By Alex Yohn
Sep 30, 2014
Every business owner knows the acute pain of losing a talented employee. Anticipated or abrupt, it never feels good and it can disrupt the flow and focus of the entire company. It shouldn’t though.
Instead of looking at departures as an arrow in the heart of a company’s culture, a sudden change in the line up can be a source of momentum and inspiration. It’s important for business owners to seize the opportunity to make improvements, rather than dwell on it as a failure.
Anticipate the departures.
Job-hopping every couple of years no longer carries the stigma it used to. It’s a continuing trend that business owners need to work with.
The movement towards shorter tenures should inform everything employers do from compensation to career roadmaps to hiring for redundancy. Employers don’t have a reason to leave the rest of their team hanging when someone important leaves. Build it into the company’s proactive game plan.
Knowing where employees are headed long term is equally important. Some folks view their job as just something they do for a paycheck. Others are planning to start their own company. Our responsibility as employers is to help employees meet career objectives that are aligned with the company’s objectives. Taking the pulse of an employee’s engagement through check-ins and reviews is not enough. Business owners need to reach out farther than just the next few months.
Guide the team through the transition with honest communication.
As easy as it is to brew on an employee’s departure, leaders need to move quickly to fill the void on both a morale and resources level. How quick? Quicker than it takes for rumors or misinterpretations to settle in with the rest of the company.
If there is an organizational problem that led to the departure, it needs to be addressed in short order. Inaction will lead to subsequent employees quitting. Discuss the problems openly with the team. Do it in person and do it with a sense of humility and camaraderie. You are a team. Teams solve problems together.
If the departure is simply because of a difference in where the employee was headed and where the company was going, well, let the team know that. Dispel any myths by acknowledging openly that it’s a natural progression.
Reflect for a moment.
Lastly, a departing employee means there’s an opportunity to evaluate the position and hire someone more capable and better suited to where the company is headed. Even the most productive employees can be one-upped. This is an opportunity to improve the team to become more skilled, dynamic and visionary.
I still get caught up thinking that my organization is doing something wrong every time someone chooses to leave it. But I’ve learned to move on from letting it drag me down because morale (or lack thereof) is contagious. To quote one of my business partners, “companies are living, breathing organisms, and its employees are the air they breathe.” Business leaders need to remember that each and every time they hire, fire or deal with a departing employee.
This article was originally posted at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236657
By Alex Yohn
Jun 11, 2014
Remember the last time you started a new job? I do. I felt transported back to the middle-school dance where I got dropped off by my mom. I can’t dance. And nobody asked me to, either. There I was at my new job, left to fend for myself. Left to figure out who to contact for network access. Left to figure out what the heck my phone number was. Oh, never mind. The phone’s not connected anyways.
The onboarding experience at companies shouldn’t be anything like a school dance for an awkward 12 year-old boy. So why do so many companies treat their employee’s first day like it’s the first time they’ve even considered getting their new hire plugged in, informed and productive?
A quick glance at some stats clearly demonstrates that first impressions do indeed help determine whether a new hire is still going to be around in a year. Companies spend thousands of dollars recruiting and interviewing, then barely pay lip service to making sure it’s a smooth transition for new hires. So what’s the hold up?
Consider that companies usually hire for one of two reasons. The first is that they’re really busy and need more butts in seats. That means the onboarding process is rushed and inadequate. New hires are thrown onto overdue projects and that’s how they’re introduced to their new gig. The second reason is that companies have the revolving door syndrome: high turnover. That often gets them caught in the surf of non-stop recruiting, without taking the time to diagnose the real problems: poor onboarding, workplace conditions or bad management. Regardless, the experience for the new hire can be compared to that of the gangly 12 year-old at the school dance: walking home early and confused.
In most cases, though, an onboarding experience can be dramatically improved by following a few, well-proven guidelines for good onboarding.
Day 1? Get it in the bag.
Get all paper work completed, payroll set up and computers/phone/network configured before the employee sets foot in the door on day one. What better way to welcome a newcomer than by proclaiming “you’re getting paid on time, and here’s your new home, right here.” How the heck does one manage that?
There are plenty of hr technology tools out there to help you get documents signed online, do training and learn the faces and roles at the company. Best of all, it can all be done remotely and online.
Set expectations early, and document them.
In the book Cider House Rules, Dr. Larch (the caretaker of the orphanage where the story takes place) proclaims routine and security as the best things for the orphans in his institution. The same goes for new hires. Helping them establish a sense of routine, and giving them a calendar and listing of all upcoming milestones, expectations and responsibilities is key to ensuring they get dialed into their new workplace. Keep in mind that most new hires are likely coming from a less than adequate job. Acknowledging that fact, and helping them heal and acclimate is a wonderful thing to do.
This one is simple: Check in regularly.
Leaving a new hire to fend for themselves is an isolating experience. Scheduling regular check-ins with both the hiring manager and operations person at increasingly larger intervals over the course of the first six months is a fantastic way to ensure that the company gets feedback on what they’re doing right, and obviously, it ensures the new hire gets regular, one on one opportunities to get answers.
Wanna dance?
A good onboarding process isn’t rocket science. It’s a bit of extra work to get the routine in place, sure, but once in motion it conveys organization, pride in the culture and accountability to new hires. Keep in mind, employees spend a majority of their waking day building your company’s widgets. It’s incredibly valuable for companies to consider that compensation is much more than just cash and equity. The most talented, skilled, creative workers can get paid well anywhere. So, what’s going to distinguish your place of employment from that of the competition? Hopefully not leaving them standing in the corner waiting to be asked to join the party.
By Alex Yohn
May 19, 2014
We released a few improvements to Kin’s sense of time, and your sense of efficiency. They’re small, but significant changes which correct calendar problems for some folks, improve time-off requests for others, and expand the utility of the company calendar in Kin.
Timezones
Prior to this release, Kin was automatically assigning a timezone to users. For the most part, it worked well. For a few folks, however, it didn’t work well at all.
Now, Kin is automatically assigning a timezone, but users can manually set the value as well under their own profile. So, if you notice anything funky about where Kin thinks you are, or you’re traveling and wish to view your calendar and time-off requests in your local timezone, update your timezone under your profile page.
Set timezones on a per-user basis.
Oh, and just in case you didn’t know: Programmers hate working with timezones. Here’s proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY.
Create Your Own Calendar Events
Kin now offers the ability to create custom calendar events. Prior to this release, all calendar events were created automatically, for birthdays, start days, anniversaries and of course employee time-off.
You can now create calendar events for company outings, performance reviews, or any other work-related event which one or more coworkers need to have on their calendar. Just like all calendar events, these ones will also sync up with your Google or Outlook calendars.
Add your own events to the company calendar.
View time off in days or hours
At last, employees can now view their time off in day-increments, rather than hour-increments. This is a setting HR Managers need to set on a per-policy basis under Company > Time-off Policies. Once set to days, employees will see their balances and time-off requests displayed in days.
View time off in days or hours.
By Alex Yohn
May 6, 2014
We just released an ode to moms everywhere — it’s called Mom’s Annual Performance Review. Go ahead and give all the moms in your life a little bit extra this year for Mother’s Day.
The backstory
I met a professional soul-mate named Jen Dary recently out in Portland. Jen runs a company called Plucky, which helps companies like ours be better places to work. Where Kin handles HR administration via software, Plucky helps companies with their more human-level employer/employee interactions. She’s really good at her job. Like freakishly good. She’s also a new mom.
Since I work at Kin and I’m a father of three, we had plenty to talk about when we met. Where our talk led to was a problem that’s been gnawing at Jen’s inner-plucky for quite some time (which she expounds upon wonderfully over on her blog). In a nutshell, why do companies have all these great tools to build community, provide feedback, and improve dialog, yet families like yours, mine, and hers have nothing but ill-interpreted text messages?
The Department of Family Appreciation is born
So we decided to do something about it. And right in time for Mother’s Day. We gathered a crew from Mammoth, Kuu, Plucky, and Kin, and started cranking. We’re calling the initiative the Department of Family Appreciation, and the first tool we’re releasing is Mom’s Annual Performance review.
The official logo of the Department of Family Appreciation.
Moms finally get a performance review
Moms are everywhere. They’re your mother, your spouse, your sister, your coworker. They’ll all get breakfast in bed this Sunday, hopefully. And maybe a mani/pedi. But, this year, you’re going to give them something extra: a personalized review that gives you, your siblings, and your kids a few minutes to think about and write all the great things Mom has done for you and the family. Your reflections get bundled up into a nice little presentation for mom and emailed to her. The result? She’ll go “This is great. Now, go do the laundry, it’s Mother’s Day!”
Send some good vibes to mom this year before Mother’s Day.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Happy (very soon) Mother’s Day to all you moms out there. You deserve a lot more than one day a year to rest. We can’t fix that, but we can at least help deliver you some good vibes!
Credits:
Kuu Hubbard did the design, Jennifer Sisson and Sarah Holden did all front-end programming, Grant Black and Waylon Martinez did the back-end magic, Ameer Mansur and Paul Kizior wrangled the servers, Scott Ladue managed the project, and Whitney Biltz got the word out. Oh, and nothing would’ve happened if it wasn’t for Jen’s brilliant empathy for moms everywhere!
By Alex Yohn
Apr 15, 2014
We released a couple of really cool features to help get the power of Kin into a place we all visit dozens of times a day: our email inbox.
Approve time-off requests via email
Virtually every other time-off tracking tool out there (including Kin until recently), forces users to sign in to a website to approve time-off requests. We decided that’s poor form.
Now, when employees request time off, managers receive an email that contains a time-off balance, who else is out during that time, and the ability to approve or decline the request right there in the email. No more signing in. No more wasted time.
Approve time-off and leave requests directly via email in Kin.
Week-in-advance email for HR Managers
A brand new feature we released is a well-organized summary email that HR managers receive Thursday evening detailing the upcoming week. The email has reminders about tasks, important dates (anniversaries, birthdays, etc.), who’s out of the office, and if there are new hires starting — an overview of what’s left in terms of paperwork and onboarding tasks.
Kin sends a week-in-advance email to HR Managers every Thursday evening.
Opt-out of sending email notifications
Lot’s of HR managers have requested that Kin send fewer email notifications when they create and update employee records. Now, right below every save and submit button in Kin, there’s a little checkbox to opt-out of sending those email notifications. It’s selected by default, so emails will be sent unless HR managers unselect it.
HR Managers can opt out of email notifications to employees.
By Alex Yohn
Apr 10, 2014
A few days ago, a security vulnerability called “Heartbleed” reared its ugly head in the internet world. It’s a bug that websites, web hosts, and software developers around the world quickly remediated, including us here at Kin. If you’d like to read more about Heartbleed, here’s a great overview, and here’s a site to see whether the sites you use for email, shopping, or work are still vulnerable.
This is important: Change your password in Kin
We’ve done everything on our side to protect our customer data, but there is one step we are urging all Kin users take to close the case for good: Reset your Kin passwords. When you’re signed into Kin, click “You”, and right there on your profile page you’ll be able to select a new, strong password.
Thanks, oh and one more thing.
Thanks for helping keep your data safe. And, if you’re wondering if you should be resetting passwords to all those other sites you use at work and in your private life, the answer is yes, better safe than sorry.