The HR challenges of Web 3 Start ups

Throughout this series of interviews, members of the team will discuss everything from Blast Royale to cryptocurrency to art and game development. Becky White shares her thoughts about the challenges start-up companies face and how First Light Games has overcome them in our fifth interview.

Who are you, what is your career background, and what do you do at FLG?

Hi! I’m Becky, People Partner at First Light. I was previously HR Manager at Splash Damage, a founder-led game studio based in Bromley. Prior to my time at Splash I worked in a number of different sectors across insurance, healthcare and financial PR. I started my career as a PA and have worked my way across into HR around 10 years ago!

I’m here to make sure we are providing a great employee and employer experience.

What aspect of the Blast Royale attracted you to work for FLG?

I wanted to work for a company with drive, flexibility and an innate ability to have fun. I’m a fan of mobile gaming and didn’t consider myself to be a gamer for a long time. I’ve been happily proven wrong and jumped at the opportunity to work somewhere developing a game I could and would play (badly!)!

As a people partner, what are your main priorities for a company?

The people! No seriously, enabling our people to feel valued, supported and engaged are my main priorities. It’s great that we all get to work in an industry that is fun and hard working, but we also want to feel recognised through growth and development because of our hard work. Developing strategies that enable this, supporting our people and recognising them is key to retaining talent, attracting great people and creating a culture that enables people to thrive.

What do you think is an ideal work environment, especially for a gaming studio?

For me, it’s creating an environment where people can bring their authentic self to work. It’s exhausting pretending to be something you aren’t! So let’s push that energy into creating environments where people feel safe, heard and rewarded. It’s important to have fun, share interests — or standalone deep loves for Abba and Mamma Mia — and let people get their work done.

In your experience, what are the top HR challenges start-up companies have to deal with, and how has FLG overcome them?

Growth! Moving from a founder-led studio where it’s you and one or two employees, to you and 20+ employees hugely changes the dynamic of roles and how you need to do things. Getting processes in place early to ensure your people are looked after is really important. I’m not suggesting creating long winded processes or policies, but a startup needs to be able to show what their growth means for the business as well as their employees.

Having hiring processes that assess technical competency along with cultural fit is important to maintain the studio’s values. FLG already has a strong set of values and a clear sense of direction for success. Meaning they’ve been able to hire a great group of people with a similar appetite for success.

Being open to further change and reassessing offerings such as benefits and helping the business to continue to evolve — well, that’s why I’m here!

If you had one word to describe working at FLG, what would it be?

I refuse to only use one word. “Great people, great work ethic, good for laughing at terrible jokes and a reluctant acceptance of playing Abba and Taylor Swift in the studio!”

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