If you’re anything like us, you’re wondering where 2017 went. Between the ups and downs and in-betweens, this year flew by. At any rate, it’s time to get ready to crush 2018.
We’ve created a quick guide to ensure you’re getting the most out of your Kin account starting Jan. 1, 2018. Of course, every Kin account is different since every company is different. If you have any questions about below, or are wondering if you’re using Kin to the fullest for your organization, feel free to reach out to us anytime by emailing theteam@10.20.21.87.
One other thing to note before we dive in: you need at least HR Manager level access to get to a majority of the information below. If you have questions about your Kin account but do not have that level of permission within the system, reach out to the folks who manage Kin for your company first.
Alrighty, let’s get started.
Do a quick headcount.
Perhaps you’ve added a few folks over the last year or maybe you lost some. Do a quick headcount in Kin by logging in and clicking the Team tab. You can see a visual grid of your company there. If you’d rather a black and white list, you could also see a report of folks within Kin account by going to Manage Account -> Export Data -> Employee Data.
You can also check to ensure that all folks are active. If they are still pending in your system, that means they haven’t accepted their e-mail invitation yet. You can resend the invite by clicking the Resend Invitation link on the top left when you click into their individual profile.
Check that your employees are using their time off.
If you have paid time off policies set up to renew at the beginning of the new year, you can take a look now to see if folks are actually utilizing all of their time off. This is extremely important. Companies who encourage employees to take all of the time off allotted to them see growth rates of 2x or more than those who do not.
If that’s not compelling enough, turnover in these companies is dramatically lower than those who have employees that consistently leave time off on the table each year. Employees who use their time off also report feeling more engaged with their work and are more likely to be advocates of the brand/organization.
You can see how much time is being left on the table at your organization by going to the Company tab, then click Reporting. Choose the Time Off Balances option then choose the policies you’d like to take a look at. You can set a timeframe on the right-hand side.
The report will show the following columns: Available, Taken, Approved and Requested. Here’s a quick reference guide as to what those headers mean:
- Available: This is time that has not yet been requested, approved or taken. It is time that employees haven’t scheduled out and still remains on the table. This is what you’re keeping an eye on to see how much time is left this year.
- Taken: This is time an employee has taken within the policy. The dates are completed and the employee is likely back from vacation already.
- Approved: This is time that an employee has requested and has been approved by their manager, but they have not yet taken. Likely, the requested time is in the future. Once they take the time, it will move over to the Taken column.
- Requested: This is time that is in a pending state. The employee has submitted a request, but the manager has yet to approve or deny it.
If you want to thrive as a company in 2018, becoming a culture where employees feel they can take the time off they need to renew themselves is key. Chat with your managers now to explain the benefits of being more vocal about encouraging time off. Make sure you set a standard that PTO requests are promptly responded to as a follow up as well.
Review your PTO policies to ensure they aren’t having a negative effect on your team.
If you’re noticing a lot of time left on the table for smaller policies (10 or less days per year), the policy itself may be causing a scarcity mindset. Employees may be scared to take time off throughout the year in case something comes up later on when it’s more urgent to leave work. Kin recommends allowing at least 15 days off per year for full-time workers. This eases that fear of not having time when needed and allows employees to take time off when they need it, whether it’s an emergency or just to refresh themselves.
On the other hand, ff you have extremely generous plans and notice that employees aren’t taking time off through those either, your generosity could be having the opposite effect.
Employees who have unlimited plans, or plans that allow for more than 30 days off per year see the time as always available. Therefore, they get so wrapped up in work they don’t worry about running out of time and likely think, “it’ll always be there, why take it now?”
You can help negate this by creating a minimum amount of time each employee must take off per year. Typically, employers want to see at least three weeks when it comes to minimum time taken per year.
This allows for a few things:
- It gives the employee the time they need to rest and recharge so they can come back at their most productive selves.
- It allows employees to feel comfortable delegating their tasks – when you’re required to take time off, you can’t hoard information, projects or responsibilities. It’s a team effort and everyone should be responsible for success.
- It allows managers to see when they’re overloading employees. If an employee leaves and the rest of the team is left wondering ‘holy cow, how did s/he ever get this amount of work done?!’ then it’s time to recalibrate.
Having the ‘always there’ worker seems great in theory, but it’s a surefire way to get burned-out, actively disengaged employees.
If you feel your policies are good to go then they’ll automatically renew either on the first of the year, on a custom date or on the employee’s anniversary of hire date. You can see what your company has the renewal date set to by going to the Company tab, clicking on the time off policy in question then seeing what is selected on the set-up page. You have the ability to adjust this at any time. When you click save, the changes will automatically update for any employee assigned to that policy.
Fill out and assign Company Tools so employees have quick access to daily login links.
Did you know you can keep all of your login links in one place in Kin? Employers who take advantage of this have less emails asking how to access daily tools employees need to get their jobs done.
You can store login links to anything, including tools, payroll or benefit portals, internal messaging apps and more. It’s as simple as putting in the tool name, uploading the logo of it, and then adding the login link.
To set it up, go to the Company tab, then click Tools. Click Add New Tool in the upper-right hand corner and it’ll guide you through setting it up. To add them to the employee’s profile, go to the Team tab, then click on the employee’s profile. Click the Onboarding Set-Up navigation option, then scroll down and check the tools that are applicable to that employee. Different employees can have different tools show up when they login to Kin.
If you’re setting up a new employee, the same process applies. It’ll show up on their Welcome page the first time they log into Kin. For existing employees, it’ll show up when they click over to the Getting Started portion of their profile upon login.
Add Custom Fields to capture employee data specific to your company’s needs.
Custom Fields is is a great way to capture employee data that is unique to your business, employment laws or specific country.
When you create a new custom field, Kin adds a new category with any number of sub-items to your employees’ profile pages. Similar to how Emergency Contacts and Bank Information are currently displayed in your system, Custom Fields allows you to create and track any type of information you need.
To set it up, go to the Company Tab, then click Custom Fields. Then, click Add New Category in the upper-right hand. Complete as many new categories as your company needs.
When you’ve saved your new categories, they will automatically show up in the employee’s profile for you to complete. Please note: unless they have been filled out with data in the employee’s profile, they will not show up to the employee when they log in.
Receive a discount by paying annually
When you pay annually with Kin versus monthly, you receive 10% off. Save some cash now by paying for Kin up front.
Paying for Kin annually instead of monthly not only scores you the discount, it also allows your payment to be as flexible as your business needs are. Annual payments act like a credit on your Kin account. As you add folks to Kin, you’ll go through the credit quicker. If you restructure and end up with a smaller team, the credit will take longer to burn through. Credits don’t expire until you use them fully. To set up annual payments, simply reach out to theteam@10.20.21.87.