Strengthening our People & Culture framework in partnership with Humankind
At Brightly, we’ve always cared about our people, and as we grew, we saw an opportunity to be more intentional in how we support them. That's meant putting thoughtful structures in place around leadership development, recruitment, policies, and overall employee experience that will continue to support us as we scale.
Building a stronger People & Culture framework
We started by recognising that, while our intentions were strong, there was an opportunity to get a real sense of how our people felt, beyond assumptions, and bring more structure to our People & Culture practices. We have always been clear on our ‘why’ and doing right by our people, but our growth had outpaced our systems. So, we set out to define who we are as an organisation, formalise our recruitment framework and document the way we work, with the support of Humankind.
Humankind kicked off the work with an employee experience survey, running in-depth interviews to gauge how our team felt about working at Brightly. They then compared this with our leadership team’s perspective, helping us see where our culture, processes, and employee experience aligned, and identify opportunities where we could improve.
Turning insights into action
Based on these findings, Humankind mapped out four key focus areas:
People processes – refining recruitment, onboarding, and development.
Documentation & information management – ensuring consistency and clarity.
Ways of working – improving internal workflows.
Strategic priorities – setting long-term goals for our people and culture.
They developed a roadmap alongside us for quick wins (3-6 months), foundational changes (6-9 months), and long-term goals (9+ months). This allowed us to make meaningful improvements while keeping momentum.
One of the biggest shifts was in leadership development. Our leadership team each had one-on-one coaching sessions with Humankind to reflect on their leadership style, challenges, and growth areas.
This external perspective was invaluable; it created a safe space for honest conversations and helped us develop stronger leadership skills to support our teams better.
Refining our values and EVP
A key part of this work was refreshing our company values. We wanted values that weren’t just words on a page, but a true reflection of Brightly’s culture and how we operate.
At an offsite in Matakana, our team came together to explore what mattered most—to us, to our customers, and to the way we worked. Jenae Turner, an Organisational Design Consultant for Humankind, facilitated deep discussions and helped shape these insights into four core values that now guide everything from decision-making to hiring.
We also use these values in our monthly All Hands meetings, asking team members to nominate each other for living out different values. This has meant we’ve been able to successfully incorporate the values in our day-to-day work and who we engage and think about each other.
Our core values are:
Collaboration
Agility
Purpose
Empathy
Alongside this, we worked on defining our Employee Value Proposition (EVP) with a clear articulation of why people should want to work at Brightly. While we haven’t formally launched our EVP yet, having a defined foundation means we’re in a strong position to bring it to life.
Policies, recruitment, and people development
To ensure our policies reflected who we are, we updated key policies and introduced new initiatives, including:
Six Personal days (“just because” leave) – giving employees more flexibility to take days for themselves when needed, for example for menopause, menstruation or mental health.
Parental leave enhancements – including salary reviews and continuation of annual leave accrual while on parental leave as well as flexible and staggered returns to work.
Social Club – monthly/bi-monthly catch ups with the team to connect outside of work.
At Brightly, our vision is to become the technology provider of choice for impact driven organisations. To get there, we knew we needed a high-performing team who were in alignment with our purpose and committed to pushing the boundaries of innovation with us. That’s why we focus on empowering our people, making sure they feel supported, valued, and set up to succeed.
To help make this happen, Humankind worked alongside the Leadership team to roll out our Performance & Development framework last year. This framework set the scene for how we approach performance and growth at Brightly, how progress is measured, and the development opportunities available for the team.
We kicked things off last November with Employee and Manager assessments, which sparked some really valuable conversations about where people were at and where they wanted to head next. We’re excited to keep building on this momentum, making sure our team has everything they need to thrive as we move forward together towards our vision.
On the recruitment front, we revamped our job descriptions and offer templates, embedding our values into every step of the hiring process. This not only made recruitment more efficient and structured but also helped us attract candidates who resonated with our culture. One candidate even cited our well-crafted job ad as a key reason for applying.
We also started making better use of BambooHR, integrating templates, job descriptions, and performance management tools to streamline our processes, including onboarding our new hires and getting them ready before Day 1.
The impact on Brightly
The changes we’ve implemented with Humankind have had a tangible impact across the business.
Leadership development – We now have clearer direction as a leadership team, better coaching tools, and stronger confidence in leading our people.
Employee experience – Our team feels more engaged, with structured processes that support growth, wellbeing, development and fosters connection.
Structure & clarity – With formalised policies, a stronger EVP, and refreshed values, we’re now more intentional in how we support our people.
Recruitment & onboarding – Hiring is smoother, more strategic, and aligned with our culture.
Perhaps the biggest shift is that people and culture are now an intentional part of our strategy. It’s no longer just about wanting to do right by our team, we now have the tools, processes, and mindset to make that happen.
This is just the beginning, but with Humankind’s guidance, we’ve been able to formalise and strengthen the foundations of our people-first culture, creating structure that continues to support our team as we scale.