growth and success.

The Brand

Grove Collaborative is a digitally-native sustainable consumer products brand. A Certified B Corp, Grove delivers eco-friendly home essentials including household cleaning, personal care, baby, kid and pet products. Grove is at the forefront of direct-to-consumer natural products with more than 1.5 million active customers through its direct platform and millions of units of products sold at retail partners.

The Challenge

The People team was very receptive to Rick joining their group. He positioned the interim role and consultancy as “a member of their team” working to improve their results and influence. The group was comprised of very talented, smart, hardworking, dedicated professionals, but there was a need for improved teamwork and processes. The biggest roadblocks were the lack of integrated data to measure current status and gaps, and the need for a clear understanding of the organization and the expectations and objectives of internal stakeholders.

The Objective

Grove Collaborative’s Chief Legal & People Officer needed support regarding a number of HR related challenges including their compensation process, talent acquisition process and the need to assess talent and identify gaps on the People team. Grove’s VP of HR had departed the company and the search for a replacement was expected to take 2-4 months. SIZE’s Rick Martino stepped in as an interim HR leader to provide direction and management on the most pressing HR priorities and ultimately improve the effectiveness, results and influence of the People team at Grove to pave the way for a “fast start” for the new VP of Human Resources.

The Approach

The original engagement was four months but based on the impact SIZE was making to the organization and the awaited start date of the new VP People, the engagement was extended for an additional three months. During the extension Rick completed a comprehensive analysis of their Pulse (engagement) survey, played a leadership role on the Talent Acquisition team, focused on career paths and leveling, partnered with their new VP of HR. One of the major focuses was simply prioritizing the many needs of the organization and focusing on those that had the highest impact. Throughout the entire engagement, he provided coaching, mentoring and advice and counsel to senior leaders and the People team leaders.

The Results

Teamwork and collaboration significantly improved throughout the duration of the engagement.
The Talent Acquisition team and processes also made great strides. In some instances processes were not documents and historical data required a lot of digging.
The Pulse survey was evaluated and improved which led to a better understanding of Grove employee engagement.
Compensation principles and process became better defined and a career path model was established.
The VP of Human Resources, and additional new People team leaders were put in a strong position to succeed right from their start date.

Why do you enjoy your work with SIZE?

“I try to understand what the big things are that we can do to drive success in a company. And you can’t succeed without the right talent. You have to have the right talent with the right passion. I can work with the CEO or directly with an analyst trying to figure out our data so we feel we have more confidence in the information we’re collecting – to me it doesn’t matter. All those things and people add up to excellence. Whether it’s at the senior level or levels further down in the organization. This kind of work that I do with SIZE adds up to the organization being better.”

RICK MARTINO
Human Resources, Executive Coaching & Leadership Advisor, SIZE