In this episode of Redefining Work, I’m thrilled to sit down with Jennie Rogerson, global head of people at Canva. I’m a big fan of Canva and have been using it in my own work for years now. It’s easy to use and helps me elevate company designs even though I’m not a designer.

In this episode, Jennie discusses her nontraditional career path, how the pandemic changed work, and why Canva emphasizes open source sharing.

Jennie has an unusual path to HR leadership. She began her career in food and hospitality before shifting to an operations role at a startup. In 2019, Jennie became an executive assistant at Canva, eventually progressing to a leadership operations, or chief of staff, role. She became global head of people in late 2021.

Despite this range of roles, they share a similar goal for Jennie: Creating positive experiences for people and connecting them. This was especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic. “What I've really tried to do over the last few years has been to infuse that ethos of connectivity — and our success because of that connectivity — through everything we do,” she says.

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Finding Commonality During Uncertainty

While Jennie had relatively little experience in people leadership roles, coming on during the pandemic helped her realize that everyone was going through new experiences. “I think it was a time of hyper-growth in learning agility that we all had to go through,” Jennie says. “How do we address this and how do we make sure that people are really well cared for in a time that is so chaotic?”

Jennie had to unite the employee base across numerous geographic regions — Australia, the Philippines, the U.S. and Europe. Rather than focus on differences, Jennie sought to build connections within Canva and outside of it. That meant collaborating on projects and creating working groups, but also seeking outside examples and collaboration. 

“Who's doing this well? What could we share that might be helpful?” Jennie says.

Open Source Sharing For a Greater Impact

Before coming to Canva, Jennie worked for a startup and wanted to improve people functions such as onboarding, creating an employee handbook and developing a diversity and inclusion strategy. However, knowing where to start was difficult. There didn’t seem to be good examples out there — either because no one created them or because no one felt comfortable sharing. 

Instead, Jennie advocates for companies, including startups, to distribute this type of knowledge freely through open source sharing.

“I'm sure I'm not alone in that experience in startups,” she says. “I just truly believe that if we shared more we'd be a more inclusive world. What has worked and what hasn't worked for you; let's share those things so that we can learn from one another.

Canva has several open-source guides in the works, with one notable HR-oriented document being a guide to supporting employees through loss and grief. 

“We started by collecting information on things that had helped and, most importantly, what hadn't helped us,” Jennie says. “What are the phrases that people say when you're in the midst of grief and you're just like, ‘we really wish you hadn't said that’?

“If we can help each other and not feel so regimental in keeping [information] within the confines of our companies,” Jennie adds, “we can make an enormous impact on people's experiences around the world — in different places, in different organizations — by just sharing openly.

The 5 People Pillars at Canva

Canva’s mission is to empower people and teams through design. The company focuses on future-proofing their product, and Jennie wanted to do it for people operations. 

The Canva people team’s mission is to empower employees to do the best work of their lives. Jennie’s team has established the five pillars of that mission:

• Empower every person and team.

• Achieve impactful goals.

• Upskill every day.

• Feel like individuals truly belong.

• Thrive every day.  

Under each pillar are annual strategies with aligned goals.

“I think the beauty is when people come together with different experiences to collaborate on a goal,” Jennie says. “That's when we can have the most impact around the company.”

People in This Episode

• Jennie Rogerson: LinkedIn