Brewed in the Northern Rivers

From this vision, Stone & Wood was born. For Elise Skinner, now Brewlife manager at Stone & Wood, a key part of her role is to maintain those core values, even as the business continues to expand beyond its humble origins.

“Stone & Wood started with a desire to build a conscious business, and it’s still reflected in the way we run today,” says Skinner.

“Ultimately, we want to create a sustainable brewing business that develops, embraces and adds value to its communities, and that guides our decisions.”

Skinner originally took steps into HR with a stint in recruitment, then later made a full transition to the field, working for many more years in a variety of companies and industries.

When Skinner and her husband eventually decided it was time for a sea change with a move to Byron Bay, in a striking piece of synchronicity this coincided with a new HR role opening up at Stone & Wood.

“I was doing some contract work while I waited for my next HR gig to come along,” she says.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this role advertised at Stone & Wood; it seemed like the natural next step in my career.” Signing on two years ago, Skinner joined at a transitional point for the organisation.

Stone & Wood was a business that already prided itself on its innovation and how it cared for its people and culture – but it was also a business that had experienced significant growth in the years prior, and there were plenty of HR projects to tackle.

Widening horizons

During her time in the role, Skinner has worked with her team to balance operational HR needs with a desire to progress, innovate and think creatively.

“There has been an emphasis on getting some fundamentals in place around systems and processes to keep step with the growth,” says Skinner. In this vein, continuing the development of leadership and employee engagement has also been a significant undertaking.

Leaders across the team have recently invested time in the art of giving feedback and coaching, with a view to enabling teams and avoiding the need for a hierarchical management structure.

Embedding this learning into the wider Stone & Wood culture and behaviours as part of the norm is still underway, says Skinner.

“We talk to and work with everyone in the company to evolve our understanding of how to build employee engagement, develop capabilities, and keep communication fresh,” she says.

Though Stone & Wood remains a relatively small player in the overall Australian beer market, business and distribution have consistently expanded since it began operations.

So there’s an element of futureproofing at play in its strategy. Craft beer is a dynamic segment of the market that is always evolving, particularly as its popularity expands around the world.

It’s therefore become increasingly common for multinational liquor distributors to acquire smaller breweries, then subsequently launch brands that give the impression of being small-run craft beers themselves.

This, says Skinner adamantly, is not a direction Stone & Wood wants to pursue. Independence is highly valued by the company.

“We are firmly focused on remaining a local independent brewery that supports the community and creates value for its stakeholders,” says Skinner.

“We aim to brew a good life for our people, just as much as we brew good beers.”

Brewlife philosophy

HR policies must reflect this attitude, and accordingly the company’s ‘Brewlife’ philosophy has been created with this in mind. Brewlife spans not only the company’s HR initiatives, processes and strategies but is ‘owned’ beyond the HR team.

It reflects the importance of employees as integral stakeholders in the business model, and the role they play in the culture, behaviours and future of the Stone & Wood story.

“We are firmly focused on remaining a local independent brewery that supports the community and creates value for its stakeholders. We aim to brew a good life for our people” Elise Skinner, Stone & Wood

One of the most significant of Brewlife’s initiatives is employee ownership. Stone & Wood has an annual share offering for eligible staff, and as of early 2019, 75% of the team are now considered owners within the business.

“Our Employee Share Scheme gives a sense that we are all in this together,” says Skinner.

“But it also has the potential to generate a nest egg for our people and their family over time.”

Helping parents get back to work

Another recent Brewlife initiative has been the introduction of financial support for childcare among its workplace benefits, after acknowledging that the decision to get back into the adoption of their child when they return to work. Importantly, this benefit is not only available to individuals within the business.

It’s also available to partners of employees who are returning to work – even if they are not employed by Stone & Wood and are heading back to work with another business in the local community.

“Ultimately, we determined our key motivation was supporting diversity in our community,” says Skinner.

“The desire to help primary carers from all kinds of families in returning to work arose from that motivation.”

Future Brewlife initiatives

There are plenty of plans afoot for the coming months, too. April will see Stone & Wood kick off a new approach to engagement surveys, introducing quarterly ‘pulse checks’ and targeted feedback.

This is a progression of the existing annual engagement process, allowing for more regular feedback, stronger insights and more effective measurement of longer-term goals.

“At the moment we’re also focusing on bringing our capability framework to life by developing our own internal training workshops as well as drawing on external expert support when needed,” says Skinner.

“We’re helping our teams to further define core skills and competencies to support their career planning.”

Stone & Wood’s safety agenda is also being shifted beyond traditional ideas of physical safety to include a mental wellbeing and personal resilience program.

Skinner is keen to note that the core purpose of the business remains, and these initiatives are simply tools that will enable that purpose to be carried out as they continue to evolve.

“At the end of the day, we also want to make sure everyone has fun, enjoys being part of this unique family, and makes time to chat together over a beer!” she says.