Why Benchling Chose the Grilled Cheese Coaching Co to Prepare its Management Team for Explosive Growth

Why Saira chose The Grilled Cheese Coaching Co – in her own words

Introducing Benchling

Meet Saira Sayed, Director of HR Business Partners at Benchling: a cloud-based software platform built for the science R&D space. Prior to working with us, Benchling had enjoyed steady growth – powered by funding from various investors who recognized the company’s potential. Then, in 2019, it received a $50m cash boost, creating the conditions for hyper-growth inside the company.

Client:

Benchling Inc.

Categories:

Leadership Development

Location:

Worldwide

Completed:

Ongoing

When I joined the company was less than 150 people and now we've exploded to be almost 500 people and we use the Grilled Cheese Coaching Company to really help manage and coach and develop our managers which are the strongest asset to any team and company.

Saira Syed

Director of HR Business Partners, Benchling

Saira now faced a challenge

She needed to upskill her 30-strong management team so they could help the wave of new recruits needed to navigate this next period of accelerated growth.

But what about burnout? How could she help her team maintain a work/life balance? then there was the recruitment process itself.

Saira needed a diverse workforce that could effectively lead during this critical phase of transition – and managers who could foster a culture of inclusivity in their diverse and increasingly distributed teams.

How We Helped To Transform Benchling's Management Team in Just 9 Months

We were excited to explore the opportunity of a partnership with this growing, phenomenally successful, and mission driven company – and got straight to work.

Using feedback from preliminary manager sessions, we recognized the potential for our Leading Through Scale program to empower Benchling’s management team to navigate this period of exciting expansion.

Self-Paced Coaching

Everyone works differently, which means a one-size fits all approach doesn't work.

Participants had 24/7 access to GC3 LMS - featuring curated content centered around management practices.
This gave Bencling's team the freedom to work when they wanted and at their own pace.

1:1 Coaching

1:1 coaching unlocks potential on an individual level that then cascades down to the rest of the team.

Working directly with each participant, our coaches customized each individual's experience - resulting in measurable improvements.

This proved to be one of the most highly-rated components of the program.

Group Learning

In both small, peer-led sessions and expert-facilitated large-group mastermind sessions participants worked across silos.

Using group learning environments, we created powerfully supportive spaces that actively encouraged peer-to-peer learning.

Sessions were topic based and encouraged knowledge sharing, collaboration, and networking.