🐙 The No-HR model at 10,000+ people. Welcome to Octopus

TL;DR

🐙 The No-HR model at 10,000+ people. Welcome to Octopus

🗑️ HR dumping ground? 5 systems that stop it

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🐙 The No-HR model at 10,1000+ people. Welcome to Octopus

"My billion-pound company has no HR department," Greg Jackson (Founder and CEO of Octopus Energy) famously told the BBC. Octopus Energy employs 10,000+ people globally. The biggest energy retailer in the UK, operating across multiple countries.

A few weeks ago, I had dinner with Cynthia Chan… their Head of People Ops. Hmmm, for a company with "no HR department." 🙄

We were catching up over Korean BBQ. Somewhere between the banchan and the seafood pancake, the conversation landed on that quote. I looked at her across the table and teased her.

So… what are you then?

Is Greg just doing what all the 'progressive' founders do? Hating on the word ‘HR’ and renaming the function People Ops?

She laughed.

"No. The concept is we are all HR."

No-HR, because "we are all HR" 

Octopus Energy’s No-HR model is, at its core, a separation of 2 things: 

The key purpose is to remove the HR dumping ground. 

Ah yes, HR leaders, we know that dumping ground very well 😅. When leaders (and even founders) avoid the difficult performance conversations… avoid the conflict brewing with their peers… keep someone who's no longer right for the team… they come to us. 

And slowly, without meaning to, we absorb the problem. I'm using that word intentionally – absorb. We absorb the discomfort, the consequence, the emotional labour. We process it, write the script, join the meeting, manage the risk, guide the outcome…

…until eventually, the problem disappears.

And the leader learns nothing. Because they never had to own the consequence.

No HR, just radical leadership accountability 

Most of us would agree leaders should own the people accountability — hiring, developing, having the hard conversations. And HR coaches, advises and guides them.

Not at Octopus.

"We do not have People Partners. Our team do not step in when people issues happen."

You don’t? I nearly choked on my kimchi🥬. Because for most HR leaders, that IS the job. That is the bit we believe we add value in. 

So I pushed.

That's when I saw the pattern.

At no point does HR step in to break the chain of leadership accountability. If a leader makes a poor decision, their manager holds them accountable. 

No HR dumping ground

At Octopus, HR is not there to “help” with difficult people issues. HR exists to build the infrastructure that enables leaders to do their job (more on this in the next edition).

HR does not step in to manage the discomfort of leadership on behalf of leaders. The discomfort stays with the leaders, and that’s how the accountability muscle gets built. 

So what does that actually look like in practice?

Below👇, I'm breaking down exactly how leaders own people accountability at Octopus across each of the 5 Operating Systems every business runs, whether they've named them or not.

HR dumping ground? 5 systems that stop it

OS1️⃣: The accountability system

Octopus doesn’t have People Partners or HR Advisors. So, I started with employee relations (ER), because that is the hardest one to imagine without HR. 

A leader receives a formal grievance letter. They’ve never handled one before. What happens?

Their first call is to their own manager, Cynthia said. The person above them has the context, is accountable for how it lands, and has probably seen something similar before. And if they haven’t, another leader in the company will have. 

So I pressed a little further. What about mistakes? The wrong promotion, a poor hiring decision, bias in a pay call?

She didn’t flinch.

“Of course that happens. But the balance of having a high-trust environment for our leaders outweighs having to deal with the minority where it doesn’t work out. If they don’t have to live with the consequences, they would never feel the accountability to get it right.”

OS2️⃣: The decision-making system

Then we moved to pay, promotions, and budget. This is where most organisations build the strongest fences. Everything from salary bands, budgets, promotion, approval chains to HR and Finance sign-off. 

At Octopus, leaders benchmark their own market. They search the market, speak to candidates, or use benchmarking tools. And the decision sits with them.

“It’s completely localised,” Cynthia said. “There’s no set budget, no set max percentage, no restrictions as such.”

Naturally, I asked the obvious question: Doesn’t this terrify Finance? Or maybe HR… just a little? 😱

She laughed.

"Where leaders aren't given that red circle, those restrictions, they have a sense of responsibility. You trust them to make the right decision for their team and for the business. It is a high, high trust environment."

OS3️⃣: The performance system

When we got to performance management, I had to ask twice:

Cynthia smiled. Correct. 

In Octopus, every leader and every team runs on their own schedule. It could be four months. It could be seven. It could be nine. It could be three years. There’s no waiting until the annual review or until the cycle opens. They make promotion and salary calls whenever it's right for their team.

So I asked, what happens when the leader gets it wrong? Such as a missed recognition, a delayed progression or a poor career conversation.

“Leaders know their teams best. They are responsible for their growth, role and career progression. That means lifting people up, but also having the hard conversations. Ultimately, how they lead their people is a reflection of them," says Cynthia.

OS4️⃣: The communication system

At Octopus, communication does not rely on HR as the central broadcast tower. Instead, they use a champions network across the business, from leaders to individual contributors. When something changes (e.g. a new AI feature in an engagement tool, process update or system change), it goes to the champions first. They carry it into their teams.

So I asked, what if 20 champions receive the same information and communicate it differently? Different timing? Different emphasis? Different tone?

Cynthia’s answer was simple: “The context is different. The same information landing in one team isn’t the same situation as it landing in another. The leader who knows their specific team will handle it in the way that’s right for them. That is part of the accountability of leaders who own the relationship with their team.”

OS5️⃣: The feedback system

We can't talk about the feedback system without talking about engagement surveys. At Octopus, HR does not work on eNPS initiatives or action planning with leaders. They maintain the system (new features, technical issues, AI updates) — and that's it. 

Leaders have direct access to a pulse survey every one to two weeks through Workleap. They interpret the data and act on it with no HR enablement. 

I'll be honest… this is where I was most curious. Because we all know the reality. Even when HR actively works with leaders on engagement data, it often struggles to become a priority. So, what actually makes leaders act on this? 

Cynthia's answer came back to the same pattern. "There is no HR layer to absorb the accountability. The data is visible. The leader can see it, and the leader’s manager can see it. The trend is there every week."

HR’s role is to remove barriers so leaders can see team sentiment in real time and act quickly. Sentiment shouldn’t fester for a quarter. Leaders own the relationship with their teams, and responding is part of their accountability.

The 5 Operating Systems (OS) that bring "We are all HR" to life

Octopus puts people accountability where it belongs: with leaders. 

The 5 Operating Systems are intentionally designed to keep accountability with leaders, so when something gets hard, it escalates up, not outwards to HR.

In that sense, the no-HR model removes the dumping ground and creates a clear separation of ownership: 

Step up from HR Leader to Business Leader

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