How Articore harnesses Lattice to transform employee growth

Articore owns and operates leading global marketplaces Redbubble.com and TeePublic.com. Founded in 2006, Articore is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, with offices in San Francisco, New York, and Berlin, and its 200 people support a fast-growing community of passionate creatives.  This requires the same level of passion, commitment, and sense of belonging within their team.

Articore aims for its people to have a positive impact on its culture and community. To do this, they must work for a company they trust—one that gives them a sense of purpose, is always fair and transparent, is invested in their success, and most importantly, is a company they can feel proud of.

“We have three central pillars of people success,” says Meahan Callaghan, Head of People and Culture. “Firstly, a culture of performance, focusing not just on what we do, but how we do it.  Secondly, we believe engagement is a key contributor to bottom-line financial success, and therefore must be invested in. Finally, wellbeing is paramount—when our people turn up for work, they’re in our care – physically and psychologically. We needed a platform that could support each of these pillars in perfect unison.”

Articore is a company and community of human beings, and it needed a human-first approach to performance management. Articore deployed Lattice in January 2024.

The Challenge: No More Clunky Technology

Prior to Lattice, Articore was using a spider’s web of separate HR systems to do different things as well as a variety of highly manual spreadsheet-based processes. For a fast-growing global businesses, not only was this complicated framework unsustainable for the people team, but each individual technology also failed to deliver the simplicity and results they craved.

“Too much of the tech available in the market isn’t intuitive. In trying to be all things to all people, many solution providers have forgotten the basic premise, which is we are dealing with humans,” says Meahan. “We were being forced down a path we didn’t want to go, with technology that mapped a generic employee journey and tried to shoehorn us into it. You simply cannot retrofit or hardcode humans into this type of over-thought, robotic way of doing things.”

“Lattice could not be more different,” explains Meahan. It delivers a framework for everything, but it acknowledges the human factor and flexes and evolves with our workforce. It’s a breath of fresh air —  easy to implement, easy to use, and empowering. It’s head and shoulders above the rest, and the value of our investment was immediately apparent.”

Using Lattice at Articore: Realising Growth

“Let’s talk about Grow. It’s brilliant—even just the language “Grow” is empowering and different,” says Meahan.

Meahan has been a people leader for over 25 years, but she truly believes she has never seen anything approaching career development in the way Lattice Grow does. The range of dynamic employee development tools, including competency frameworks and individual development plans, have been transformative for Articore, which is focused on developing from within, rather than continuous recruitment cycles.

“I’ll be honest, growth had been put in the ‘too hard’ basket,” explains Meahan. “Everybody in our team wanted to grow, but we weren’t having the right career conversations, and we weren’t recording individual development aspirations due to the limitations of our tech.” Today, Grow ensures every member of the Articore team knows how to develop. They have clear role expectations, along with a documented and agreed path to career advancement and personal development.

“It’s a dream! A truly positive approach to career development that almost feels like a free-flowing conversation, as opposed to one viewed as analytical and a source of friction. Everyone knows where they are and what they need to do next. Even our C-suite uses Grow, acknowledging what he doesn’t know yet and where he wants to go next.”

“Lattice is one of the most important systems in the company and every dollar spent is paying off.”

Of course, Articore doesn’t use Grow in isolation. Lattice Compensation, Performance, OKRs and Goals have also been implemented successfully to ensure the business keeps moving fast as one cohesive team. “We are a 200-person business achieving really big things; quite simply everyone has to deliver to keep us nimble,” says Meahan. “We don’t want to constantly be recruiting, so OKRs plus Performance, plus Compensation, plus Growth – all working together—ensures we’re built for performance and are always focused on the right things at the right time. Our people are performing and developing in line with the company’s goals and evolution, and most importantly, they’re happy and feel invested in.”

Looking to the future, Articore is now ready to take engagement to the next level. The team is replacing CultureAmp with Lattice Engagement to foster an approach where engagement is viewed not simply as a job satisfaction metric, but as a proactive tool that continuously takes the pulse of its people and links this directly to performance, growth, and compensation.

“The days of clunky tech are over,” concludes Meahan. “Thanks to Lattice, HR is moving at a faster pace than any other shared service at Articore. Lattice is one of the most important systems in the company and every dollar spent is paying off.  Plus, thanks to Resources for Humans, we feel part of a collaborative global community. Every business needs Lattice.”

Takeaways

• Articore has achieved a high return on investment with its people initiatives and Lattice
• With Lattice, Articore achieved 70% active goal attainment—a record for the company
• 100% of performance reviews are now completed using Lattice
• By the end of 2024, every employee will have an individual growth plan in place
• Articore has rationalised its HR technology stack, optimising it for high performance
• The organisation is seeing higher levels of trust, transparency, and overall employee happiness