Empowering teams to make an impact as a People Partner

It’s Time for Talent – with Anna Diekelmann

Hi, my name is Anna, it’s nice to e-meet you! 👋

I joined Tactile in the spring of 2023 as a People Partner. My role here has two major focuses: I support our team leads, acting as a coach and partner on all people-related matters, and then I also spend a great deal of time designing new initiatives and processes that shape how we onboard, develop, and support our people.

🚀 Before Tactile

I’ve always wavered between pursuing a career in marketing or HR – both wanting to work creatively while also being driven by a wish to make workplaces a more meaningful place (after all, we do spend ⅓ of our lives here).

When I joined Tactile, I was brand new to the gaming industry. Coming from a similar role in an e-commerce company in the knitting industry 🧶I had a LOT to learn about games (to be honest, I still do).

But whether it’s within knitting or games, I’ve found that I really thrive in creative companies with a lot of freedom and little hierarchy – where things never stay the same for long, and where we have room to be playful and a little nerdy with what we do.

And in that sense, I think I found the perfect sweet spot between marketing and HR 🤝

💜 Joining Tactile

I joined Tactile right after the big growth phase following the success of Lily’s Garden. At that point, a lot of people had joined, and our team had the big task of helping Tactile transition from being very start-up-like into a more established company. That meant putting more structure in place around onboarding, development talks and leadership development. At the same time, it was really important to us not to lose the special ingredients in our culture: the flat and organic structure and the freedom to take ownership.

A lot has happened in the last 2 years. It’s been great to follow how our team leads have grown as leaders, see how projects like Tactile Bootcamp have helped build a bridge between the old and the new culture, and how we continue to learn and evolve as an organisation.

💪 Having an impact

I’m really grateful for the amount of trust and freedom our team has to decide how we work. There is a lot of room for new initiatives, and there is often a short timeline from when we come up with a new idea to when we start executing, which just makes work more fun and dynamic.

With agile and lean being at the core of our culture, it also allows us to never get stuck in old ways. We always ask ourselves, “Does this actually provide value?”, so we don’t end up adding processes just for the sake of processes. When we do develop new processes, we have a “no size fits all” approach, meaning we tailor everything to the individual teams. It forces us to stay flexible and constantly iterate and optimize how we do things, and I find that so rewarding.

Looking back, I’m really proud of all the things we have built that have made an actual impact for our teams – I feel that is kind of rare in an HR position.

📚 The keys to success

With fear of it sounding too buzzword-y, I want to say adopt a growth mindset. This industry is moving fast and things change all the time, which is fun and refreshing but it can also feel overwhelming at times. Be ready to adapt and lean into the chaos. And don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions – it’s the best way to learn.