‘I love that little high that you get’

“HR isn't supporting the business, it's not a partner to the business, it is the business.”

For Sara Cooper, chief people officer at Jobber, that realization was a key reason she joined the company.

She had already spent two-and-a-half years working with the home service software company as an HR consultant through OMERS Ventures, where her role was to advise portfolio companies on people issues.

Seeing the Jobber co-founders treat the people function as central to business success was decisive, says Cooper.

“My motto is it doesn't matter how good your strategy is… if it's not the right people, the right team, you're going to fail as a business.

“I never had to convince them of that... That is a very key thing and what attracted me to the role.”

Also appealing? Impressive growth at the Edmonton-based company: Cooper joined Jobber when the company had about 150 employees. Today, it has close to 1,100 employees, with much of that growth happening during COVID as its home‑service customers saw demand increase.

“From an employee headcount perspective, we've grown a ton [and], obviously, from a customer account perspective as well.”

From ‘accidental occupation’ to people leadership

Nevertheless, Cooper describes her entry into HR as unplanned: “I once sat on a podcast called "The Accidental Occupation." And it was very much like that for me. It was not a conscious decision at first.”

She began her career in accounts payable, having moved from Toronto to Ottawa and applied to an agency that specialized in accounting and finance. During a conversation there, a branch manager suggested she consider a recruiting role. And, after talking it through, she decided, “You know what? New city, let's give it a shot.”

Cooper says she “absolutely fell in love” with recruiting on the agency side, and then moved into corporate roles, particularly in tech. At FreshBooks, working in a startup environment for three years meant wearing “many hats,” she says, and she took on a more fulsome people role.

“I really liked being able to influence both sides and then just continued from there. And here I am today,” she says.

Cooper joined Jobber as VP of people before becoming CPO in 2020, and her recruiting background continues to shape how she leads the people function.

“Typically, when we're looking at hiring senior leadership team members, I get very involved in the searches,” she says. “There's just something about offering a person a role… I love that little high that you get.”

Embracing data side of HR

Cooper’s early accounting experience still plays into how she operates as a senior people leader.

“One of the things that we have been really focused on this past year is advancing the data side of our function internally at Jobber. Jobber as a whole is very data-oriented,” she says, adding that the HR function is moving from “pretty good” to a more advanced level in its use of data.

“We wanted to really level up,” she says. “So, it's been a matter of bringing the entire team along on that journey. But it is something that we are very, very focused on. And, obviously, being able to use AI now as well, that has really helped us.”

For Cooper, that connects directly to how she sees her role: “Being a business leader that happens to specialize in talent and people, I think [data] is extremely important at this level and for an organization that's scaling as quickly as Jobber is.”

Mission rooted in small business and the trades

Jobber automates the day-to-day operations of small businesses and is used by more than 300,000 home service professionals to serve over 27 million properties in more than 60 countries.

The company focuses on service providers that work in and around the home, such as plumbers, lawn maintenance and HVAC providers. The connection to small business runs through the employee base, according to Cooper.

“When we are looking at bringing people on board, so all of those 1,000-plus people, I'd say probably about 95% of them have a connection to either small business or the trades,” she says. “That’s one of the things that has made the company so successful is you understand the impact that you're having.”

Cooper links it to her own background, with parents who were blue collar workers before they retired: “I know it's an industry that is historically underserved.”

She sees Jobber’s role as extending beyond software into shifting perceptions of the trades.

“We do a lot as a company to, first of all, support their businesses and growing. So that's through our product. But beyond that, we have great teams at Jobber who actually go out into the community to build support networks and community within the different industries,” she says.

A key initiative is the Blue Collar Report, which is put out on a regular basis as a state of the industry, with stats and trends.

“It's really starting to be used as a way to look at the next generation that's coming into work and saying, ‘You don't have to go to university to get a six-figure job. These jobs are absolutely possible through the trades,’” says Cooper. “So, just trying to reposition roles as ‘This is a great career for you, from whatever background you’re from.’”

Standing out in crowded tech talent market

Recruitment remains a major focus for Jobber, and Cooper acknowledges that there's a ton of competition in tech hiring. However, “a rising tide floats all boats, so competition is a good thing, it makes us all better,” she says.

The most important thing is being supportive of employees, which doesn’t just mean being nice, says Cooper.

“It also means giving critical feedback, because that can help a person grow.”

She also stresses the challenges of compensation levels in the sector.

“You can go to Amazon or Google and get paid a hell of a lot more than you're going to be paid in any Canadian tech company,” says Cooper, so while compensation and benefits are important, there's got to be something more.

“Nobody's leaving over $5,000, typically; they're leaving because they don't like their people leader. They're leaving because they don't see growth in their career. They're leaving because they don't agree with the direction of the company,” she says.

So, if Jobber can take away the compensation worries and focus on what makes it unique from the Amazons or the Googles, or any other smaller company, “that's where you find your success,” says Cooper, citing their success with this approach.

“We have people who've been with us like 10-plus years, a lot of them. And that's pretty unheard of in the tech industry.”

Elevating the trades with AI-proof work

She also points out how these roles intersect with technology trends.

“These are roles that for quite some time will be AI-proof. Let's be honest: the white-collar roles are probably going to be replaced before the trades will be,” she says.

That, along with shifting attitudes, is driving change, says Cooper: “What we're seeing now is a real generational shift where people are becoming more and more interested [and] parents — who, frankly, have sometimes been a blocker for their kids to be going into trades — are now becoming more open to it. So, it's been really cool to see.”

On AI, Cooper says Jobber has taken a clear stance.

“We've taken the approach that AI is not here to replace all of us. I mean, that may happen 100 years down the line, maybe sooner, who knows. Our approach right now is AI is here to free us from the mundane,” she says.

That applies across the company, whether in people, marketing or other functions.

“All of us have things that take our time, that aren't necessarily the super high-value things that you want to be working on and pushing out to customers,” she notes. “A lot of that is administrative and that sort of stuff. So, if we can harness the power of AI to take all of that off of our plates, what are we freeing our people up to do?”

Embracing AI for HR

In HR specifically, Cooper points to tasks such as pulling reports or creating dashboards or employment letters, each of which might be small but have a cumulative effect.

“If you remove all of that work, all of a sudden, our business partners or our talent partners can become a hell of a lot more strategic and approach the business differently in what they're able to provide. So, we’re looking for everybody to think that way in the company,” she says.

“It really is about augmenting the human, not replacing the human… we see an opportunity for us to just do more with the same workforce that we have.”

As for areas such as performance management, Cooper sees value in AI‑enabled note-taking — with guardrails.

“[It’s about] using your AI note-taker in your one-on-ones and getting the transcripts, but making sure that both people are aligning, that ‘Yes, this is what was said. This was the general sentiment,’” she says. “And then you can absolutely use all of those notes from your one-on-ones to do your quarterly review.”

But Cooper emphasizes a non‑negotiable element.

“You can't just give somebody a review. You have to talk to them. And so that's probably the most important part of it is ensuring that the verbal communication is still happening in that one-on-one, that we're not removing… the human input entirely from the process.”

Building ‘HR on demand’ and creating space to think

At Jobber, AI is already used with different software platforms, so, the next step is building internal tools.

“What's interesting to me is ‘What can we build that's just our own? And what can we build that's very Jobber-specific?’” she says.

The aim is to elevate not only the people function but everybody’s job at the company. That includes creating tools so “folks don't have to rely on us to come to come for advice... They have all of this at their fingertips,” she says. “It's almost like ‘HR on demand.’”

That will help when it comes to the business partner role, which can be “so reactive,” says Cooper: “Something comes in, and you’ve just got to deal with it.”

Instead, it’s about responding to what’s necessary, she says, “but still having space to do this more creative work — I think that's something that's going to be really key for us.”