The talent market is fiercely competitive, and startups need a thoughtful process to attract and retain quality, diverse talent. Whether you’re hiring employee #2 or employee #50, Dionnica Gaston, director of talent at Rev1 Ventures, will help you build a foundation for finding and retaining key talent.
In this workshop, you will walk away with critical parts of your hiring process completed. You’ll also learn best practices for engaging and retaining your best talent.
Speaker: Dionnica Gaston, Director of Talent Dionnica works directly with venture advisors and portfolio companies to help meet its talent needs. Dionnica brings professional experience in all aspects of staffing, recruiting, and onboarding talent. Before joining Rev1, Dionnica held various recruiting and talent acquisition positions at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, AAA Ohio Auto Club, and The Right Thing, Inc., an ADP company. She earned a B.A. degree in Communications from the University of Toledo, Toledo, OH.
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Video Translations: Hiring Employee
Thank you so much! l’m really excited to be here. l would love for this to be a conversation, so if you have a question along the way definitely feel free to ask. We’re gonna talk about it’s time to hire your second person, what you’re gonna do from here. I’m gonna share my screen here… I’m gonna talk about today is Attracting & Retaining Top Talent as we go through this — I’m gonna show today’s agenda would be Engaging and Retaining Top Talent, we’re gonna talk about Onboarding and Retention. So again, as we go through this presentation, if you have a question, definitely feel free to ask at any point, I know someone would be monitoring the chat, so we’ll be able to hopefully address those question from time but eventually, we will.
Engaging and Retaining Top Talent
First of all, if you’re looking to hire your second person, first of all, congratulations! At the small business owner or start-up, that is to something really awesome place to be in your business is that you’re starting to add more to your team— you’re able to hire! You have the revenue! That is perfect and great.
l just wanna say congratulations on that part. That is something definitely to celebrate. But as you’re preparing for your second hire and you’re saying; “Ok, l have this person. l need to hire someone else.” You know, l always advise our startup to start with doing a squat analysis and looking at your strengths, your opportunities, your weaknesses, the threats that might be threatening you.
So, looking at all of that and making you sure that your second hire is the right hire. So you wanna make sure you pay attention to that and just that you thought through this process you know accurately and that you come up with l know l need to hire my second person and this is what my second person to do– these are the responsibilities. l need them to be able to take this step of work or this task off my plate. So that l can (as a business owner or someone that’s running a business) that you can focus on the things that matter most. That is extremely important that we advise all of our startups. Definitely look at that. Your strengths and weaknesses. Your opportunities and your threats.
Crafting Role Descriptions
And then, as you pluck at to those things and you determine and I’m sure if you hired one person and you’re onto your second hire, you’ve done all this. You’re familiar with this maybe. It wasn’t as systematic as what’s hope you’ll be able to create it today or at this opportunity to hire. But you’re playing your thought processes around the “swat”. You’re now, you determined; “Ok, l know what l wanna hire for. l know the rules and responsibilities”. And so you’re crafting your role description.
Start with your why
We always advice our startup to start with your “why” because the company might be new you’re still working on branding you’re still working on having the world know who you are and what you do. You wanna start with your why— you want those individuals that are interested in your position interested in working with your company, understand why you created this business? What you’re business? What you’re doing? Why you’re doing it? What you’re looking for?
Mission and Purpose
You want your mission in your purpose tree first. When you tell your why… it’s compelling. You’re gonna drop people in and they’re gonna want to work for you because they too see the vision, and that’s the biggest piece there. That you’re attracting talent that seeks and that buys into your vision and that they also can share in your purpose and your values. I’m trying not to go too fast so definitely tell me if l need to slow down if you need to.
Where to Look First
So, we’re gonna look first that you created your role description. You understand exactly what you’re looking for? So where do you go?
Personal Networks
l always say and we always advise you to start with your personal networks. You wanna talk to individuals that are in your networks that no talent that may no individuals that possess the skills set and the strengths in and dominate experiences that you’re looking for.
Your team, trusted advisors, board, friends
So, that’s always the best place to start, test trust advisors, or team, friends. And you wanna pay attention to that, and you wanna be able to share out that word of description with those individuals. They can then word of mouth is still probably the best form of marketing for you. So, you wanna be able to share out your role description of what you’re looking for to those individuals.
I will say from a diversity standpoint, at this point, you’re wanting to tend to add to your team. You want your team to be diverse, and you want to be able to not just diverse and equated it, wasting its necessity, but you wanna be diverse as far as experience and skills, and backgrounds, you want individuals that can come in and add a different thought process or a different way of thinking of things.
So you want to be able to look at diversity from a whole angle and be able to say l wanna add my second person to my team and l want them to have this background and experience, but you wanna keep diversity at top of your list because it is extremely important.
When it comes to the bottom line, it makes a difference when you have a diverse team, and it especially at your, you’re starting to brand your company you want a diverse team to kind of, you want people to see that you and your consumers and individuals that are gonna be using your products and services to see that you’re not just, not everybody looks like you, thinks as you, talk like you, but diversity matters and that’s extremely important there.
Interviewing
Interview Process
Let’s say you got your job description out you got your network that’s bringing in people and they’re referring people to you and now you’re the queen of interviewing you wanna start screening these individuals and making sure that “do you possess the skills that l need? Do you buy into the vision?”
Interview Committee
So, when you’re thinking of interviewing you wanna put together an interview committee.
Question for culture fit
You wanna make sure that you have questions that are based around your culture and the culture that you’re trying to build you might not have a specific culture now— but you know what you want your culture to look like. You want your environment to feel like you want your team to possess.
Question for skill fit
You’re starting to look at that now, so you’re formulating those questions, and you’re formulating questions for the skill fit.
You wanna have a standardized interviewing questionnaire that has the same question. So that you’re asking the same questions to each individual as you’re assessing talent right now. When you get back you can really assess and evaluate (and we’ll talk about evaluating here in a minute), but you really wanna able to go back and reference the notes that you’ve taken from each interview. So that you can compare candidates to candidates– that’s extremely important! You wanna stay consistent in your questions. You wanna stay consistent in the process of hiring and interviewing– that’s extremely important! As you’ve interviewed ten people and are you gonna remember the first person, you interviewed versus the fifth or the tenth so that’s when the documentations come into play. It’s the best way to evaluate the candidates you interviewed
Interview Team
So again, your interview team— you’re starting to formulate that interview team and you want an individual that you can trust. You respect their opinion, and they have experience in interviewing and assessing talent.
So you want this team. Hopefully a diverse team, diverse in opinion, diverse in background, in experiences, and skills. So you– being the business leader, should be a part of the interview.
You’re the co-founder of anyone, if you have a co-founder, anybody, that’s already in your team that you work with on a regular basis— that knows and live and breath what you need, and what the skills that needed to possess in the next candidate— and then, anybody on your advisory board or board members, I think if your pulling form those different places– that should be able to really form a great diverse team of individuals that can interview and assess talent.
Evaluating
Evaluation Criteria
Since you’ve gone through this process and now you’re at the point, let’s say you’ve interviewed ten people, ten individuals, we’ll know your team is coming together and debriefing. Through this debrief is when you start looking at the evaluation criteria.
You go back over your notes and everybody goes over their notes, and sometimes l don’t know what we do here– I read when we have a role break. That role break, we are reading those candidates, the best out of four. How do they rate under each category? That way you can kind of add up the ratings and decide; “ok who rate at the hierarchs”, and that’s always the good way to do that as well. That’s a ranking process, but if you’re early and you haven’t developed that team chat, you know going back over those notes, going over the thoughts that from the rest of the team, and really understanding who they feel is the best fit and even after that evaluation that debriefs you wanna bring in some individuals.
Some same candidates back for a second interview may be dig in a little deeper and ask those permanent question. So, the interviewing phase is really important because you know you might spend thirty minutes or an hour with the candidate and do you really fully know them. Sometimes it does take you additional conversation, sometimes it takes working interview to really assess the talent and understand; “do they really possess the right skill, the right thought?” The process around, what you’re looking for in your next candidate? This is a very crucial part of the hiring process as well because it’s not vague. So anybody that you’re gonna adds to your team is gonna has a major impact, and you wanna make sure it’s a positive impact
Onboarding
So we’ve gone through that whole interviewing process, we cultivate the role description, we’ve gone through all of that and you’ve interviewed so now where at you’re deciding who you wanna hire, you extended that offer and that’s great the person said yes they wanna join your team that is amazing. So we’re gonna talk about more about onboarding. Onboarding is just as important every other steps that we talked about prior to, so it’s just as important as understanding your swat, it’s just as important as understanding your what skills that you’re looking for, understanding where you’re advertising your position and interviewing process because you’ve gone all through of that the onboarding piece is what’s gonna help retain the candidate, and you know if onboarding isn’t thought out thoroughly then everything you did prior to is really gonna be no employed right, if the importing isn’t as thoughtful and as you’re taking time with it then the person the new hire is not gonna stay on log, I’ve seen this happen so many times where onboarding is just kinda thrown together, there’s not much of a plan and the new hire is scattering they don’t know what’s happening, it’s chaotic and they don’t stay, and l would say the one thing to keep in mind, when candidates are interviewing they’re not just interviewing for one position they’re interviewing for many, so when you have a tight onboarding l’m experienced on onboarding plan, even if there’re still getting calls from companies that maybe they applied to two months ago, they’re so invested in your company and they’ve already bought in to your mission and what the company stands for, then they’re not gonna entertain anybody else so, l mean there’s time that it does happens l’ve seen that happen but if really stick to your good onboarding plan the risk is less. Hopefully i’m driving that onboarding plan home coz it’s so important.
Why it Matters
So let’s talk about why it matters and this here speaks a little more to the onboarding itself and the thought process around it so, “There’s dark alley knife fight for the best talent in the tech industry not just tech by any industry honestly, but everyone is so focused on getting the best people in the door. It’s easy it eats up all the bandwidth but as soon as they win the battle and get someone to sign in hey drop the ball” the drop the ball part is on the onboarding and so this quote here is by Carly Guthrie. And so replacing talent as high as two times annual salary. And it’s not just about dollars. And l pause here to say when you’re a small team and you’re starting up on a very small business, hiring can be extremely expensive and not just in monetary expenses but in time as well, and so it’s not just about the dollars it’s a culture and job satisfaction is hugely impacted, as well as morale, productivity, lost insider, knowledge. And it’s painful to lose people. So as you’re starting in higher you’re bringing in this new persay and let’s say that you’ve been best in time in to onboarding them time is to hiring them and if the onboarding process is not tight and thoughtful you can lose them and that’s time that you’ve lost money and now you gonna have to really start over and so that quote is from Ben Petterson which l think is really something to think about and keep in mind.
What New Hires Want
So we talk a little about it here as you created the onboarding process try to think about where new hires are coming from their thought process around this right so again you have a small team possibly mentoring you’re probably the one’s mentoring, or your first hire
because they probably understand what it feels like to go through this onboarding process or go through the hiring process they would be great mentors, they’re gonna be working closely together anyways so it’s kinda goes hand in hand but you really want to connect this person with someone that they can ask questions to that’s a great reference for them and that they can get acclimated in to the organization and in to the company good alignment between perception and reality you want them to be able really kinda of help they pick what it’s like to work here or work at your company on a daily basis, what are in the ups and downs and highs and lows, these are great things to talk about and to really help this person to understand what it’s like to work for you, what to really expect as the days come.
What Companies Can Do
And so what you can do to make sure that this is a successful onboarding experience and that the new hire is happily acclimated, again l keep saying make sure that your onboarding process is thoughtful and well planned out that means that you have to put time into this prior to the person starting you know you’re already jotting down as you’re going to the hiring process you’re jotting down, what you need this person to learn what you need them to be up to speed on, and how you want them to do that. And so you’re looking at 30 at 60 at 90 day plan and what do you want them to know first day, what do you want them to know second week, and then as the time progresses and just putting some thought maybe jotting that down early on in the process, but then putting together something very exemptive when it comes to, ok this is what it looks like this day, they’re gonna spend time with this person, they’re gonna meet that person, whoever is an intricate part of your team is really important for them to get to know and build those relationships. And take your time with it to make sure that you’re talking to that new hire and that they fully understand what’s being thrown at them at that time.
Framing Your Process
Again framing your process like l stated before you wanna start this process before the new hire starts you wanna be able to ask these peak questions how long will the onboarding last? Honestly new hires don’t get really acclimated into their position for about a year, now that doesn’t mean they’re not gonna be to add a value for up to a year, but it just means for them to really feel comfortable and to understand what their positioning is in your company and their role it takes a good year. So thinking about it from it a startup stand point probably will go a little bit faster because startup time is much faster than corporate time frame, but you really want him to make sure that it’s not too fast, and that you’re keeping checks on them, again are they retaining the information, and how fast can you help them to make a value add l thinks also this is a good point to you wanna remind new hires as they’re going through the onboarding process you want to help them understand why you hire them, what strengths do they possess, what experiences do they possess that made you wanna hire them out of all the other that you talked to and considered. That’s going to give real variant from that new hire say they need me for this reason because l possess this, and that’s super exciting to know how l can be an impact to you, you company and in to your team, and that you need me, my team needs me to be there on a daily basis and can be able to add my talent to what’s already presented in the company. So can you wanna make sure that you think through this clearly and that you’re able to communicate this to the new hire, at this list of stage what impression do you want new employees to walk away with, the first day what is that impression, the second week the impression, the 30 days and 60 days on to, what role will your team play on the operating process?, again it might not be a big team so everyone’s gonna play a role, everybody is going to need to help onboard this individual and bring this up to speed. What goals do you want to set for the new employees? and what will you gather feedback at measure success?, how will you measure success? And that’s really important for that new hire to understand what does success look like in this position in this company.
Day One
Again l go a little bit deeper in to day one, when you have a new hire, let’s think about what day one might look like today during the pandemic as we’re coming out of this hopefully but a lot of team are still remote, therefore your new hire is gonna be remote too and so what is that look like, what is that feels like, how can you engage your new hire from a remote environment and remote relationship, so you wanna keep that in mind as well. So make sure you’re not over scheduling, make sure they’re paddling and be with you most of the day are from a virtual standpoint, but that really gives them information slowly help them to be able to retain it give them time to read through information if you have a handbook or if you have materials you want this person to read, make sure that you’re pasting it through that. And those onboarding documents can be really digested and then asking questions did you understand that, what can l add, or what content or context can l add to it to help you understand too.
Unfortunately maybe sometime and hopefully here soon we can do an office tour, and you know towards the building l know as rev one is starting to discuss to how kinda go back to re entry to the office and work we’re talking about this all of the time and it’s very thought provoking you wanna make sure that you have that same mindset as well. And making sure that the new hire feels valued and that they feel welcomed as well.
Week One
And then one weekend you know you’re reviewing the 90 day plan you’re helping that new hire to kinda see into the future is to what you want, what impact you want them to be able to add to team and ask the new hires, information more asking them questions so that you gain information and understand what else they need to be able to better do their job and just feedback timely feedback makes your culture stronger and more effective at attracting talent and retaining talent as well.
90 Day Plan
And then we go on to the 90 day plan so l really am focusing on the onboarding piece coz it is really important and l hope that you’re, that you guys are getting this and that you understand how important an onboarding plan can be and just thinking it out through the like l said the 30 to 60 and the 90 days, what do you want this person to be in 90 days, what impact should they be having at this point and how are you gonna get them there. Super super important, l can’t try that home anymore than l think l already have, definitely the matrix for success, how are they will be evaluated? those are the things that are super super important to discuss and make sure that your new hire understands this.
Retention
Alright so we’ve talked about onboarding and hopefully l give an understanding how important that is, but it’s important because it goes in to a play really huge with the retention aspect of where you are now so now you have two in place or you’re starting to build the team. So not only you’re focusing on retention for just this new hire, you’re focusing on retention for your team as a whole, making sure that you’re providing everything that’s needed and that everybody is getting attention that they need, that challenges are getting addressed, questions are getting addressed, challenges are being resolved, and that you’re really making the whole team feel like they are intricate part in to what’s needed to your business to make it successful. So let’s talk about retention.
Feedback is Key to Retention
So l talked about a lot about feedback during retention and so if you put this new generation in the backs of performance management we’ve used the last 30 years, you’ll lose them. The traditional way of retaining talent is not always the best way to approach it, so make sure you do your homework on what retention looks like and how to retain, and the best way to do that is to talk to and communicate with your team but people now on an ongoing basis,”am l doing it right?”, “am l moving in the right direction?”, “do you think l’m progressing?” nobody’s gonna wait for annual review cycle to get that feedback, and that’s so very true you don’t wanna wait until you’re 30 or 60 day or maybe a year to review for someone if they’re doing things the right way, or if they’re in the right track. This should be continual conversations on a weekly basis on how well are they’re doing? and how well are their performances?, are they doing a great job?, or what area do they need more attentions in? or how do they change their mindset or thought process to the certain aspect of business? This is so important to be able to communicate on a weekly basis.
Giving Constructive Feedback
So let’s talk more about that, again giving constructive feedback. So as you’re talking to your new hire and your team as you’re talking to them on a weekly basis and you’re going over you’re reflecting on the previous week,so you’re reflecting on the previous day if there’s something that needs to be addressed, this should be done on a continuous basis. So what feedback is? And so you’ll see here from this list, it’s neutral, it comes from a place of authenticity and trust, it supports the recipient’s development and growth, and it should be actionable. So any feedback that you’re giving should definitely be actionable especially if they need to work on a certain aspect of the work that they’re doing on a regular basis, maybe they’re not doing it at exactly what you need them to. So being able to give them constructive criticism that has actionable items, so if it’s going back and rereading some information or adding some information that needs to be studied, let them know exactly what that is, and what they should come away with. So it’s that authenticity and that transits that communication, and building the relationship is really really important especially when you’re giving feedback and constructive criticism. What feedback is not? It’s not judgement, it’s not manipulation, it’s not sabotaging the recipient’s success, and it should not be vague. Again great communication on what should be done, or should not be done being directed and saying”Ok you cannot do this, but this looks good. So as you’re giving constructive criticism, or could be seen as negative criticism, you want to also couple that with good things that they’re doing, and great things they’re impacting, the business and the team. So you wanna couple it with good and bad, if there is any bad or if there is good you wanna make sure that you’re reminding them something good of the things they are doing well as you cut a hole in those area that just needs to have continuous work so again those should be weekly conversations if not daily but definitely weekly.
Making Feedback Actionable
I mentioned actionable feedback and that’s just giving them something to do to help them improve in areas that might be a little bit more challenging. I more coupling them with that mentor or with that other person. Maybe there’s just a different way to think about it. Sometimes I know for me you know, I could hear something a thousand times, but is that one time where I’ve heard it? And now it makes so much sense and I think we’ve all probably have been there so it sometimes it takes a different person to say something in a different way for it a really kind of makes sense intent impact on that person that changes behavior so think about that as well so employee performance can be radically improved by getting the right feedback, the right way and in goal. The goal is to provide every employee, including CEO the founders, and an executive with actual timely feedback remember that is what employees want and it’s truly is what people want they want to make sure they totally understand what needs to be done and if there’s anything that need to change they want to know what that is. So that they can do a good job. Everybody wants to come in doing a great job, everybody want to know that, you know to feel like yes they made the best hirer by choosing me and I want to prove it to them we’re all looking for that like I want to prove myself and so when you are reminded those new hires in your team as a whole as to the great job that they’re doing the impacted, they’re providing the value-add, they are to the team. That takes your team, your company so much further and in a big way and a lot faster as well.
Feedback: A 2-Way Street
It is a two-way street, you know suggested, you’re providing feedback and constructive criticism you should also ask, what else can I be doing to help you? You know what else is needed for me to help you? In two-way street communication, you’re giving communication, you’re asking questions and providing, and they’re providing feedback in their answering those questions to you. So definitely make sure that you’re communicating in a way that’s welcoming to be able to say you know “Hey, I was thinking of it in this way or I thought that maybe, you know, I seen it this is the process to do something this way but in my previous experience, we were able to do it a lot faster and more efficient in this way,” you know so being able to ask, what experiences do you have that might be a better way of doing this process or process improvements experiences so that where the diversity comes into play when you have people that have done things, so much different and have a different experiences from other places that can bring value and to know your organization and your company so keep that in mind as you are in a providing a feedback in and you’re asking for feedback as well. So if you were me, what changes would you make right now? What’s the one thing holding us back from greatness and why? What’s it enjoyable and not enjoyable working here? I think that’s a great, great question to ask. It’s a little scary especially if you’re the CEO of the business leader of this company, you kind of cringe a little bit because you’re afraid of what might be said, but just think it’s a growth potential as they do give you that constructive criticism. You know well, this could have been different or maybe if I had a handbook that can have explained you know, that way that your organization operates that might have been helpful that is so que and crucial. As a startup business you might not have a handbook yet but that’s the time to created especially as you’re hiring an boarding new hire. This is the time to document those processes that’s going to help your next new hirer have a better experience, but what specifically can I do to help improve culture? Here are my top three priorities for next year —- what are yours?. Those are great points to kind of hit on as you’re communicating with your team and being able to have that feedback and then growing from it as well.
Formal Feedback
And we talked a lot about this already but the formal feedback you want to think about it. The cadence, you know how you are communicating? how are you saying this? How are you saying communicating? you know feedback and constructive criticism or you know the way that you need to change behavior as how are you communicating that? And is it in a productive way? Positive way? How is that person or your team receiving it? That is so important. How are they receiving it? Cause you might think you’re delivering it in a positive way but it might not be received positively so want to know that say you need to change how you’re explaining it then that’s the change that needs to happen so you want to think about that as well. 360 feedback that’s just all year. communicating on a daily, weekly, monthly basis is que and crucial and then employee metrics should be tied to company strategic plan and business metrics so yeah how I well doing it how do I know that I’m doing well is it just to communication or it is the metrics that we set the expectation that has been set and im know then needing this expectation because said it here and it’s something that I can review and determined on a regular basis and it;s something that we talked about on a regular basis that’s so that also very important.
Culture of Feedback
Having a culture of feedback is creating a culture of feedback, is one important part of retaining talent and so is employee recognition at the end of the day everyone want to be seen respected and heard so building that culture you as you’re building culture and environment that is productive and positive you the feedback here in this is a true statement at the end of the day everyone wants to be seen respected and heard and so make sure that you’re creating a culture where everybody can be seen respected and heard, no matter what position are in, no matter of their executive level or very entry-level, everybody want to feel important and so that is again, that is something to keep at top of my as you are working on a team.
Acknowledging Your Team
And Acknowledging Your Team, That’s where everybody want to be heard and knowing that they’re making a value, you know bringing value to your team and acknowledging them and everything about it this way to everybody you know just does not want to be acknowledged in the same way you have different personalities and so employee recognition can look different for somewhere you know you some people want to be acknowledged publicly but some people just would prefer it you know maybe quietly or in your 101 and say you did a great job to keep that in mind too you know what the best way to acknowledge your teammates in a way that they do feel appreciated. So leverage knowledge for each employee to make it personal so getting to know them on a personal basis and building that relationship some employees love to be called out publicly other would be mortified to keep that in mind to you as you doing that and there’s no one fits all approach to how you acknowledge your team but you’ll learn that as you go along as you start to build those relationship.
Be Creative
Be creative you know, and I think this is really easy and a startup environment where you can be creative and can do things a little bit different but very few you people in this is so important to keep in mind very few people leave a company based on money. They really usually leave a company based on management. How are they being managed? Do they feel important, they feel like they’re adding value and have you made them that way? How do you make them feel when they leave at the end of the day? Do they feel like fulfilled that they did the best work they could do and it was acknowledged and appreciated? Startups have flexibility so what can you offer? you can offer flexibility to work from home company industry, mentors, professional development extra day off after a sprint so this is these are the different ways that you can be creative and showing appreciation to your team you do after a sprint you like hey we worked really hard this week but we were able to meet are metrics we were able to meet this milestone and i’m going to give you guys a half day tomorrow or I’m going to give you guys, you know lunch on us tomorrow or whatever that might be you can be creative because most of the time well with most of you, your team are small your company is small and you can add creativity to how you show appreciation to your team. So that’s always a good point about small companies and startups.
Now What?
So I, you know, I went through that a little quick here. I do want to be able to provide time for be back in for questions. I’m not sure if there was any question in and the chats at all but you know, hopefully with what I what I’ve explained and how things are going, you know how where you are in your hiring process that you’re able to take what’s in taught here or what I’ve discussed your and add that into your hiring process and being able to really maybe change your tweaks some things that you’ve already put in place to. So if there’s any question, I don’t know as far as timing I’m over time, if I’m low on time but are there any questions in the chat that we can answer at this time.
Matt: I don’t see anything in the chat just yet other than a couple appreciation but one question that I have you know you explain that in a rev one for instants isn’t really like full-time in the office yet and you know a lot of us small businesses that we work it with a cultivate, you know first date they don’t have a lot of employees so they are kind of working in their offices or whatever their shops whatever what is look like but you know how do you see this working for companies right now that are larger than our may be competing for these employees are our most of those folks really doing all this interviewing and onboarding and just with people completely virtual we are they bringing them in for still in person interviews you know how do you see that kind of changing some businesses go to sort of a hybrid you know scenario just curious how that works these days?
Dionnica: Yeah! I think of for right now I know that we’re changing people being vaccinated and being more comfortable being in public, I think you know as you the hiring process I think of from interviewing should be remote just to be considerate of that person on the interviewing you don’t know their stands on vaccinations or you don’t know you know how they feel about being around or in a public environment are being in close proximity to you two individuals to you want to start up I would say just interviewing remotely from a virtual standpoint would be the best option right now in the safest for you and for that person that you’re talking to you and that you’re considering for the role so I would say starting off with virtual interview and as you know start to dwindle down on you know your top candidates and you’re starting to do you know decide on who you want to hire you know at that point you start to have those conversations is it okay? How do you feel? You know this is what we’re doing on a normal practice we were working on a remote certain days or in the office two days out of week I think a hybrid approach because now most people that have become accustomed to working virtually and I think you ease back into if you’re going to you know work again in a brick-and-mortar or in an office you want to come at ease back into that and just want to be mindful of what’s most productive for that person or for your teams you know is it’s working a couple days in the office and then the rest from a virtual standpoint or a remotes standpoint it really I feel like you really have to do what’s best for your team you know if you do have an office space, how well can you be spread apart? Can you still practice social distancing? So there’s so much though has to be to put it into it before deciding what the best approaches but you also want to make sure from a team perspective what is everyone comfortable with and making sure that you’re taking that into consideration as well so I know for rev one we’re very client-facing and so the sooner we can get back into you know being one-on-one with our startup and in working with them in a safe environment where really, really hopeful to be able to do that sooner than later and so but we’re taking steps to get there and we’re making sure that everybody is just as cautious and thoughtful about you know being safe in this environment.
Matt: Maybe just a follow-up to that, you know when you talk about onboarding and you notice the importance of really you know working with new employees to get them you know connected into that company and all this feedback about things. How are our companies just trying to do this through zoom and chat and email if it is seems like I plays might feel like they’re kind of left that come out on their own in certain ways it if they’re just doing everything virtually in our people kind of trying to overcome that the people feel like a deeper connection to the team
Dionnica: Now, I totally get it, let me tell you so I started with rev one a year ago. I was in the office for a week, 4 days actually before they demanded to work from home so I totally understand what it feels like to be on board it from a remote virtual sandpoint right? so the way that it and it was such a quick change and it was so unexpected that this is what we’re going to have to do so you know at the but what made my onboarding I feel successful is that everyone was first of all very pathetic oh my gosh I’m so sorry you have to be onboarded in this way but they so there for me they were answering question everybody was very engaging and very polite and kind and so that for me went a long ways just because we were in such a huge change in our environment and it was such a quick change but think that when it’s intentionally thought out that hey I need, I need specific individuals who engage with this person in answering their question and have some aspect of responsibilities when it comes to onboarding, maybe it’s onboarding you know I’m an understanding our history so you have one person goes through this is the history of the company and this is why we were create you know this is why we decided we needed to create this business and this is where we’re looking to go in the future and then you have another team ever that comes in and starts to talk some of the day-to-day activities but it really takes the whole team to be engaged to that person and to make them feel welcome and I think it’s reminding that new hire as to why we decided to hire you? what we need from you? It was this skill, or this talent or this experience that is gonna make our team well-rounded and told, making sure that they know the value add that they’re bringing to the team that’s gonna go a long way as well. The other thing that I know for you know some small business but it might not be I deal with this point but for rev one we periodically get snack boxes right? So is this box that come with all of these different assortment thought of goodies were it might be cookies or brownies and a lot of it is healthy stuff but the whole point is that one way that they’re saying hey, I’m thinking of you here’s a snack as you’re sitting at your desk in your pounding away at work here here’s a snack you know what I mean and it’s so appreciated and you see the moment we get our snack boxes we are all on slack taking pictures of boxes what we like and what we didn’t like but just another way we can even though we’re not together and one environment we’re still having the same experience as in where still sharing you know like minded things that we we’re doing together so that was that’s another way to kind of help bring everybody together and share in the same experiences.