Matrix Reporting Structures with Allison Mairena

“[A matrix reporting structure] really requires both sets of managers to…have alignment around an individual’s goals.”
-Allison Mairena

Have you ever been in a matrix reporting relationship?  It can be very frustrating if both leaders are not aligned.   In today’s episode, my guest gives us a peek into how her organization manages matrix reporting.

My guest is Allison Mairena. Allison (she/her) specializes in building and scaling People Operations practices, particularly for rapidly-growing startups and international teams. Currently, she serves as the VP of People for NewGlobe, an international education company providing innovative curriculum and transformative technical services to public schools. Recently leading the People & Talent function at connectRN, she led the organization through COVID-19 and the transition to remote-supportive work. There, Allison developed and executed the HR strategy as the company grew 4x YoY. Prior to connectRN, Allison served as the Head of People at CozyKin, a tech-enabled childcare service, and talent acquisition teams at EF Education First and Cengage, hiring globally and nationally respectively.

Being a very mission-driven professional, Allison has worked predominantly for companies which make a societal impact (edtech, healthtech, famtech). She believes in a human-first approach, advocating for employee wellbeing and amplifying voices from underrepresented groups.

In this episode of Talent Management Truths, you’ll discover:

• The business case for buying performance management software when you don’t have already an HRIS 
• Insight into the difference between a globalization model and a COE structure
• Best practice ideas for matrix reporting structures

Links

Allison Mairena on Linkedin 

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Transcript

LM Ep 125

 [00:00:00] Have you ever been in a matrix reporting relationship? It can be very frustrating if both leaders are not aligned. In today's episode, my guest gives us a peek into how her organization manages matrix reporting. My [00:01:00] guest is Allison Marina. Allison is VP of People for New Globe, an international education company.

Allison describes herself as very mission-driven professional, which has led her to work predominantly for companies which make a societal impact such as ed tech, health Tech, and fam tech. In this episode of Talent Management Truths, you'll discover the business case for buying performance management software when you don't already have an HRIS insight into the difference between a globalization model and a COE structure and best practice ideas for matrix reporting structures and joy.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Truth. I'm your host, Elisa Mitchell, and today I'm joined by Alison Morena. Alison is the Vice President of people at New Globe. Great to have you here with me today, Alison.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: Great to be here, Lisa. Thanks.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: So let's kick off and have you share a little bit with me and the listeners about your, your background and your career [00:02:00] journey to date.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: Sure. So, you know, I actually started my career as an English teacher in China, and so I ended up living and working there for a few years, but moved into the HR space. From teaching by means of joining the Global Education Company's teacher recruitment and training department and really enjoyed that shift.

I love being in the education space. New Globe is in the education space, so I'm thrilled to be, you know, back in such a meaningful industry. And, you know, having. More recently been in health tech and childcare tech before that. The kind of overarching thread throughout my career as I've weaved from, you know, talent acquisition and training into, you know, more of a full cycle HR generalist type capacity.

Has [00:03:00] been with very mission driven organizations that are making some kind of societal impact. And so absolutely thrilled to to be with New Globe Now where we are partnering with governments in developing countries to bring technology and curriculum into public schools. So really impactful stuff.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: So say a little bit more about, about that work that New Globe does and, and how you and your team support it.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: as VP of People at New Globe, the majority of my team is not based where I am. I'm here in the, the Boston, Massachusetts area of the United States. the, there's a good chunk of our programs that are based in various states across Nigeria and so. Of our, you know, 50 ish people, team members, about half of them are based throughout Nigeria.

So very healthy contingent there. We were co-founded actually in Nairobi, Kenya about 15 years ago at this point. And so there's [00:04:00] another healthy contingent of folks there. And we've got a growing team in Kigali, Rwanda, Monrovia, Liberia, and a very healthy presence in very cities throughout India as well.

So, we do have a shared services office in the Netherlands. That one's. Quite small. I think it's around 30 at this point. So, yeah, never a dull moment. We have a combination of shared services in terms of our model and then also program specific people, professionals. So little bit of an interesting org structure there.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Yeah. So just to help listeners sort of grasp this and, and understand it. 'cause it, it'll help set us up for our conversation down the line when we kind of get into structures and so on. So, I. Told me you've got about 3,100 employees, 2000 of those being teachers. Right. And it's globally dispersed work floor workforce, obviously given all the locations you rmd off.

And then there's about a thousand support staff. So, so you are, you like, is is New Globe [00:05:00] building the schools and then staffing the schools and,

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: So that was our origin. So from, oh gosh. 15 years ago when the company was co-founded as Bridge International Academies, we were physically building the schools in Kenya, Uganda Nigeria and Entrepre India. And so we do still have those schools. They have since transitioned to be a nonprofit in 2021.

So just two years ago we shifted our business model from, you know. Owning the entirety of the school as a business, right? So building the school, making sure we're employing the teachers, making sure that we're being considerate about student enrollment numbers, things of that nature. We shifted to this government partnership model.

So we found that we were able to make a greater impact and there was a lot of demand from government leaders. So, you know, the [00:06:00] leader of Liberia. Approached us after we were so successful in launching our Bridge International Academies in Uganda, that she said, Hey, what do I need to do to get this in Liberia?

And so that was actually our first government partnership. But we've grown substantially since then with our government partnerships and that it's, you know, continuing to be how we will grow going forward.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: It's really, really interesting. I appreciate you kind of painting the picture a little more for us. so what are you and your team currently working on to support new.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: one big thing right now is making sure that all of our managers and leaders across the company are super crisp and clear about what their KPIs were, what their team's KPIs were, ensuring that they have communicated those regularly [00:07:00] throughout the year, so that way when we move into our annual performance review cycle. That folks aren't totally taken off guard. Right. And for further context, this is still a fairly newish role for me. I've only been here for a couple of months. And so admittedly, I am continuing to learn what are the new globe existing standard operating procedures and, and ways of doing things every day.

But so really gearing up for, you know, the annual performance review cycle is a big focus. And in particular, what are ways that we can automate the process and make it substantially less painful? while I was not here for the majority of the last review cycle and we are on an annual cadence currently, I do typically encourage organizations to have a more regular cadence because it's unlikely that you remember what happened over a year ago.

But also too, [00:08:00] from just like an administrative perspective we do not actually have any kind of global HRIS currently, and so I guess thankfully is, is the word that's coming to mind. Our teachers don't go through that annual performance review process the same way that support staff does, and so they're having, you know, their performance assessed more regularly throughout the year.

In New Globe's proprietary systems and technology, they're constantly having coaching conversations. Perhaps an opportunity for us to leverage that more for our support staff. But I'll unpack that with my, my boss another time. I'm just having some light bulb moments for live. But in the absence of not having a global HRIS to where those performance reviews live, it's been in spreadsheets.

So for the 2022 annual performance review that launched in January of [00:09:00] 2023, it actually didn't conclude the cycle until August of 2023. So eight months of one review cycle relating to the year prior. So that is like a really huge thing that I'm focused on right now and working with my team to solution for to improve upon.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Yeah, huge opportunity, right? To make it more efficient and so on. And how people it probably feels very weighty if it took eight months, you know, start to finish. But the whole no eight is, I've been there as well, and. And in my last organization and, you know, there was an antiquated payroll system that was no longer supported, that was being used as the system of record.

Anyway, it was pretty tough, right? Anytime you wanted data to, to help you make decisions and, you know, analyze different opportunities, this is really, really rough. So what, so you've got a spreadsheet, so you use that to, to manage performance management currently and [00:10:00] what, what are other sort of workarounds, 'cause this is a reality for many people, and I'm sure lots of listeners are going, oh yeah, I know this, this,

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: Mm-Hmm.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Scenario, right?

No HRIS or an old one or one that's not that useful and they can't. Up, upgrade it just yet. What are some other tips or ideas you have that you could share?

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: so I have gotten buy-in to make, a purchase for a relatively inexpensive performance management software. So I don't know how creative I'm getting other than I built a business case and got buy-in. Right? To say, like when it came to people leads in particular throughout the regions and shared services, you know, your average people director was spending X amount of hours calibrating scores, right?

And making sure that. This person's spreadsheet was uploaded into their employee file and making sure that this manager had, you know, this [00:11:00] document for their seven direct reports outlining what each person's KPIs were. Right? And so I am optimistic that by having that technology we'll be able to, you know, have it all a in one spot.

So like. Finding the documentation was partially a, a slowdown, but then the communications and reminders, right? So, I don't know that I wanna call it this particular executive, so I'll just say that one executive admitted that they still had not completed some of their performance reviews by July of this year.

You gotta model it from the top. So we're gonna have some coaching conversations before we go into the next

But that person did raise their hand and say like, Hey. I realized this is pretty bad and like I will do better next time. So, you know, at least there was the acknowledgement that. They need to make the improvement which I was [00:12:00] grateful for. But yeah, hoping this time to run a, a tighter process.

And for further context too. My role as VP of people was vacant for 13 months prior to me joining the organization. So, you know, although there were the people, directors for the programs who were able to quarterback the review cycle. For those in programs, you know, they didn't really have anybody to wrangle from the shared services global perspective, other than my boss, who is the president of the company who of course is doing 1,000,001 things.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Well, plus it sounds like the business case almost wrote itself, right? You're just gonna be saving so much time. There's gonna be so much more efficiency created. when it's hard slogging like that, it's, it's people that's gonna slide down people's priority lists pretty quickly. they've got other things to worry about that, that that are simpler.

So this is an really interesting organization. So you're, so you're dealing with the new HRIS, you're, you're newer into the role, so you're getting the lay of the land. [00:13:00] And something else that you had told me about was that there's this globalization model versus what might be more typical at some organizations, a center of excellence structure.

I was hoping you could paint the picture for us about what that 

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: Yeah. So our programs are kind of split into the two pieces, like I was mentioning before. We've got the bridge academies from, you know, our, our origin story that are still operating. However, the majority of the business is focused on those government partnerships. And so we have government programs and bridge academies in, I believe, seven countries.

Let's. Count on our fingers here. Like we're, we're back in elementary school Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, India. Okay. I lied. It was six. [00:14:00] So, and then we have shared services offices in the Netherlands as well as the United States. And so within the model in those first six countries that I listed across Sub-Saharan Africa and India. Well, I guess we'll remove India for a second because India has both programs and shared services offices, so they're a little bit of an interesting use case. Whereas throughout our countries where we operate in Sub-Saharan Africa, they're predominantly programs, right?

So, in some cases the office is actually. The physical office is a part of government offices for that state. They're working that closely with the Ministry of Education, so it's really interesting in that way. Our office in Lagos, Nigeria has multiple floors, and so one of those floors is dedicated to shared services at a [00:15:00] global level.

Right. So within the global shared services, we are doing, Project work and support across multiple programs. So supporting all of those programs across Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as India. And that could be on anything from evaluating performance management software or evaluating global benefits brokerages.

It could be taking a look at implementing. Management training across, you know, all geographies. It's taking a look at what is our globalized diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy. And so then, you know, at the program level, we're able to break it down further to say, okay, if this is our global philosophy on this topic. How [00:16:00] do we need to localize this, right? Because if we go with the DEI strategy, for example, you know, is having a Juneteenth celebration in our Monte Poor India office going to really move the needle or be more confusing? Would it be better to instead have a training on the impacts of the cast system?

Right? And so. Finding that right balance of making, you know, our commitment to being a diverse, inclusive, and equitable company make sense at the local level is something that the shared services team would partner with those local people, directors on.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: So in some ways that sounds. Like a COE, you know, I work with some really large organizations. They have global COEs that do something similar. So, so, so it sounds like it's not as different, it's just that the, you know, like think global strategize globally and [00:17:00] then locally you're, you're focused on, on what's appropriate execution look like.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: Sure, but like we don't have anybody dedicated to diversity, equity inclusion. We don't have anybody dedicated to global compensation benefits, total rewards. We don't have anybody dedicated to learning and development. You're looking at it. Right? So those in the shared services teams are really doing a wide variety, the only, you know, typical kind of center of excellence that we have.

Is talent acquisition and at New Globe Talent acquisition is actually not a part of the people department at all. There are two separate departments with two separate VPs, both reporting into the president of the company.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: So interesting. So listeners, you're probably, oh, whoa. Like, okay,

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: it's my first time ever seeing this and I grew up on the TA side of the world, so I'm just like, it's definitely been a, a shift,

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Yeah, 

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: but a welcome one. 

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: So, so much learning. But you know, I, I think it's also [00:18:00] about looking at a, a structure and saying, how does it like this support the uniqueness of an organization such as this, right. So I, I think, I think there's a lot of goodness here. So, so something too that, that you'd mentioned is in place is there's a matrix reporting structure, for instance, with the people that.

You work with directly? And how does that like what are the, what are the benefits of that? What are the challenges of that for you?

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: ultimately, like I just mentioned, there's global shared services teams, so that includes the people function, that includes the talent acquisition function that includes it, right? So, we also have a, a holds apartment called Partnership Launch, which is also considered a shared service because they're not specific to any one particular program where.

Once our policy and partnerships team have signed on a new government client, the partnership launch team, then, you know, physically relocates temporarily to that country [00:19:00] or state to get that project or program, sorry, up and running and off the ground. So in that if we stick with the partnership launch team, for example, we have a director of people, I.

Partnership launch, who currently reports into our chief Partnership launch officer and me as VP of people. So I think Andrew, our Chief Partnership Launch officer, is actually one of the best ones with the reporting matrix structure. He's very good about me in the loop. With regards to, Hey, here's where I put the director of people's, you know, focus on this week.

You know, let me know if you have any pushback or if you really need to reallocate some of his time towards a more shared services project or the global lens. Although his focus is predominantly on partnership launch things, and we do that by having a, a weekly [00:20:00] meeting with the three of us actually.

And so we're, it, it's like your weekly one-on-one, but instead of it just being a one-on-one, I guess it's the two-on-one, I don't know. But it's a meeting with your managers, so that way there isn't the potential for misalignment of competing priorities. Right. And so. It really requires both sets of managers to be in very regular communication and have alignment on what is that individual's KPIs, right?

What is that individual's, you know, goals, whether it be specific to a quarter or a different time period, or in this particular case, a launch of a new program, which, you know, would typically take a couple of months. So, and in the absence of not having that alignment right. The, as we always hear, people don't leave jobs, [00:21:00] they leave managers.

And so we obviously have a big risk here to say like, if they are having, you know, two very different directives from their functional leader and their direct manager that's when, when trouble can. Through. However, we, we put some pieces in place to really avoid that. If you wanna hear more.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Yeah, I do wanna hear more because I, and I just wanna underscore though something that you said is really important. 'cause I, I work with a variety of different companies and, and Matrix reporting is alive and well. I've, I, I've reported into a similar structure. I've had people Matrix report to me, and, and I see this happening all over the place.

I'm not sure I'm always a fan because to, it's not the. The matrix reporting is the problem. It's the way it's executed upon, and you made a point that it's about the alignment of communication and of direction and that there's always that, reportingyou know, we're pointing back up to [00:22:00] what this person's KPIs are and making sure everybody's kind of hearing the same thing.

And you know, it's not like, you're telling them one thing, I'm telling them something else, and they're contradictory and we're putting people between a rock and a hard place. So, yeah. So tell, tell me, tell us a little bit more about, about what you've put in place for this.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: Yeah, so first off, and I think anyone who is good about like putting on their HRBP hat, right, is always trying to think about, you know, how can I as a people professional help to solve the problems of the business? And so by having this matrix reporting structure. The, you know, functional lead, at least on the people team, whether it be myself or our regional director, people, whoever gets the opportunity to really learn from another leader and get to know more about their subject matter expertise and domain knowledge.

So [00:23:00] globally distributed across so many time zones. Sometimes I wish I was not based in the US because I am at the very end of the Indian team day and I've got several folks there. So that's always a little bit of a challenge and means. Early mornings for me a lot of times, but making sure that a, you're communicating through technology, right?

So having, you know, video calls is important but also making sure that you have asynchronous communication opportunities and collaboration opportunities. So we are a Google shop, right? So we're able to use Google Sheets, and. Google Docs to put comments on things. So even if I'm not able to meet live to say, oh, you know, we're setting up a new program in, you know, X, Y, Z state in India, here's the draft of the employee handbook for that program.

Can you take a look? Right? I'm able to go through, leave the comments [00:24:00] and we don't have to sit live and go through it necessarily together. Right. But. It also too gives the leaders an opportunity to really empower that direct report oftentimes to move faster and also learn more about that discipline too.

They sometimes have to solve their own problems because maybe they are based in one time zone the same as their general management lead. A different one from their functional lead. So I think some, those are the main things, but making sure that you have a strict and regular cadence of those meetings live, so you have that live portion, and then you're also really crisp on that asynchronous communication too.

I mean, it all comes back to communication at the end of day. No shocks there. Right, Lisa?

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Yes. And it always does. Right. It's so [00:25:00] interesting. Right. And, and making sure, I mean, you use the word strict and regular. Like it's, it's, there's got to be a rhythm that's reliable and that is frequent enough for the parties involved, right. That that's contracted together. So, yeah. So I appreciate what you're saying. I I just love how, you know, you've been able to paint a very global picture for us of an organization that's doing some really great work and how to support them. I wonder, you know, if you think about the, the last couple months you've, you've traveled to Africa, you've been, you know, learning through a fire hose, as they say everything about this complex organization.

What's been your biggest takeaway before we wrap?

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: I begrudgingly admit that I had a very. Sheltered and American perspective of Africa as a continent. And so, you know, I am very happy now to have a clearer understanding and the kind of clearest example and, and picture I can paint [00:26:00] was that. In this three week trip, I had the opportunity to visit Lagos, Nigeria, Kigali Rwanda, and Nairobi, Kenya, and Lamu Kenya as well.

And in doing so, I landed first in Lagos, which if you've ever been to Lagos, so nor anything about Lagos Legos, it is. Just full of energy. It's the most populated city throughout the entire continent. Everything is very bustling. They actually have jokingly this whole language of car horns. And so it's like, oh, if you beep your car horn this way, it means hello and if you beep your car horn that way it's, it's get out of the way.

And so going from. The very bustling city of Lagos to Kigali Rwanda, where things were extremely [00:27:00] streamlined, very orderly, like everything has its place and everything was very calm. Despite being the capital city of this country. There were multiple times where I was saying it to my people director in Rwanda.

I was like. Wow. You know, Kigali is so different from Lagos and he is like, well, yeah, it's a totally different country. And I'm like, it is a totally different country. And so I think, I guess zooming out from that more specific example, the biggest takeaway was that, you know, although we do have these global shared services teams.

The importance of thinking about how to solve local problems locally is still very much important.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Absolutely. Right. Yeah. And it is interesting 'cause you think, you know, it's a huge continent and so it's, it's easy to think, oh, you know, there'd be more similarities than differences. And yet, no. I mean, here we have, you know, in North America, the [00:28:00] two, you know, three well, Canada, US, and then Mexico, and going down into the, into the.

There to South America and you know, Canadians often we rail about being lumped in with Americans that people think we're the same, and yet there's a lot of, so it's just interesting. And this would be on a much grander scale, so, yeah. Well, thank you very much Alison. I really appreciate your time and sharing this with us today.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate2: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Allison Mairena GMT20231130-181621_Recording_separate1: Pleasure. [00:29:00]