Olya Yakzhina

Switchee

Head of People

Working closely with the senior leadership team I strive to build an amazing employee experience. Managing the entire employee journey from recruitment, to onboarding, development, and retention. Amongst other things, I ensure that we have a great culture, sustainable HR policies and procedures, and a great inclusive & diverse team to work with.

People Manager

Aster Group UK

A volunteer providing mentoring and coaching to support the personal and business growth of social entrepreneurs partaking in the annual inc. cohort journey.

Executive Mentor

The Modern Employer

We explore all things HR and Talent related. We go through the current news and build on specific in-depth topics employers and employee's alike need to hear. Keep up to date, be a modern employer and join the #wildcards to listen to our podcasts.

Co-Founder & Podcaster

Berkana USA

www.berkana-usa.com 
Berkana USA was founded in Miami, Florida. This is a family business that began in Russia from our long-standing business relationships with multiple famous factories in the Czech Republic. We are a wholesaler of high-quality Crystal Chandeliers of Preciosa, Swarovski and Bohemian crystal. Our team runs special projects for hotels and other commercial establishments, where large custom chandeliers are created using only sketches and client ideas. Our online store welcomes you to browse a large selection of high-quality crystal jewellery and accessories from Preciosa, as well as crystal stones and beads for jewellery makers and other designers. We partner with multiple lighting stores across Florida where you can see our products in real-life. Any questions please contact berkana.usa@gmail.com
berkanausa@yahoo.com

Co-Founder

CultureBot

I have joined CultureBot as an Advisor & Evangelist to support them in developing a best on class team engagement tool on Slack.
With CultureBot, you can encourage employee engagement, build a positive culture of appreciation, and help your company culture bloom - these are all the things I can stand behind!

Advisor

PassFort

My main focus in this tech scale-up has been on ensuring employee happiness and wellbeing throughout their career with PassFort.
Responsibilities:
- Supported PassFort in improving people operations and resolving issues to deliver top-notch candidate experience.
- Lead on a variety of People projects revolving around Trust, Empowerment & Growth.
- Lead on all Team Engagement activities and organised quarterly company events.
- Owned Employee Engagement surveys and feedback loop.  
- Created and populated a company knowledge-base easily accessible for employees - "People Hub", which included all information necessary to support each team member of any level with their life at PassFort.
- Created and implemented a specialised onboarding program for all new hires.
- Implemented Employer Branding Strategy to ensure that PassFort is visible and attractive to all potential candidates.
- Lead on all technical and commercial recruitment, from conception and budgeting to interviewing and salary benchmarking/negotiations.
- Managed recruitment agencies, utilised sourcing platforms while prioritising and getting results from direct recruitment.
- Ensured fair and consistent salary benchmarking exercise across all new roles in the business.
- Lead on payroll, pay reviews, performance bonuses and other commission-based administrative tasks.

Talent & Culture Coordinator

Quiqup

- Developed departmental systems and procedures that better aligned the workflow process.
- Communicated all learning and performance objectives, schedules and training assessments to upper management.
- Evaluated the effectiveness of training programmes and recommended improvements to upper management.
- Reviewed and edited all training materials for accuracy and policy compliance.
- Led daily, weekly and monthly coaching, counselling and feedback sessions.
- Handled understaffing, disputes, terminating employees and administering disciplinary procedures.
- Increased Quality of service (calls, emails & chat) scores by 67% as a result of developing new key performance indicators and a training programme for team managers.
- Administered performance reviews to evaluate each participant’s progress.
- Used role-playing, simulations, team exercises, group discussions, videos and lectures to instruct participants in a variety of ways.
- Consistently received positive teacher evaluations from trainees.

Training & Quality Manager

- Developed surveys to identify training needs based on projected production processes and changes.
- Conducted orientation sessions and organised on-the-job training for new hires.
- Managed all exempt employee coaching, training and performance improvement actions.
- Drove departmental performance and achievement of service levels through focused team operational reviews, structured coaching and managing to enterprise targets.
- Tested all training software and hardware prior to the training programme.
- Trained new hires to perform cross-training exercises with experienced workers.
- Delivered a wide variety of courses including topics on communication skills, team building,  time management, work-life balance, customer service and leadership.
- Coordinated ongoing technical training and personal development classes for staff members.
- Organised and edited training manuals, multimedia visual aids and other educational materials.

Learning & Development Coordinator

- Managed a wide variety of customer service and administrative tasks to resolve customer issues quickly and efficiently.
- Answered an average of 60 tickets per day by addressing customer enquiries, investigating complaints and providing compensation.
- Built long-term customer relationships by always willing to go an extra mile and make every customer's order journey special.
- Worked with Salesforce, Zendesk, New Voice Media and Cloud Call.
- Investigated fraudulent transactions and liaised with the finance department and higher management in implementing and maintaining a new fraud detection system.
- Effectively communicated with and supported product, marketing and higher management to convey customer feedback and feature requests.
Earned management trust by dealing with difficult customer escalations and handling them end-to-end.

Customer Happiness Representative

CROWN RESIDENTIAL LETTINGS LIMITED

- Advertised client properties on websites, through social media and in real estate guides.
- Communicated with clients to understand their property needs and preferences.
- Guided clients from beginning to end of the renting process in choosing the right property.
- Showed properties to potential tenants by appointment.
- Developed and maintained a list of properties suited to different needs and budgets.

Lettings Negotiator

UK EXPERT BUREAU LIMITED

Web-hosting, social media advertising, office duties, reception duties, handling of immigration applications, russian/english translations, customer support.

Personal Assistant to Director

At Your Service Event Staffing

Recieved training for hospitality and waitress duties.
Attended various restaurants and events in London to help with catering needs and to deliver the best possible atmosphere and service to the end customers.

Hospitality

As the Head of People at Switchee, I lead on all aspects of the employee journey, from recruitment to retention, development, and engagement. With over 7 years of experience in Tech scale-up startups, I have successfully implemented People policies and procedures, employer branding projects, and people strategy, while nurturing a positive and inclusive culture.

I am passionate about employee happiness and wellbeing, and I use my coaching and mentoring skills to support and empower the senior leadership team and individual managers. 

I am a Founder and host at The Modern Employer podcast, where I explore and share innovative and progressive ideas on HR and Talent. 

I am a co-founder of People Stories, a Slack community with close to 1.5K engaged members, where we collaborate together to revolutionise the modern world of people operations and explore experience. 

I am a certified Chief Happiness Officer, a Mental Health First Aider, a Transformational Coach, a Psychology Bachelor and a UK Employment Law Diploma holder. 

My mission is to make every employee's experience awesome and fulfilling.

P.S. I am an advocate for remote working and passionate about building awesome cultures for remote-first organisations.

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