Cracking the High-Performance Code with Jamie Salas

For businesses to make a global impact, high performers are an essential ingredient.

ClickUp is one of today’s fastest-growing SaaS companies in the world, literally. Multiplying its customer base from 200K to 800K, Clickup also earned impressive inclusion into the Forbes Cloud 100 in a matter of a few short years.

Jamie Salas has had to constantly reinvent herself to meet the organization’s rapidly changing environment. Having been promoted four times since 2021, Jamie has performed at the level HR and People Ops leaders hope for their employees. Now, she shares her experience and expertise to help others build high-growth environments that accelerate growth and high performance.

On the latest episode of High Growth Matters, Jamie shares how you can borrow from Clickup’s recruiting and people practices to build optimal performance, even in the most dynamic environments.

This blog has been adapted from that conversation and covers:

• Optimizing recruiting and people practices in high-growth
• Crucial values that enable performance
• Partnering with people teams to build alignment
  
  

To hear the full episode, visit this page, or subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player, such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Don’t miss the full episode: Cracking the High-Performance Code

Creating optimized recruiting practices for high-growth 

Jamie hired over 130 people in her first year at ClickUp. Focused on high growth, the organization underwent an immense change as Jamie built a strong recruiting team and shaped employment across the board.

Maintaining consistency with hires can be difficult, particularly when hiring for both culture and skill fit. In addition, an environment that shifts quickly adds an extra layer of challenge — the talent needed at 50 people may not match the required talent as the company grows beyond 300. So what focus was necessary to maintain a positive, high-performance culture?

According to Jamie, there was one common thread across this first year and beyond: change. 

“There were definitely a lot of pivots we had to make to keep with that velocity,” Jamie says. “My team of recruiters was strong, tenacious and ambitious, which allowed me to also lean into talent operations.”

Throughout growth, Jamie assessed teams' productivity to ensure each team was equipped to meet the fast growth effectively. By considering and shaping systems scaling and reporting and team enablement and cooperation, Jamie’s team delivers ClickUp’s values during the recruitment process that continue through the entire employee experience, building alignment amongst employees across every department, regardless of tenure.

Crucial performance-enabling values

While many impactful values can enable a team to perform well, Jamie cites ownership and a growth mindset as critical in an organization — particularly within leadership.

“The leadership team has really leaned in and created that sense of trust,” Jamie says. “That has changed my career trajectory tremendously.”

By enabling people with psychological safety and allowing them open opportunities to receive and offer feedback, ClickUp has built a culture of growth and development. When people feel they can test new systems and ideas and remain safe even if they fail, they are more likely to take calculated risks that result in success and innovation.

When they can take these risks, they are also allowed to build experiences that inform the future direction of their development and that of their colleagues.

Having a growth mindset also requires a level of vulnerability.

“Leadership has been open with me and have shared the learnings they've made in their career paths — what they would have done differently, what they feel like is going really well.”

With the foundation of a growth mindset and ownership, ClickUp also embraces radical candor, being passionate about saving the world and challenging the status quo. According to Jamie, this has helped build an unstoppable team with unmatched potential and drive — something she is very proud to be a part of.

Want to hear the ins and outs of how the recruiting team at ClickUp ensures cultural alignment through their hiring practices? Listen to the full episode of High Growth Matters.

Collaborating with people teams to build alignment

Recruitment plays a significant role in building and developing culture. While many of Clickup’s employees are relatively new, the recruitment team is among the most established, most being on board since 2021.

According to Jamie, ClickUp also has a strong people team that is led with trust. In addition, the people team empowers the recruitment team to take their messaging and goals to internal employees, allowing them to help build alignment throughout the entire employment lifecycle.

“They carry a sense of ownership and growing the culture,” she says. “When what you’re saying to prospective candidates about the culture comes from the heart, it makes a big difference.”

As the two teams converge, they can build an alignment throughout the hiring and people operations so that each employee has clarity about the organization's goals.

“The teams are great at brainstorming different ways we can tag team,” Jamie says. “All humans are different, and it's more impactful when we grow together.”

If you enjoyed this post, you’d appreciate our conversation, where we take a deep dive into the topics covered here today and beyond. Take a moment to listen to the full High Growth Matters episode. If you like what you hear, please consider leaving us a rating and bookmarking the podcast to be notified each time we publish a new episode.

Did you enjoy the content? Listen to the full High Growth Matters episode.

Don’t forget to give us a five-star rating, and email podcast@opencomp.com if you have ideas for topics or guests.

To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The High Growth Matters Podcast on our website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or just search for The High Growth Matters Podcast in your favorite podcast player.