Dear friends of Jem,

We have some exciting news to share with you.

Over the past six weeks, we’ve rebuilt the Jem Hub and closed our Series A.

Honestly, this has been one of the hardest and most stressful pushes we’ve ever had at Jem. Equally, it’s been one of the most exciting and rewarding periods many of us have experienced. We’ve had plenty of wins and learned a huge amount along the way.

This newsletter has always been a space to share those lessons. It isn’t meant to be marketing material for Jem, but rather a place to openly share what we’re figuring out on this journey. So much of what we’ve learned has come from other people being brave enough to share what they were figuring out and I want to make sure we pay that forward.

So, in the spirit of sharing what we’re figuring out, here are the 3 biggest lessons that came out of this period at Jem.

1. Start with a tiny team, then widen, then integrate

We didn’t rebuild the Hub with the whole company.

We started with a handful of people who were ring-fenced from everything else, then widened the circle once the foundations held, before bringing it back into the wider company.

A small team can move at a pace a big team simply can't, and this is the way we'll build anything experimental going forward. Tiny, widen, integrate.

There’s an important nuance to this model: a small team only works when people understand why it’s small. We needed to be clear about why certain people were chosen, what the team was trying to achieve, and what needed to happen before we opened it up. When people understood the reasoning, they were very comfortable not being in the room. Without that context, something designed to move faster can quickly feel like people are being left out.

2. Founders in the trenches

Thamsanqa, our CTO, had one stipulation when we started this rebuild: founders needed to be coding, not overseeing. With the AI tools we have access to now, founders can build their vision in real time, and having that inside the initial tiny team was a game changer.

The first benefit was speed. The people making the decisions were the people building the product.

The second was fidelity. The person with the idea was also the person bringing it to life. There was no translation layer between the vision and the product.

The third benefit is more human.
As Jem grows, it’s becoming harder to maintain founder access for the team.

Jem is led by two incredibly humble, deeply mission-driven people who genuinely care about what we’re building and why.

Creating these concentrated moments of proximity feels like a powerful way to keep that connection alive and build a strong culture as the team gets bigger.

This isn’t possible for every project, but if you’re serious about reshaping a major part of the company, founders need to be involved from the start.

3. Clarifying the story from the inside

One of the most useful pieces of advice we got from mentors of Jem was to think about how a Series A fundraise or major product relaunch is actually experienced by the team.

These are pivotal moments. They can create huge excitement, but if you don’t clearly explain what they mean for the people inside the company, people will fill in the gaps themselves.

I think this is an important piece of the puzzle when you look at companies that have gone through similar moments and seen their culture dilute.

To give credit where credit is due, Evan, our Head of Finance, was particularly deliberate about communicating what the fundraise meant for us as a team from the very beginning.

The money is not a trophy.

It gives us the ability to serve our customers better and build the team we need to stay relentlessly focused on the person we ultimately exist to serve: the deskless worker.

Ultimately, Jem lives to unlock the deskless worker.

If that mission resonates with you, there are a few ways to get involved:

• Learn. If you want to understand more about the deskless workforce and their experience, read the Deskless Pulse.

• Join us. Take a look at the roles we’re hiring for.

• Connect us. If you know a company with 200+ deskless employees that could benefit from Jem, we’d love an introduction. Email info@jemhr.com.

• Spread the word. Read our fundraise article, share our posts on LinkedIn, and talk about the deskless workforce.

The last 6 weeks have transformed Jem in ways we couldn’t have imagined, and we’re only getting started.

There’s still a lot to figure out, but I’m excited to keep sharing the messy middle as we build a strong team and culture along the way.

I've been building something we're calling the Jem Culture Brain.

The best way to explain it is to show you what happens when it doesn't exist.

A founder shares a small insight in our all-hands meeting about how we should present information. It's a subtle shift, but everyone leaves the room with a new instinct for how to make their proposals land.

The following week, a new employee joins.

Their work was good, but it lacked the instinct everyone else had picked up from that one conversation.

That's how culture works.

Companies run on hundreds of tiny moments like these: the unwritten principles and instincts that quietly become "how we do things." Most of that knowledge lives in people's heads, and new joiners absorb it slowly over time.

The interesting part is that, as we become an AI-native company, our agents have exactly the same problem.

When an agent drafts a proposal, it doesn't know that we lead with data, start with the "so what," or spend more time talking about what we learned than what we delivered, unless we teach it. Without context, an agent can produce good work, but not work that feels unmistakably Jem.

That's why we're building the Jem Culture Brain.

Welcome to People Notes.

For the first time, we’re not just writing down our culture, we’re encoding it.

These are 4 of the building blocks we’re encoding into the Culture Brain, so every new joiner and AI agent starts with the context to thrive at Jem.

1. Get to the “so what”

Great work is not about collecting the most information. It is about knowing what matters.

One of the biggest shifts we’ve made at Jem is learning to separate the research from the recommendation. The thinking still matters of course, but it sits underneath the answer, not in front of it.

You can see this in Caro’s office: the messy thinking happens on the walls of sticky notes, and the team gets the clarity that comes after.

Instead of: “Here is everything I found.”

We aim for: “We should do this. Here’s why. The evidence is attached if you want to go deeper.”

This is a core part of how we communicate at Jem. It helps people make decisions faster, and it is the same standard we build into our agents: don’t just surface information, turn it into a recommendation, supported by evidence.

2. Multiplayer mode

Multiplayer mode means your work is not finished when your part is complete. It is finished when the next person can pick it up and move forward. The measure is not how impressive your individual contribution is. It is whether the team moved further because of it.

I wrote in a previous newsletter about how some of the smartest people we’ve hired at Jem didn’t work out, not because they lacked ability, but because they struggled with the team part. Plenty of great technology companies are built around exceptional individual contributors. Jem is not one of them.

We are built around people making each other better.

That is the standard we want embedded everywhere we work. Whether it is a person handing work to a teammate or an agent handing work back to a person, the goal is the same: create work that the next person can immediately build on.

3. High agency

You’ll hear this phrase a lot at Jem. It has become so ingrained in how we work that “medium agency” has become our running joke for when something falls short.

High agency is the instinct to take ownership of the outcome. It means not waiting for someone else to create the path forward, but finding a way to move things along.

That is the standard we want embedded across Jem. Whether it is a person taking on a problem or an agent completing a task, the expectation is the same: take ownership and move the work forward.

We got the idea from this article. Highly recommend reading it if you have some time.

4. 10x thinking

This principle has been with Jem since the early days, when we were still called SmartWage.

Originally, 10x thinking was about the person who could create outsized impact, not by working more hours, but by finding ways to achieve more.

Today, that idea has become even more important. The question is no longer just “How do you work smarter?”. It is “How do you use AI to fundamentally change what a person, a team, and an agent can achieve together?”.

That is the shift we are building towards: not using AI to do the same work faster, but using it to expand what is possible.

Culture used to be something you earned by being in the room long enough for it to sink in. The people who had been here longest held it, and everyone else caught up slowly.

For the first time, we can intentionally capture the elements that shape our culture and give that context to a new joiner or an agent from day one.

That is what makes building the Culture Brain so exciting.
We are not just preserving the culture we have built.
We are designing how it scales.

If you want to be part of building what comes next at Jem, a few new roles have just gone live on our careers page.

The truth is, most workplaces don’t require that kind of connection because the mission isn’t central to what they do.

At Jem, we operate from a fundamentally different philosophy.

This newsletter is my way of sharing the messy middle of building Jem, giving an honest, unpolished view of what it actually feels like to work here and what we’re learning along the way. The best way I can open the door to Jem is by introducing you to the person we serve, and showing how we’re changing things for her.

Let me introduce you to Khanya.

Khanya's day, before Jem

Khanya is a security guard. She's up at 4am for an 8am shift. By the time she clocks in she's already done four hours of taxis, queues and admin, before the job she's paid for even starts.

On the 25th she queues with her whole site for a printed payslip, and a lot of them are wrong because overtime was logged by hand. Hers is off, so she queues again another day to fix it. When she needs leave, she fills in a paper form that gets lost up on its way to the approver.

None of this is carelessness. The systems were just never built for her.

Around 75% of the world’s workforce is deskless, and only about 1% of enterprise technology is built for them.

What customer obsession builds

Everything we’ve built for Khanya runs through what she already has in her pocket: WhatsApp.

95% of South African smartphones already have it, it barely touches her data, and “download our app” assumes a phone with room to spare, which hers often doesn’t. So, we went to where she already is.

Now her payslip arrives on WhatsApp the day she’s paid, no queue. Her overtime is logged digitally, so the number is right the first time. She requests leave in a few taps and can see where she stands.

Her employer can now reach everyone at the same time, whether it’s a survey or an urgent update. This means Khanya no longer misses opportunities like promotions that used to be pinned to a cork board. Instead, they now reach her instantly as a WhatsApp announcement.

So what?

The point of this month’s newsletter isn’t to sell you a mission. It’s to show you the messy middle I keep talking about, as honestly as possible. I believe that when you see the real middle of a company, you see what it’s actually built on. And at Jem, that is the deskless worker.

The people who thrive here are the ones who read Khanya’s story and feel drawn to serve her through their daily work.

That pull is what defines the Jem team.

If Khanya’s story stayed with you, have a look at our careers page.

Turns out, people really resonate with that level of candour and after publicly putting that message out into the world, the very fair follow-up question became:

“Who is Jem actually a great place for?”

So, in the spirit of this newsletter being an open and honest place where we share the real answers (even when they aren’t always the most polished or flattering) I thought I’d share something that, up until now, we’ve only used internally during hiring.

It’s called the JEIP:
⭐️ The Jem Ideal Employee Profile. ⭐️

The JEIP is made up of 9 traits that we’ve consistently found to be most linked to people thriving inside an environment like Jem. It’s the framework we use across every hiring process and role.

Welcome to the 11th edition of People Notes, where, for the first time, we’re opening up the playbook and sharing those 9 traits publicly.

1. AI fluency & human-machine collaboration

The people accelerating fastest at Jem are not necessarily the most technical people. They’re the people asking: “What should a machine do so humans can focus on higher-value work?”

Somebody on our support team did exactly that. She got tired of logging engineering tickets every time a customer needed their leave approval workflow updated, so she built a Claude skill that now handles the entire process herself.

Before the skill, 22 of those tickets took engineering a combined 44 days to resolve. Now they take her 5-10 minutes each, with engineering no longer involved.

She does not come from a technical background. She just asked the question above and acted on the answer.

2. Radical candour in communication

We place a huge amount of value on people who are able to communicate directly while still maintaining trust and respect. That includes being able to give clear feedback, challenge ideas thoughtfully, raise concerns early and have honest conversations across levels of seniority.

3. Adaptability at scale-up speed

Scaling companies spend long periods in ambiguity. The people who tend to thrive are the ones who can help create structure without needing everything around them to already feel structured.

4. Divergent thinking and cognitive diversity

A sales team member was running a registration drive for one of our new clients and decided to completely scrap the usual playbook. He knew most of the workforce supported Orlando Pirates, so he used the budget on co-branded shirts and adapted the material to better connect with the people we were actually serving in that environment.

That kind of thinking matters.

The customers we serve are incredibly diverse. If everybody inside the company thinks the same way, eventually the product will too.

5. Growth under pressure

At the end of last year, our CTO ran an experiment to assess our AI fluency as a leadership team. Most of us walked into it feeling fairly confident. Most of us walked out realising we were far further behind than we thought. Nobody scored above 3/7.

What mattered wasn’t the score. It was the response.

One leader went home that evening, installed Cursor on his personal laptop and spent months teaching himself agentic AI workflows despite having no technical background. That response to discomfort is the trait.

“Growth mindset” has become a very overused phrase. What is more interesting is how someone reacts when they realise they are behind. The people who tend to thrive here are the ones who feel that discomfort and decide to do something about it.

6. Autonomous builder

The people who thrive at Jem tend to naturally create momentum. They see gaps and move things forward before somebody formally assigns responsibility to them.

7. Collaborative leadership

Early in our AI adoption journey, two people who were already ahead in this space opened booking links so anybody in the company could book time with them to work through AI problems.

Nobody asked them to do it.

We’ve found the people who thrive most at Jem are the ones who understand that we win as a team.

8. Momentum and drive

This energy exists across the business. The people who thrive here tend to lean toward momentum instead of maintenance. They would rather test and adjust than sit in endless uncertainty waiting for the perfect answer.

9. Mission connected

A few weeks ago, during one of Cape Town’s unbearably hot days, one of our product managers asked if I wanted to take a break from our air-conditioned office and go hand out cold drinks to deskless workers standing in the sun around us, like traffic officers and security guards.

She would probably hate that I’m telling this story because she was not doing it for attention, but moments like that matter to me.

The people we want at Jem are the ones who genuinely care about the humans on the other side of the product, not just the product itself.

One of the biggest lessons for me through building the JEIP has been realising how much the definition of “great talent” is changing.

A few years ago, most companies hired heavily for experience and pattern match. Those things still matter, but the people who are creating the most impact inside scaling companies today often look slightly different.

⭐️They are curious.
⭐️They adapt quickly.
⭐️They share knowledge freely.
⭐️They use AI to extend their capability.
⭐️They care deeply about the people they are building for.
⭐️And they are willing to move before everything feels perfectly clear.

None of these nine traits are about being perfect. Most of us at Jem are actively still learning them ourselves.

The point of sharing this was not to present Jem as a perfect company or pretend we have hiring figured out. It was simply to open up the playbook a little and share, honestly, what we’ve found genuinely matters as we scale.

If you look at Jem today versus a few years ago, things look VERY different.

Three offices, real plants, MacBooks, catered lunch four times a week. We didn't even have to build our own desks this time (although Caroline has shown she definitely could if needed).

🪚 Below is our first Joburg office where everything was a DIY project.

The surprising part is that when you ask Jems why they chose to work here, whether they joined last week or have been here since the SmartWage days, it’s never the perks they point to. It’s the people and the level of trust they feel here.

Here's what that actually looks like.

1. Internally, we loop back

Every time leadership goes offsite, the team gets a memo. Not a highlights reel of the good news. The actual trade-offs, the reasoning, the things we're still unsure about.

After our March offsite, Caroline and Simon wrote one together and shared it with the whole team.

At 50 people strong, you can't have everyone in the room for every decision. That's exactly when trust is most at risk. What you can do is make sure the thinking is shared. Especially when decisions are hard.

2. You can only learn so much from a dashboard

Our day-to-day is Gsuite, Slack, HubSpot and Claude. Our customers' day-to-day is shift schedules, site access, and getting hundreds of people clocked in before dawn.

Those are fundamentally different realities and you can't build for someone without understanding their reality. The team is strongly encouraged to speak to customers daily. Learn their names, meet them on their terms, understand what their day actually feels like.

Below are 6 photos from the last month where Jems spent time with customers.

Customers don't only see us when we're selling or they need support. We build trust because we're present in their world.

3. We're honest about how fast work is changing

A lot of companies soften this message because it's uncomfortable, but avoiding the conversation creates far more uncertainty.

Early in our shift towards becoming AI-native, we told the team directly: Jem is where we're building today, but it won't be the only place any of us ever work. Your role will evolve. You are responsible for evolving with it.

That message only works because we pair it with real support. Teams have protected time each week to learn new tools and techniques, and to rethink how they work. They show what's actually changed in their day-to-day using AI. Jems can also book time with our most AI-fluent team members to work through real problems in their role.

Honesty builds credibility. Support builds safety and together, they're what earns a team's trust.

4. We talk about our failures

We’re getting a lot of interest in how we’re building an AI-native team and last week a group of potential partners joined us for lunch to understand how we’re actually doing it. Instead of walking them through our wins, we went around the table and each shared our biggest AI mistakes. The tone shifted immediately.

Trust is built when people feel like they’re seeing the full picture, not a curated version.

Our COO, Caroline van der Merwe, even kicked off an AI session a while ago by walking us through her “AI museum of failures”.

We try to bring this into how we hire too. We’re not looking for polished answers, we’re looking for people who can talk honestly about what didn’t work and what they took from it.

Being honest about failure raises standards. You get a team that learns faster and trusts each other enough to do it in the open.

The shiny things might attract attention for a while, but they don't build anything that lasts. Trust does.

If you want to build inside a team like this, our careers page is the best place to start. We're hiring:

⭐️ Senior Customer Success Manager (Joburg)

⭐️ Head of Marketing (CT/Joburg)

⭐️ People Operations Coordinator (Joburg)

⭐️ Senior Product Engineer (Joburg)

If you’re a people lead working through the same questions, I’d love to swap notes. Reply to this email or find me on LinkedIn.

It’s agency. 🏃🏽‍♀️

When a high-performing team suddenly has the tools to remove its own blockers, something changes. People stop waiting for systems to improve and start improving them themselves. Watching that shift happen inside this team over the last month has been remarkable to be part of.

We've been quite open about our push to become an AI-native organisation, but the real proof is always in the work.

So this month, I’m taking you behind-the-scenes to share a few of the tools the team shipped recently to remove friction and improve how the company operates.

Welcome to this month’s People Notes!

1. We killed the repetitive onboarding session

Every new hire at Jem needs to understand the product.

Until recently, that meant Thandoluhle running the same live walkthrough for every employee who joined.

Product onboarding is now a self-serve course. New hires move through structured modules and practical tasks at their own pace, building real understanding of how the product works.

⭐️ The build: We recorded an existing session, fed it and the slides into Claude and asked it to generate a structured HTML course. That became the full programme.

2. The Simon Hotline

Simon, our CEO, receives a constant stream of requests.

Those requests used to live across Slack, HubSpot and email, which meant things got lost and nobody had a clear picture of what was actually in progress.

Andrea, his Founder's Associate, fixed the problem by building a single intake system.

Every request now flows through one pipeline: received → in progress → blocked → done.

The person who submits the request receives automatic Slack updates as the status changes. When the task is completed, HubSpot updates itself.

⭐️ The build: Frontend designed in Magic Patterns. Claude Code built the web app. HubSpot as the source of truth, Slack webhooks triggering automated status updates at each stage.

3. Claudina

Before important prospect calls, the sales team often needs customer data and case examples. Pulling that information used to depend on someone in finance having time to run the queries.

The finance team removed the bottleneck by building Claudina.

Claudina prepares draft case studies for upcoming sales meetings by pulling data directly from our systems. Finance still reviews the output, but the heavy lifting is already done.

What used to rely on someone finding a spare moment now happens automatically in the background.

⭐️ The build: Custom MCP connection into Metabase via Claude Code, connected to Slack.

4. Show Me the Money

You'll start to notice that the Jem team is quite creative when it comes to naming their AI projects.

The finance team processes a high volume of expense claims. Previously those claims arrived across Slack, email and WhatsApp. Tracking what had been submitted, approved or paid required a combination of patience and detective work.

Now, there is a single portal. Employees submit claims in one place and receive automatic notifications when they are approved and paid.

⭐️ The build: Lovable, with a Superbase database and Resend for email notifications.

5. Meet JIB

If you work at Jem and have a question about the company, you used to Slack a human. Often the same human. (Quite often me.) That person would answer the same question again and again.

Now we have JIB.

JIB is Jem’s internal knowledge bot that lives in Slack and answers questions about the company at any hour. Policies, processes, benefits, “how do I do this?” questions.

Is JIB perfect? Not yet.

Last week JIB joined our community Slack channel and interpreted it as a personal invitation to reply to every single message posted. JIB has since been politely removed and given some clearer boundaries.

⭐️ The build: Botpress, with a live knowledge base built from our internal documentation in Notion and lives in Slack.

6. A design system that actually gets used

Design and engineering kept rebuilding the same components. Every new feature meant starting from scratch, making slightly different decisions each time.

The new design system is a shared library that the whole team uses (including our AI agents). 👉🏾 It’s also open-sourced, so other designers and frontend developers can build from it too.

Instead of rebuilding interfaces every time, teams can pull from the same source of truth, making it easier to scale the product while keeping the experience consistent.

⭐️ The build: Design tokens and component patterns were built in Figma, then Claude and the Figma MCP were used to translate those into a Storybook component library.

7. The Content Library

Marketing and sales assets used to live in Google Drive. As most teams know, that eventually becomes a maze where good assets go to die. 🪦

The marketing team built an AI-powered media library. Search by keyword, industry, customer type, or a specific objection you're hearing on a live call and the right asset surfaces.

What makes it more than just a prettier Google Drive is the analytics dashboard. For the first time, the marketing team can see exactly what’s being downloaded and shared, which means they’re no longer guessing what to build next. They’re making more of what’s working.

⭐️ The build: Lovable for the frontend, with AI-powered search over Google Drive.

So what?

Seven tools. Seven different problems. Seven different people who decided not to wait.

The interesting thing isn’t that AI made this possible.

It’s that the gap between “I can see this problem” and “I can fix this problem” has collapsed and for the first time, the person closest to the pain is also the person with the power to fix it.

The hardest part now isn't the technology. It's the curiosity to start and the culture that permits people to. We're lucky that Jem has both.

✅ If you read this and thought, “I want to build in an environment like that”, our careers page is open.

✅ And if you're simply here out of curiosity, I hope something here was worth your time. We don't share this to look polished. We share it because the messy, iterative, occasionally-JIB-goes-rogue version of building is the one that's actually useful to someone else.

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People are always surprised when I say that, but I mean it.

We’ve had exceptional candidates decide not to join us because of something we shared during the interview process and we consider that a success. Not because we’re indifferent to losing strong people, but because it means we were clear enough for them to decide whether this environment truly suits them.

An interview shouldn’t be a sales pitch. It should give you a clear view of what the work is actually like (including the parts that are less glamorous).

We haven’t always done that perfectly. Not because we were trying to mislead anyone, but because it’s easy to highlight what’s exciting and soften what’s demanding. However, we’ve learned that clarity upfront serves everyone far better in the long run.

Your company is not for everyone. The sooner you get comfortable saying that, the better off everyone is.

Our own team proved it.

We have been tracking a score called the eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score) for the past 2 years and below are the comments attached to the lowest score in our latest survey:

Even our lowest scores are paired with feedback that Jem is an incredible place to work, just not the right fit for everyone. That's exactly the position we've been trying to build.

Not a place that's fine for most people. A place that's exceptional for the right ones.

So, who is Jem for?

Below are the four things that, in my experience, most consistently separate the people who thrive at Jem from the people who don’t.

#1. You communicate with precision.

A three-paragraph explanation of something that could be one sentence costs us time we don’t have.

Our founder, Caroline, built an AI tool that reviews proposals and documents before they reach her. It gives critical feedback on how to make them clearer and more concise.

▶️ Nobody gets this right immediately (including us), but if brevity feels like a compromise rather than a skill, this won’t be a comfortable place to work.

#2. You thrive with people, not just alongside them.

Some of the smartest people we’ve ever hired didn’t work out at Jem because they weren’t interested in working with a team.

There are plenty of great tech companies built around the individual contributor where you can go days without a meaningful interaction and still be considered a top performer. That works well in the right context. Jem is not that context.

At the pace we move, isolation is expensive.

▶️ We are not for people who measure success by their own output alone. We are for people who feel responsible for the team’s output simultaneously.

#3. You work well in a high-feedback environment.

Feedback at Jem is constant and direct. You'll receive it from all levels and you'll be expected to give it just as openly. Not to be harsh, but because avoiding the conversation helps no one.

Some people are high performers in every other way, but don’t thrive in this kind of environment. That’s not a character flaw. Plenty of great professionals do their best work somewhere feedback is less frequent, more formal or flows in one direction. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just not how we operate.

Of everything on this list, this is the single most telling indicator of whether someone will work well at Jem or not.

▶️ We’re not the right place for people who only feel valued when feedback is infrequent. We are for people who see it as part of how the work gets better.

#4. You bring your best and expect Jem to do the same.

We’re outcomes-focused at Jem, which means we care about results over hours, but delivering those results takes real effort and commitment. Some weeks are straightforward. Others demand more.

In return, we’ve built an environment where that effort is genuinely recognised. If you’re performing, you can expect a salary review every six months. We’ve invested in offices designed for real productivity and made sure people are properly set up at home too. Beyond salary, we’ve launched a pool system where everyone shares in Jem’s success if we hit specific targets together, not just the people at the top.

▶️ We’re not for people who want a comfortable, steady rhythm. We’re for people who want to feel the difference between a hard week and a great result.

Why am I telling you this?

If you’re building a company or working in the people space, have the courage to say who you are not for. It will feel risky. It will cost you candidates, but it will also save you from the far greater cost of misalignment.

If you’re deciding where to work, don’t look for the place that impresses everyone. Look for the place that feels unmistakably right for you. Jem won’t be that place for most people. However, for the right people, we’re striving to build a workplace that can genuinely change the trajectory of your career.

Here is a link to our careers page for more details.

We’ve had a bunch of new subscribers, so a quick reminder of what this is: People Notes is a monthly newsletter where I share what’s really happening inside Jem. I’m Dani, Jem’s People Lead. This is for anyone following our journey, curious about joining one day or building teams of their own. This is not polished PR, just an honest window into life inside Jem. 🪟

Let’s get into this month’s note.

There’s a line a mentor shared with me last year that has never really left me.

Things are going incredibly well at Jem. Our team is scaling across multiple machines (our word for teams) and we’re building entirely new parts of the business like Jem Mobile and Jem X. The team has never been stronger.

However, it’s exactly because of that momentum that this advice keeps resurfacing. Growth is exciting, but it’s also when the small, human things can quietly start to slip.

So, I spent a lot of time in December sitting with one question: as Jem grows, what are we not willing to lose?

Below are the 4 things we’re choosing to protect. 🔒

1. Multi-disciplined > narrow specialists 💡

We don’t hire people to sit in narrow boxes. At Jem, people are expected to stretch beyond their lanes and stay close to the real work. That’s a deliberate people decision.

Firstly, you see it in the day-to-day. Shannon packing Jem Mobile orders. Francis from our customer team building an AI automation (clearly loving every second of it). Ian, one of our engineers, out at an activation talking directly to users.Chris (don’t tell him I shared this), our Commercial Director, helping the catering staff.

Secondly, you see it in the roles we hire for. We’re recruiting two senior product engineers, rather than narrowly defined software engineers.

Finally, you see it in how our leaders show up. Thamsanqa, our CTO, still codes so he stays close to what we’re building. Caroline, our COO, spent time each day packing Jem Mobile boxes when it launched to understand the process end-to-end.

What began as an early-stage necessity has become core to who we are.

2. We have a “kudos” section in every all hands meeting. 💡

At the end of every All Hands, we leave space for kudos.

People put up their hands and thank each other for the last two weeks of work.

Recognition is how people feel valued and motivated to keep showing up at a high level. As the company grows, it becomes easier to assume people know they’re appreciated. They don’t. Saying it out loud changes everything.

3. We make time to sit together 💡

At 12:00 in the Joburg office and 12:30 in Cape Town, we sit down and eat lunch together four days a week.

We don’t talk about work. We ask one question that has nothing to do with our jobs. For fifteen minutes, we step out of execution mode and remind ourselves that we’re human first.

👉🏾 Our best question this year so far was: “What irritated you most about something your family or friends did over the holidays?” From the way the dishwasher gets packed, to the braaier in the family who insists on cooking the meat well done, to relatives arriving “now now” and pitching up two hours later.

As teams grow, these are usually the first rituals to disappear. We’re doing the opposite. We’re protecting this because it has helped us build empathy and psychological safety in our team in ways no policy or process ever could.

Our table will get bigger in 2026, but taking time around it will always matter.

4. We only hire “hell yeses” 💡

Over the last few years at Jem, we’ve built a real hiring muscle. We’ve learned some hard lessons. We’ve made some exceptional hires. Both have shaped how we build this company and this team.

Today, we only hire with real conviction. We move slower, we don’t hire to relieve pressure and we never settle for “good enough.” We’re not filling seats. We’re shaping the environment people come into every day. Every hire changes the standard. Every hire shifts the energy. Every hire either strengthens what we’re building, or weakens it.

Let me give you some examples:

• Bakuena joined our sales team and didn’t just sell well; he sold differently. That difference opened doors we hadn’t been able to open before and helped us land customers we simply weren’t reaching. One hire expanded what was possible for our entire commercial team. (Can you guess which company he got on board from the photo? 😉)

• Mike joined Jem as an engineer and didn’t just write great code, he raised the bar around him. He has referred multiple exceptional people into Jem (I’ve honestly lost count), many of whom are now shaping both our product and our culture. One hire lifted the standard of the whole team.

• Thandoluhle joined Jem on the front lines, speaking to customers every day. Over time, she’s grown into a Technical Support Specialist working closely with product. Our product is stronger because someone building and supporting it deeply understands the customer using it.

Each of these hires multiplied us.

The right hire moves everything forward. The wrong hire doesn’t just miss. They cost us momentum and trust.

We’re building something ambitious, but how we build it still matters.

Every hire and every decision is shaping the kind of company Jem becomes. We’re choosing to do that part with real care.

If this way of building resonates, we’d love you to take a look at the roles we currently have open. We’ve got a number live right now on our careers page, with a big focus on:

✅ Head of Customer Support (Joburg)
✅ Sales Development Representative (Joburg)
✅ Head of Jem Mobile
✅ Senior Product Engineer x2 (Joburg)
✅ Multimedia Visual Creative
✅ Talent Associate

It feels important to acknowledge that the final People Notes newsletter of 2025 goes out on the Day of Reconciliation in South Africa.

A day that asks us to pause to reflect on our shared history and consider the responsibility we all carry in how we treat one another.

We spend a significant portion of our lives at work, roughly 1/3 of our waking hours during our working years (Harvard University Division of Continuing Education, 2023). Because of this, improving how work actually feels and how people experience being treated at work isn’t small or insignificant. It’s one of the most practical places we have to live out those values, every day.

As I reflected on the year, 5 elements stood out to me as the quiet forces behind the resilient and deeply connected Jem team walking together into 2026.

Humour in the workplace builds resilient teams

Humour at work isn’t something I take lightly. I have seen how easily it can cross into something uncomfortable and exclusionary if it is not handled intentionally.

However, humour has done the opposite at Jem. It became a unifying force that helped us stay connected through a very demanding year.

Funny photos being edited and put up around the office, our “great quotes” Slack channel firing on all cylinders on our hardest days, laughing together about failures we’d had as a team. These moments gave people space to breathe without taking away from the seriousness of the work.

Our founders are the ones who have set this tone in the company. Caro, our COO, is quick to laugh at herself and openly acknowledge her own mistakes. Simon, our CEO, leans into sillier humour. When leaders are willing to be human first, it gives the rest of the team permission to do the same.

What this created was a space where people can laugh at themselves and at mistakes without fear.

When humour is grounded in respect, it encourages honesty when something goes wrong and helps teams solve problems together instead of turning inward or pointing fingers.

⭐️ TAKE-AWAY LESSON:
Humour is one of the most powerful cultural tools a team has, but only when leaders actively protect the line and model what “healthy” looks like.

Building for our team, not from a playbook

There is no shortage of HR playbooks on what “good companies” should offer and do.

At Jem, we are working towards becoming one of the best employers in South Africa. That means not designing benefits or work practices just because that’s how it’s always been done. Instead, we focus on what will make a real, material difference to our team’s lives. Every change we have made this year has come directly from team feedback and surveys, not assumptions.

Two examples from this year:

1. Introducing a retirement annuity contribution for everyone, rather than a traditional company retirement fund.

2. Rolling out Zoie Health (now branded Yola) to give the team access to practical medical care, mental health support and medication.

All our surveys end with the same line:
“Thank you for sharing this feedback and helping us build Jem into a great place to work, together.”

That word, together, is important. Building this way has allowed us to make more relevant, thoughtful decisions because the team is actively shaping the employer we are becoming.

⭐️ TAKE-AWAY LESSON:
You cannot copy-paste culture or benefits from another company. The work is to understand your people, in your context, and build from there.

We talked honestly about losses

If you follow Jem on LinkedIn, you probably saw many of the wins this year. It really was a big year for us. We won Fintech Start-Up of the Year, closed meaningful deals. We launched the Deskless Pulse report and shipped new products and initiatives that materially improved the value we deliver to our customers.

What you don’t always see publicly are the harder moments that come alongside those wins. Deals we lost. Experiments that didn’t work. Projects needed to be reset. Awards we were confident we would win… that we didn’t.

We have always talked about those moments just as openly as the wins. We spoke honestly about what did not do well and shared when something failed or needed to change direction. We often laughed about it together, but we did not gloss over it or rush past the learning.

Here are a few snaps from some very human moments, realising we’d lost, laughing at a mistake made on a call or sitting seconds away from losing at an awards ceremony. 😅

I didn’t fully appreciate the impact of this until I watched it play out over time this year. Teams recovered faster. Learnings were shared openly instead of quietly carried by one person. People continued to take smart risks because losing was treated as part of the work, not a personal shortcoming.

This mindset even shows up in how we hire. We ask candidates to tell us about a mistake they have made in one of the interviews and the ability to speak openly about failure is something we intentionally hire for.

⭐️ TAKE-AWAY LESSON:
Being honest about losses is one of the fastest ways to build resilience. It keeps standards high while keeping shame low.

Creating space for questions

At Jem, we talk a lot about being “high agency”. For us, that has never meant having all the answers. It means feeling safe enough to ask questions early and often, especially when something does not make sense.

We have worked intentionally to create a culture where questions are welcomed. That shows up in small, everyday ways. Making space for questions in meetings, even our company wide meeting. Encouraging new joiners to challenge what feels unclear. Creating more spaces to ask questions like our “no questions are stupid” channel.

Treating questions as useful signals rather than interruptions.

Over time, this has changed how the team shows up. Issues are raised earlier. Gaps in process, product and even leadership decisions surface before they become bigger problems. People do not wait for permission to speak up.

⭐️ TAKE-AWAY LESSON:
A culture that encourages questions builds speed, trust and shared understanding far faster than any process ever will.

We closed the loop on feedback

We have several ways for the team to share feedback, from anonymous surveys to regular HR check-ins. That part is not unique. Where I saw the real impact this year was in consistently closing the loop.

Feedback has always been taken seriously at Jem, but we became much more intentional about showing the team what was happening as a result.

After check-ins, I make a point of going back to Jems to close the loop and show how their feedback shaped decisions. After surveys, we share clear updates on what’s changing, what we’re exploring and even what’s a “not yet”. This level of transparency has shown people that their voices matter, which deepened trust and led to far more thoughtful feedback in the next rounds of check-ins and surveys.

⭐️ TAKE-AWAY LESSON:
Collecting feedback is easy. Closing the loop, even when the answer is “not yet”, is what builds trust.

Thank you for being part of our journey this year.

I started People Notes as an open-book view into what Jem (really) looks like on the inside. 📖 For people who may want to join us in the future, for those interested in building high-performing teams or for those simply supporting from the sidelines as we grow. Whichever one you are, thank you for being here.

2026 is going to be a big year for Jem, with plenty of learning still ahead of us.

But for now…I’m incredibly proud of the team we’ve built so far and excited to come back with more experiments to run, people practices to try and and an even deeper commitment to making Jem a great place to work.

▶️ If you would like to continue the conversation: you can reach me at dani@jemhr.com or message me on Substack.

▶️ If you are interested in joining the Jem team: we have several roles open on our careers page and (a bunch more exciting ones going live in January):

• 6 x AI Interns (Johannesburg)

• Multimedia Visual Creative (Cape Town)

• Sales Development Representative (Johannesburg)

• Senior Account Executive (Johannesburg)

• Senior Customer Success Manager (Johannesburg)

• 2 x Senior Product Engineer (preferably Johannesburg)

That’s why this month’s People Notes newsletter is arriving a little earlier than usual.

You’ve subscribed to be a fly on the wall as we build Jem and today marks one of the biggest milestones in our journey to date.

The Deskless Worker Pulse 2025 is out now.

Read the report here.

It’s the result of surveys and interviews with over 4,600 deskless workers. What drives them, what causes them stress and what employers can do to help them thrive.

There are sobering statistics, like the fact that half of all deskless workers have no savings at all.

However, this report is the product of a high-agency team that focuses on solutions rather than obstacles, there are also actionable insights.

Here are 3 findings from this incredible piece of work that deeply resonated with me.

1. Stability is everything

The data shows that most deskless workers aren’t chasing luxury, they’re chasing consistency. Predictable pay. Reliable hours. Benefits they can actually use.

Stability is an economic need, but it’s also a human one. At Jem, we’ve seen the same truth in our Claremont and Sandton offices. People do their best work when they don’t have to second-guess the ground beneath them.

Transparent pay, clear comms, steady rhythms and rituals. Stability builds trust and trust is the foundation of every high-performing team.

2. Dignity is the quiet driver of performance

One unexpected line from the Pulse stuck with me:

“My manager greets me every morning. That’s what keeps me coming back.”

So simple, but so revealing. Dignity and decency are minimum requirements, no matter the context. It tells people they matter.

We’ve tried to make this super natural at Jem. From simple things like balancing kindness and honesty when giving feedback, to really hard things like making sure you’re only hiring the best professionals AND the best people. No amount of strategy or AI will matter if people don’t feel seen.

If we can build technology that helps great culture scale, that reminder that people matter (one of our principles at Jem), then we’re not just building HR software. We’re building connection at scale.

3. Ambition lives everywhere, opportunity doesn’t

70% percent of deskless workers said they want to learn new skills, but few have the access or confidence to take the first step.

Potential isn’t limited by education or job title; it’s limited by opportunity and that’s exactly where Jem’s purpose starts.

We’re building a company and a culture that never wastes potential. That means hiring beyond the traditional CV and creating space for people to experiment, fail and grow faster than they imagined.

Outside Jem, it means designing technology that helps employers do the same - to help deskless workers learn progress and build better lives.

I hope you take a moment to read this important report.

It captures the stories of the people who keep this country moving, the very reason Jem exists.

By understanding their realities, you amplify their voice and play an active role in shaping a better future of work.

Find it here: https://desklesspulse.jemhr.com/

And join the conversation here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jemhr/

(Obviously, there are no actual sticky notes. We’re a tech company and AI-native, but it helps paint the picture.)

Below are four of the sticky-note-worthy lessons that stood out this quarter.

1. What we got wrong

A few months ago, we launched a new leadership group called ‘The Wolves’: a cross-functional team of senior Jems who meet weekly to align, unblock and make fast decisions. It’s been a game-changer for speed and focus. Below is a picture from the last in-person Wolves meeting.

Momentum aside, our anonymous survey surfaced something we hadn’t anticipated: several Jems felt unclear about how decisions were being made and how we were tracking on goals. Visibility has always been non-negotiable at Jem, so we needed to act quickly.

Starting last week, we now share a Slack summary after every Wolves meeting, covering progress, key decisions and any immediate changes.

The bigger lesson? A strong culture isn’t defined by the absence of critical feedback. It’s one where people feel safe to speak up and where that feedback fuels high-agency action.

2. Building a high-agency team

At Jem, we often zoom in on a specific behaviour or idea for a season and consciously work on it as a team. In the past, we’ve explored things like ‘compound interest’ and this past quarter, our focus was on ‘high agency’.

It all started with this article, which I highly recommend reading! It pushed us to ask: What does real ownership look like? What does it mean to be someone who finds a way, not an excuse?

Since then, we’ve built it into how we make decisions, give feedback and run projects. I did a quick Slack search and you can already see how it’s starting to take root.

This kind of applied focus has become one of the ways we actively shape our culture at Jem. We’re not just letting it evolve by default as we grow; we’re intentionally instilling values and ways of thinking that we believe are critical to building a high-performing, self-driven team.

3. A new space in Joburg

We have officially moved into our new Johannesburg office at Sandton Gate and the team absolutely knocked it out of the park!

Our recent investments in both the Cape Town and Joburg offices stem from the value we’ve seen in spending more time together in person. As a team already split across two cities, we deeply believe that shared spaces help us stay aligned, spark creativity, strengthen cross-team collaboration and build a stronger culture.

We’ve since moved to a three-day office rhythm, which was an easy transition as many Jems were already choosing to spend more time in our new spaces. This reflects a broader philosophy that continues to underpin many of the positive cultural shifts we’ve made at Jem: designing environments that draw people toward desired behaviours, rather than pushing them into them.

In last week’s All Hands, we took a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come. Seeing our workspaces evolve side by side made this milestone feel especially meaningful. Below are some of the photos we shared of our first few offices, which at the time felt like major milestones of their own.

4. We are hiring (but, very intentionally)

We’ve been quite open about our intention to stay a lean, medium-sized team, even as we scale as a company. That doesn’t mean we don’t do any hiring, but our strategy isn’t built around rapid team expansion.

That’s why, when we open a role, it matters. Each one goes through a thorough process of discussion, review and planning. This quarter, four roles made it through that process, each one carefully chosen and essential to where we’re heading next as a company.

⭐️ Customer Support Coordinator (Jem Mobile): This role is focused on growing our newest product, Jem Mobile. The role blends customer support and sales.

⭐️ Customer Support Manager: The person who’ll lead seven operational Jems (support and data) to ensure we keep delivering exceptional experiences to frontline workers. This role also marks a major structural shift for our operations team.

⭐️ Senior Account Executive: The Jem responsible for bringing our product into the hands of employers, with a specific focus on expanding our footprint in the enterprise space.

⭐️ Customer Success Manager: The Jem who help our clients onboard, grow and stay with Jem. A critical role as we scale.

As we head into the next quarter, we’ll keep doing what’s worked: listening carefully, acting deliberately and building with intention.

If you’re on a similar path or simply observing from the sidelines, I hope this served as a reminder that most meaningful things are built in the middle of the mess.

Here’s where to find me or learn more about Jem:

• My LinkedIn Profile

• My email: dani@jemhr.com

• Jem’s Careers Page

With that in mind, I’ve challenged myself to open the playbook even more. This month I’m taking you inside one of the hottest (and hardest) topics in any startup:

HIRING

Welcome to Jem’s hiring playbook. 📖

What follows are six lessons. If you’re curious about joining Jem, think of this as your insider’s guide. If you’re in the people space, these are my takeaways on finding standout talent in a market now crowded with ChatGPT answers.

1. Sweat the Small Stuff

(No, this is not a typo.) It’s easier than ever to apply for jobs, which means the little things matter more than people realise. I notice who replies to an email within a few hours and who takes five days. I see who arrives a few minutes early to an interview. I pick up on whether an email feels clear and personal or if it’s just the first thing pasted out of ChatGPT. None of this takes much effort, but when you’re one of hundreds of applicants, those small details can be the thing that sets you apart.

2. Please, Have Questions

I have two points on this.

Firstly, not asking questions in an interview is a no-go for us. The photo below of Thamsanqa (our brilliant CTO) is exactly how we feel when someone says they have no questions. Be curious. Make sure this is a place you actually want to work. That shows me you’re not just looking for any job, you’re trying to figure out if this is the right job for you.

Secondly, not asking good questions is a huge missed opportunity. Some of the best interviews I’ve had were when candidates came prepared with thoughtful questions. You only have a short window to make an impression in an interview and this is one of the best ways to do it. I get asked “What’s Jem’s culture like?” in almost every interview. Try asking something different, something that shows how you think.

3. Mistakes are Golden

The top performers at Jem aren’t perfect; they’re the ones who own their mistakes and can quickly pivot.

That’s why one of our favourite interview questions is: “Tell me about a time you made a mistake.” (Hint: Saying you’ve never made one is the wrong answer.)

A lot of people think interviews are about being perfect, but they’re really about seeing how you think and how you handle situations. Especially in a start-up, we want to see that you can think on your feet and adapt after making a mistake. Answers like these are golden in our process:

• “I don’t have experience in the space, but here’s how I’d tackle it…”

• “I didn’t get it right the first time, but here’s what I learned and how I applied it next time…”

• “I asked for feedback and that completely shifted how I handled the situation.”

Below is a picture of our COO and co-founder, Caroline, setting herself up for an ENCA interview. We hadn’t prepared a space for her, so she improvised.

4. Do Research Before

It still surprises me how many interviews begin with candidates asking, “So, what does Jem do?”. We have actually stopped multiple interviews on the spot when it was clear someone had no idea what company they were interviewing for.

On the flip side, I’ve noticed a trend in some recent interviews where candidates referenced something specific, like an article we published or a talk one of our founders did and weaved that into one of their answers. That is the kind of effort that gets noticed.

5. AI Done Wrong Hurts

I want candidates to use AI. We’re building an AI-Native company, so it’s non-negotiable.

Here’s the catch: if AI erases your voice, it doesn’t just fall flat, it actively works against you. It makes you forgettable and in Jem’s case, it gets you rejected faster.

The strongest candidates I’ve seen use AI to sound more like themselves. AI should amplify your voice, not replace it. That’s what I think many people are missing.

If you’re using it in a generic way (e.g. pasting your application answers straight from ChatGPT), you will almost certainly be declined at Jem. Take this recent LinkedIn reach-out to Simon (screenshot below). His message to me was: “Make sure this person is immediately declined if they come through the pipeline for any role.”

On the other side of that, when used well, AI can elevate your ideas and sharpen your voice. One candidate, for example, used Claude to design their technical assessment around their personal brand. It made them an exceptionally strong candidate who stood out immediately!

6. The Extra Mile

I remember one candidate reached out to a Jem team member for a coffee chat before their interview. Someone else showed up at a conference we were attending to meet the team in person. Another sent me a LinkedIn message sharing an article connected to a topic we had discussed during their interview.

No, it does not guarantee you a job, but it instantly separates you from the sea of generic applications. When you go a little further than everyone else, you show us two things: you care and you’re serious. In Jem’s hiring process, those signals matter.

Below is a picture from last year’s end-of-year event. Safe to say the team is well-practised at going the extra mile.

If you want another example of this in action, check out this video about how the Head of Happiness & Health landed their role at Flight Story, it follows the same thinking (start at 1:52).

Why am I sharing this with you?

Hiring is messy, high-stakes and full of lessons you only really learn by doing. Writing this playbook is my way of passing some of those lessons forward in the hope that it helps someone else on the journey.

If you’re a candidate, I hope this gives you a clearer picture of what stands out. If you’re in the people space, maybe it sparks something useful for how you approach hiring.

⭐️ PS: Jem is growing! We currently have a Senior Account Executive & Customer Support Manager role available at Jem. Click on the links to find out more.

Thanks for reading and letting me share the real side of building the Jem team with you.

It’s often the small decisions and quiet adjustments that shape the real foundations of a company’s culture.

At Jem, three of those defining choices stood out to me recently:

⏩ Making AI part of every role.
⏩ Protecting time off so it’s real rest for your team.
⏩ Helping parents show up without it costing them.

This month’s People Notes digs into how these three elements are evolving our culture at Jem.

(PS: New here? I’m Dani, the People Lead at Jem. We’re building South Africa’s #1 HR platform for deskless workers. People Notes is a monthly behind-the-scenes look at how we’re scaling Jem’s team and culture, with all the honesty that comes with it. If you care about building great teams, or just want a peek inside Jem, welcome.)

⚡️ What AI Looks Like at Jem

A few months ago, we committed to making Jem an AI-first company. Since then, we’ve run Friday demos, half-day hackathons, brought in guest speakers and tested more prototypes than I can count. MANY flopped. Some stuck. All of it moved us forward.

Below are some fun use cases that came out of it all.

Cool, right?

It’s been messy, but that’s also the point. If you only explore AI in your spare time, it never becomes part of how your company thinks and operates on a daily basis.

This month, we took a proper step forward. On Wednesday, 7 August, we confirmed Jem’s shift to becoming an AI Native company. It is now part of everyone’s role expectations and every machine (our term for teams at Jem) is responsible for embedding it into how they operate.

There's still a lot to figure out, but we're clear on one thing: every new problem we solve, every new project we start, every solution we engineer is AI-first going forward. Every conversation has to start with "how can AI help us do this smarter, faster or more efficiently?" That's how we stay a high-performing team in a rapidly changing environment and get Jem to where we want it to go.

⏩ If you’re on the same journey, I’d love to connect. We’re working hard to make Jem truly AI-native and are especially interested in speaking with people who want to help us build both the systems and the culture that make it possible.

⚡️ Time Off That Actually Works

Time off is one thing. Being able to actually rest is another and that takes a team. Recently, a Jem came back from leave and they sent me this message:

When people feel safe to switch off, trust deepens. Loyalty grows. Motivation rebounds.

Startups, by their nature, often ask more of people than typical companies. The pace is fast, the stakes are high. The work can feel all-consuming, but it’s impossible to pour from an empty cup. Rest is a requirement because it feeds the energy and creativity we bring to our work.

The irony is that making space for rest often feels counterintuitive when you’re pushing hard for growth, but it’s exactly what keeps teams sharp and resilient. We're still working at it, but in a startup culture, it’s one of the most valuable things we can protect.

⚡️ Making Space for Parents to Show Up

As Jem grows, so do the events outside regular work hours: team dinners, off-sites and travelling to go see customers in other parts of South Africa. We noticed a pattern: parents were quietly opting out. Not because they didn’t care, but because showing up came at a cost.

So, we made a change.

If Jem asks you to attend something outside your usual schedule and it requires extra childcare on top of what you usually have, we’ll help cover it.

It’s a small change, but it's been very meaningful in our space. At Jem, inclusion isn't just a value. It's an intentional investment we make every day.

This month reminded me: culture doesn’t live in the big, shiny moments. It lives in the cracks, the choices you could overlook, but decide matter.

Those choices compound.

They shape how work feels to people and ultimately become the story people tell of the life inside that company.

I’d love to continue the conversation.

Feel free to email me on dani@jemhr.com, connect with me on LinkedIn or explore more about Jem on our website.

If you haven’t already, subscribe below to get People Notes delivered to your inbox each month.

Subscribe now

🌟 PS: We just kicked off the search for a Customer Support Manager! If you care about helping people, thrive in high growth and want to shape how we support our customers, apply below.

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Hi Friends of Jem,

You’re getting this because you’ve been part of our journey in some way: you’ve applied to Jem, worked here, currently do, know me personally, or you’re curious about what we’re building. I’m really glad you’re here!

Welcome to People Notes, a monthly look behind-the-scenes at how we’re trying to build a team that not only works, but works well together.

If we haven’t met yet: I’m Dani, People Lead at Jem. We're building South Africa’s #1 HR and Benefits platform for deskless workers.

Basically, this is a monthly peak into the messy middle of scaling a startup team, shaping a culture and trying not to lose the plot in the process. If this sounds like your thing, welcome! If not, no hard feelings - you can unsubscribe at any time.

Here are the three things that are top of mind this month.

1️⃣ Culture shows up in rejection emails too!

An underrated part of building a strong employer brand? The way you say no. Last week, I emailed someone to let them know that they weren’t chosen for a role. It was an incredibly tough decision. They were sharp, kind, aligned, just not the right fit for this moment.

They replied almost immediately:

Messages like this really make me stop.

They’re a reminder that culture isn’t defined by big launches or values on a wall, but by how we show up in small, human moments.

At Jem, we’ve put as much care into how we regret people as we have into building the hiring process itself. And it’s paid off. We’ve had candidates come back and join us later, not in spite of being rejected, but because of how we handled it. What could’ve been a dealbreaker became a reason they felt even more aligned with us. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s something we take seriously and work hard to get right!

2️⃣ An experiment in learning out loud.

Three weeks ago, we ran a small experiment in our Cape Town office. We invited a few engineers and product thinkers to join us for a night of honest conversation. No pitch. No panel. No agenda.

Just food, drinks, and real discussion around what the future of development looks like now that AI has entered the conversation. Thamsanqa (our brilliant CTO) kicked us off with a lightning talk, and then we broke into groups. No one performed. People just listened, challenged, shared.

We swapped certainty for curiosity, and it worked.

We’re planning to host more of these. Small, focused circles on the things we’re actively grappling with as a team (like embedding AI safely into our systems, or building at speed without losing quality). If thinking out loud like this excites you, keep an eye out. There’s more to come across different corners of Jem: people, finance, ops, tech, and more.

3️⃣ Feedback is our superpower, but we’ve overdone it.

We love feedback at Jem. It’s helped us grow fast, level up people, and spot problems early. But…we’ve overcooked it. Surveys aren’t getting much engagement. Retros are feeling repetitive. People are tired, not because they don’t care, but because we’ve made feedback feel endless.

So we’re shifting things:

• Be intentional, not habitual. No more blanket “how did that go?” questions everywhere. We’re tightening the scope so people can give input where it really matters.

• Make feedback optional more often. Sometimes, no feedback is also a signal. We’re learning to listen for silence instead of filling every space with prompts.

• Balance loops with action. We’re creating more spaces where decisions get made, not endlessly discussed. Not everything needs consensus.

Some faces I screenshotted during retro calls in the last week. If this doesn’t say it all…

If you care about people, culture, or building honest companies, or if you just want to peek inside how we’re building Jem, I’d love to connect!

Here’s where to find me or learn more about Jem:

• My LinkedIn Profile

• My email: dani@jemhr.com

• Jem’s Careers Page

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