By Alex Yohn
May 12, 2020
Setting objectives for employees can seem like a daunting task. Ideally, objectives ladder up to company goals. They should also work in parallel with what other members of the team are doing. You want everyone marching forward in one direction, not split off de-emphasizing their impact.
For managers, this is a big task. Objectives shouldn’t be taken lightly because they are spelling out the course of your employee’s focus the next few months, quarters or year. So how do you create objectives that align employees with company goals, team goals and their own talents?
Following are a few ways to think about it.
Don’t create company goals in a vacuum
Any objective you create will be set based on what your company goals are. I am a firm believer that company goals should not be something that just the higher-ups create. If your company’s goals are unrealistic or out-of-touch with what employees deal with every day at work, you are not going to be able to create effective employee objectives.
Company goals are something that all employees should want to and be able to achieve. The goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
Take a look at your company goals first and foremost. Make sure that your goals aren’t disguised as broad-stroke visions or huge missions. If they are, work on getting those actionable first before setting individual objectives.
Know who should lead the conversation when
While managers may have specific objectives in mind for each of their employees, they may be surprised by the eye-opening answers they’ll receive if they ask employees to identify goals for themselves.
At Kin, objective setting is not a one-person job. Managers and employees sit down together and discuss what objectives should be set for the year. One thing that’s important when it comes to objective setting is letting the employee lead the way. If an employee understands the company’s goals, they likely have a good idea of how their role can help them achieve it with a little coaching from their manager.
There is a huge difference between imposing goals on an employee versus having them create their own. At Kin, we encourage employees to lead the objective-creation conversation with their manager’s guidance. Once objectives have been set, managers step back in alongside the employee and lead the conversation to develop an action plan to achieve them.
Aim for small improvements rather than dramatic leaps
In his book Atomic Habits, author James Clear outlines an incredible story about British Cycling, the governing body for professional cycling in Great Britain.
It was no secret that British Cycling was awful in 2003. In 110 years, close to zero British cyclists ever won any major event. Only one British Rider won a single gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1908. As far as the Tour de France, no British cyclist had won the event in the last 110 years.
Desperate to break their losing streak, British Cycling hired Dave Brailsford as its new performance manager. When Brailsford took over, he implemented a philosophy called the “aggregation of marginal gains.” The idea was to break down how British Cycling operated into little pieces, then improve each piece by 1%. Over time there would be a significant increase if all the improved pieces were put back together.
He got right to work. His team redesigned bike seats to make them more comfortable. They put rubbing alcohol on the tires so they would grip the road better. They asked certain riders to wear electrically heated material over their shorts so their muscles would stay at the ideal temperature while riding. They tested different types of fabrics in wind tunnels so they could determine what type of indoor racing suit would work best. They even went as far as to paint the inside of the team truck white, so they could better spot bits of dust that would normally slip by without being noticed. That dust could slowly degrade the performance of finely-tuned bikes.
After just five years, the British Cycling team dominated major global events. They won an amazing 60% of the gold medals available at the 2008 Olympic Games, and went on to win even more in 2012.
The moral of the story? Make small improvements with purpose versus massive changes that likely won’t be adhered to for long. Your employee’s objectives don’t need to be quantum leaps forward. They need to be small, achievable, repeatable things that will help the company be more sound, self-sufficient, productive and, ultimately, successful.
When all of your team’s objectives are combined with this in mind, you’ll be shocked by how fast you hit your company’s goals. Once you put that habit in place, your company’s potential is unlimited.
By Alex Yohn
May 6, 2020
We’re a few months into this pandemic thing (!!!) and employees are learning what it’s like to work remotely. Some like it, and others not so much. The same goes for employers. While many companies have had to radically adapt their business models just to survive, others have simply shifted the ‘where’ in their operations equation. Unfortunately that doesn’t translate to smooth sailing for employee experience. Forty five percent of employees working remotely because of the pandemic report feeling burnt out.
Given remote working is here for the foreseeable future, companies that haven’t done so already need to invest in their remote workplace experience – an exercise that’ll reap dividends for the long term regardless of where employees do their work.
In my experience there are three fundamental pillars that support a healthy remote workplace from which all other facets of good remote work culture spring.
Trust
Above all else, trust in employees means you’re giving them autonomy to do the job they’re hired to do. There’s a well known quote from Steve Jobs that sums it up pretty well:
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” – Steve Jobs
Trusting employees unfortunately isn’t a natural skill for many employers to make, but micromanaging over Zoom and email is a surefire way to increase employee turnover. Coupling solid assignment/role management with employee sentiment tools like OfficeVibe to get a sense of what’s working and isn’t will shed light on the ways employees feel about their workplace experience.
Byproducts of trust in the workplace:
- Healthy, candid communication
- A sense of ownership and pride in one’s work
- Implicit support of leadership’s strategy (trust is a two-way street)
- Better redundancy when employees are sick or leave the firm
Guidance
A large source of assurance employees seek when working remotely comes from workplace guidelines for things like roles and responsibilities, handling sensitive data, team communications and something as simple as work hours (core office hours, etc.). It’s up to employers to provide that.
What are your expectations of employees when they work remotely? How do they differ from before the pandemic? If you haven’t thought about it and if you haven’t communicated them outwardly, I guarantee your employees are wondering about it, as noted in a prior article I wrote on taking time off.
Documenting your policies is important (and in some cases legally required), but the first step needs to come from you. Communicate what’s expected – do you need to change business hours? Say so. Do you expect employees to forgo vacation time for a few months? Say so.
Short of policy and expectations, employees are left to come to their own conclusion and I can guarantee that in times when work seems like a luxury, that’s going to mean more burn out and poorer productivity over the long term.
Byproducts of good guidance and workplace policy:
- More self-governance by employees (less need for micro-management)
- Better business continuity planning at the management level
- Employees feel more sure footed in their own career / life planning
Infrastructure
The most tangible of the three pillars, employees need infrastructure to connect to the workplace. We’re all dependent on consumer grade internet connections, but that doesn’t mean our workplace operations are out of reach. You may have been able to get by without access to things like employee records and physically protected intranet sites for a month, but at this point it’s imperative to upgrade how and where these critical documents and assets are accessible.
Byproducts of productive workplace infrastructure
- Explicit, if not better, security of sensitive company data and assets
- Workplace diagnostics for cost and usage comprehension
- Better/easier automation in onboarding and offboarding employees
- Anytime, anywhere access to employee records and operations
If you snooze, you lose
Employers who don’t see the upside to creating a productive workplace, regardless of location, are going to have a very tough time surviving this prolonged downturn because companies with clear policy, trust, and infrastructure are already out there, ready to welcome the huddled masses of employees who just weren’t able to bridge the gap of a workplace in disarray. The question is, which type of workplace is yours? If you’re of the prior, get those engines started.
By Alex Yohn
May 4, 2020
Almost everyone’s daily routine has been turned upside down due to the coronavirus. For those who have gone from a structured office environment to being thrust into remote working, you might see yourself working much longer hours than you had before. In fact, a recent report from NordVPN showed activity on their servers had increased by nearly three hours per day per user, on average.
All of these working hours aren’t necessarily adding up to more productivity, either. We as humans can only focus so much on a task at hand before we burn out, either temporarily or permanently.
Of course, work may seem like the only thing that IS normal these days which is why we seem so attracted to it. But, too much of a good thing isn’t always great.
Here are a few ways you can establish a better routine and get more done during without adding more hours to your day.
Establish and enforce your own work hours
Yes, I understand that you already have established work hours. Perhaps your office’s hours were 9-5 PM. After work, you would drive home and have dinner on the table by 6:30 PM. However, in a remote working environment, you’re already home at the “end” of your workday. So maybe you’ll continue to work until 5:30 or 6….or later.
That’s where we get in trouble. Working from home makes it easier for work to start as early as when you first roll out of bed, and go on as late as you choose. It’s comfortable because you’re already home. But where you’ll pay for it is when you don’t have adequate time to unplug and recharge for the next workday.
Therefore, while you may be working longer hours, you’re not necessarily being more productive.
Combat this by setting dedicated hours that you’ll be available to colleagues. Remember, they’re likely falling into similar traps which is why they’re calling you 45 minutes before the office would normally open, or texting you “a quick thought” at 8:30 PM.
Clearly state your work hours to your entire team, and ask them to do the same for you. If you are going to stick to your office hours of, say, 9-5 PM, great. In fact, we encourage a “normal” schedule here at Kin so that our entire team is on the same page at all times.
We enforce them by logging into our computers at our start time of 9 AM and saying “hello” in our Slack’s general channel. We do the same when we’re leaving for the day. We call it our digital presence.
You would never walk into the office past team members and not greet them, nor would you leave the office and not say goodbye.
It also sets a boundary: If I haven’t logged in yet and said hello, I’m not available. When I say goodnight, I’m indicating that I’m away from my keyboard and inaccessible until tomorrow.
Take actual breaks
When you’re working from home, it’s so easy to coop up in your work area and not leave until the end of the day. However, the human brain can really only focus in 45 minute spurts according to a University of New Hampshire study, so when you don’t take short breaks throughout the day, you’re decreasing your focus minute by minute. This will lead to taking longer periods to get tasks done, and delaying the “end” of your workday.
Think about all of the micro-breaks you take at work while in the office – going to make a cup of coffee and bumping into a colleague, or running to your car to grab something. Even if you’re away from your desk for just 5-10 minutes, you’re recharging during that time and allowing your brain to reset for the next focus period.
If you’re worried you’ll forget about these breaks more often while working from home, schedule them into your workday calendar. They’re just as important as your morning check-in with your boss for a productive day.
Get off of your own island
Often times, when a person feels isolated or unseen by colleagues, they think the worst. “I’m not working hard enough” or “I’m not being productive enough” are inner monologues that can play out in ways that drive workaholism.
If you’re feeling this way, you’re not alone. A recent study from Project Time Off shows that many employees don’t want to use their paid time off for the very reason of not being seen in the office. They fear if they aren’t physically seen doing work, their value is diminished in the eyes of their colleagues.
Unfortunately, the hard truth is that more hours worked does not necessarily equate to higher impact.
By staying in touch with your team, you’ll get a bead on where you can help and how you can work together. You’ll also receive more feedback when you’re visible to one another, which will help the entire team work more cohesively.
Even if you’re getting enough time with those you report to, make sure to schedule some quick chats with colleagues you would usually meet up with at the water cooler. They are likely missing the interactions that made your culture so enjoyable, and while a video chat can’t completely replace it, it can definitely help.
Give these three steps a try and please let us know how they helped your work week next week. We’re all in this together. Stay strong!
By Alex Yohn
Apr 24, 2020
There have been a lot of ups and downs for small businesses lately, and the thrill ride looks to be continuing for the foreseeable future. As part of our effort to share experiences and best practices of companies around the world, we’re introducing Kin’s Fireside Chat series.
For our inaugural episode, Melissa chats with Steve Bissonnette, managing partner of Plank – a design firm in Montreal, who shares his outlook for the Canadian small business landscape and Canada’s economic response.
By Alex Yohn
Apr 20, 2020
Last week was my kids’ spring break from school. We’d originally planned a road trip to New Orleans but for obvious reasons those plans fell through. I canceled my week of time off – there was no point in using those days to sit around inside, I figured.
Since this pandemic has been going on our business has continued to hum along, for which I’m grateful. Luckily for us, our company is entirely remote so there’ve been no hiccups acclimating to the “new normal” that many companies are experiencing. Luckily for us, we’re hiring and onboarding and designing and building. Luckily for us, we see an even brighter future in digitized workplace operations. This gets me to the point I’ve made so often before, but with a twist.
Time away from work is more important than ever, even if we can’t hop in the car or plane to disappear for a few days. We’ve been vocal with our team and customers over the years that employees don’t need to go on vacation – but a few days per quarter are necessary to refresh. Read, cook, or stare at a wall; do anything but work. I didn’t take my own advice.
The ‘normal’ amount of stress at work which most of us experience is now being compounded by an incredibly abnormal amount of uncertainty about the future. There are massive numbers of people filing for unemployment, so we should dig even deeper to ensure we don’t find ourselves in those lines too right? I don’t think that’s the right mental approach nor the right message to send to employees. Now’s the time to reinforce the sound practice of time off that keeps us all sane.
Now’s the time to reinforce the sound practice of time off that keeps us all sane.
JD Graffam, owner of Memphis-based Simple Focus, mentioned a similar level of apprehension within his own team. It’s taken some reassurance (cashflow forecasts with Pulse, revenue projections, leadership) to get his team members feeling comfortable taking time away from work. Andrew Millen, a UI Designer at SimpleFocus, was the first employee to inquire about it and, ultimately, book a few days off. “None of us are used to working at home, and I feel like with all these changes it’s important to know what’s changing or not with policies like time off,” Andrew mentioned.
I ended up putting a few days off back on the calendar – not the whole week, but enough time to get some distance from work. I smoked barbecue for friends (unfortunately we couldn’t enjoy it together) and watched some movies with my kids. I didn’t return to work completely reenergized, but the time off served as a punctuation mark of sorts for this seemingly never-ending rambling sentence of an extraordinary period in time. See what I did there? It also was a strong reminder to remind my own team that time off, pandemic or not, is a business critical practice to ensure our workplace continues to shine.
By Alex Yohn
Apr 7, 2020
At Kin, we work alongside hundreds of small businesses every day. The COVID-19 crisis has hit us all in different ways, making at least one thing clear: many small businesses are facing challenges we would never have thought of just a few months ago.
One important program to look into for U.S. companies worried about being able to pay or retain employees is the federal government’s new Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
As part of the massive U.S. stimulus bill, small businesses that are facing disruption due to the crisis can start applying for these forgivable loans as of April 3, 2020.
Who is eligible?
Any small business in the United States who has less than 500 employees and has been in operation since February 15, 2020 is eligible.
What can I use this loan for?
It can be used for payroll costs, interest on mortgages, rent and utilities. In order to qualify for forgiveness, at least 75% of the forgiven amount must be used for payroll. Forgiveness is based on an employer maintaining or quickly rehiring employees and keeping their salaries as is. Forgiveness will be reduced if your full-time employee headcount declines, or if salaries or wages are cut.
What is the interest rate?
The interest rate is 1% and the repayment term is two years. You will not owe your first payment for at least six months. No collateral or personal guarantees are required, but they may be asked for during the application process.
How do I apply?
You can apply through any existing SBA 7(a) lender or through any federally-insured institution, credit union, etc. Please note that not all banks are offering this, so it’s best to call ahead before you venture out.
What if I’m self employed or an independent contractor?
You are still eligible. However, loan processing for this group begins April 10. Employers who have only 1099 team members do not qualify for this loan. 1099 team members must apply on their own. If you have a mix of W2 and 1099 team members, you will only qualify for W2 team members.
If you or your company has started the application process, we’d appreciate hearing about your experience (processing times, which banks, etc.) with the hopes of sharing it with any other customers who may need assistance. If you’re willing to share your experience, please write us at TheTeam@KinHR.com.