#transparency and honesty are core values. Before any work begins | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wolfmatrix · 4 years ago

Text

Top 10 Staff Augmentation Companies ( 2020 )

Staff enhancement is quickly trending at the IT job market, bringing more organizations and companies to hire skilled people liberally on a contract basis across the world. So we have listed down some of those well-known staff augmentation companies across the world through comprehensive research.

In this article, we've compiled this list of the top 10 staff augmentation and dedicated teams companies for you to find the best partner.

Science Soft

Launched in 1989 as a AI product company, Science soft is an established consulting and applications development support. With 17+ years of experience in IT Consulting, IT Support Services, and IT Outsourcing, it's spread over different countries across Europe and North America and now employs 700+ employees.

In the previous two years alone, Science soft has more than five awards and certificates. In 2019, PECB given them the ISO 13485:2016 certificate. In 2020, it got featured in IAOP Global Outsourcing 100 Award Listed 2020 and acquired Gold Microsoft Competency in Application Integration.

Clients: IBM, eBay, Baxter, Rakuten Viber, Walmart

Employees: 750+

Headquarter: McKinney, TX, US

Founded: 1989

Wolfmatrix

Wolfmatrix is a software development firm established in Nepal to make every business better by understanding its own requirement and supplying a custom system or technical alternative and partnership.

Wolfmatrix was set in 2014 by 2 young tech fans using the motto'Idea to Implementation.' Our leaders have years of experience in software development and have excellent management skills.

Wolfmatrix is guided by the worthiness to provide superior service within the budget and estimated period, irrespective of the complexity of the job's requirement. Wolfmatrix development team concentrates on satisfying your business need to assist you succeed.

Noris

Choosing the right IT service provider is, first of all, a question of trust. But this trust must be worked hard every day . With reliability, quality, functionality, adherence to deadlines, security, and partnership-based cooperation -- these are the features on which they cover the maximum excellent attention. As an online service provider by the very start, they're the right partner for you. Their services include pure colocation of your systems through managed cloud and services services into the complete outsourcing of your setups, software programs, and business processes. As an IT service provider with over 25 years of expertise, they know what is vital in your company.

IT Certificates

• ISO 20000-1

• ISAE 3402

• ISO 14001

• ISO/IEC 27001

Awards

• Bavaria's Best 50

• Service Provider Award 2020

• Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC)

• Bavarian Creator Award 2019

Cleveroad

Being on the marketplace since 2011, they've been able to obtain the confidence and respect of their clients. Long-term relationships and happy clients have consistently been their primary goals.

Company Values

Transparency: At Cleveroad, they believe that honesty with clients, partners, and employees is a basic step to creating great products.

Flexibility: Their staff quickly responds to new demands and changes because of the complex development process without any bureaucracy.

Quality: They control product quality in any way levels because of amassing input requirements and defining a sensible work scope from the early phase.

Professionalism: Their software engineering teams consist of high-qualified and certified developers with domain experience across industries.

Industry Recognition

IAOP Professional Member

Top 1000 B2B Providers, Global 2019

Top B2B Service Providers, UK

Best App Developers, International 2019

Unosquare

Unosquare, at its heart, has a mission-driven by three guiding purposes for each person That's part of the company:

Personal

Basically, Who made the agile software development firm with an understanding that, at our core, they're no more than a bunch of people pushing their bounds to do the best work they have ever done. A right working environment is a secret to that creativity, cooperation, and, ultimately, success.

Professional

They strive to create an environment where their employees may enjoy the cultural foundation and individual relationships built during their team's time. They also want to collaborate in projects that challenge their own technical abilities which have a complexity level that pushes the person's professional development as well as the team entrepreneurship and autodidactic behavior.

Social

Unosquare is here in order to make a heritage. They commit to generating well-being in every geography they have a presence in. Their organization was blessed with the chance to substantially affect the ethos in which we continue to develop the company. They believe in a worldwide effort toward equality of opportunity.

Business size

501-1000 workers

Headquarters

Lake Oswego, Oregon

Launched: 2009

Specialties

Staff Augmentation, QA and Testing, Java, Program Support and Maintenance, Cloud Computing, Mobile Application Development, Project Management, Nearshore Services, .NET, PHP, NodeJS, AngularJS, HTML5, Gamification, C#, Open Source Software, and Javascript.

ELEKS

ELEKS is your partner of choice for many of the world's leading enterprises, SMEs, and engineering challenges. They assist businesses elevate their value through custom software development, product design, and QA and consultancy providers.

What's Different about ELEKS?

Engineering with fire: They're a community of innovators. They devise bold solutions to the most complex client challenges. They could research new technologies to design best-fit services with 96% of their customers ready to advocate them.

Performance focus: They become your loyal partner, which means they won't complete a job until both they and you're 100% happy. With a customer satisfaction rate of over 97 percent, they're regarded as a key strategic technology partner.

Dedication to success: They push innovations that help their clients stay ahead of this curve. They care about your immediate requirements and your long-term goals. They believe that success is three-fold: to their clients, customers' customers, as well as the communities they affect.

Specialties

Data Science, Mobility, Quality Assurance, and Testing, R&D, Technology Consulting, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Product Design, Security Services, DevOps, Cloud, Big Data & Analytics, Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Software Development, Logistics, Fintech, Retail, Agriculture, and Healthtech.

Innovex

Inovex is an IT job centre driven by innovation and quality, focusing its'Digital Transformation' services. Their IT experts give comprehensive support to companies to generate their core business digitized and nimble and execute new digital use cases.

They update existing solutions (Replatforming), strengthen systems against external attacks (Security), and share their knowledge through Training and Coaching (inovex Academy).

Innovex's Software Solutions

Application Development (Web Platforms, Mobile Apps, Smart Devices and Robotics -- from UI/UX design to Backend Services)

Locations

Karlsruhe, Pforzheim, Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne, and Hamburg

Employees: 370+

Contact: Tel. +49 721 619 021-0

Fax +49 721 619 021-11

Mail:[email protected]

Altoros

Alto's mission is to allow businesses to shift from legacy IT to the future. Relying on the latest technology like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and Cloud Foundry helps businesses build and execute readily scalable enterprise-grade solutions.

Core Expertise

Cloud Foundry Service, Cloud Transformation Service, Kubernetes Implementation, Blockchain Development Service, AI Development Services, Machine Learning Services.

Projects Implemented: 1400+

Satisfied Clients: 600+

Global Institutions: 5

CIS

Since its beginning, Cyber Infrastructure's vision and passion have been"strengthening the achievement of their customers and partners via our highly innovative IT solutions while improving the quality of life for their workforce and society." Being a top-notch Custom software development company, their solutions are designed to take your company to the next level, reducing the gap between you and the peaks of success you wish to achieve.

Their core solutions include Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain Development, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, Robotic Process Automation, Web Development, Branding and marketing, QA service, Microsoft Development, UI/UX Design, Game Development, Mobile Development, Cloud Solutions, and a Lot More.

Achievements

Microsoft Gold Certified

CMMIDEV/5

CMMISVC/5

ISO/IEC 27001:2013

ISO 9000:2015

IT Professionals: 1000+

Satisfied Customers: 3000+

Global Institutions: 4

SCAND

SCAN provides custom software development and IT outsourcing solutions across multiple technology, such as .NET, Java, PHP, JavaScript, C/C++, and a lot more. With the ideal partner and the ideal technologies, you can embrace the future with confidence.

SCAND helps companies reduce their applications development and related expenses and speed-up their software products' entry into the marketplace. SCAND is one of the top IT outsourcing firms in Eastern Europe, supplying a complete software development cycle.

Experience

Contact

DACH: +49 212-880-79797

Email: [email protected]

Final Thought

Staff augmentation is the ideal option if you want to rapidly scale your staff or add specific skillsets to your group. A significant advantage of the Staff Augmentation model is that it leverages existing resources and uses outsourced services and contract workers. Flexibility, transparency, and cost savings are substantial advantages of strengthening staff.

Before choosing the outsourcing partner, be certain that you conduct extensive market research to locate the best-suited firm. With several years of experience in personnel augmentation, Wolf Matrix skilled teams are always ready to help you construct a fantastic group for you. If you want to work with us, then use the contact form to get in contact.

0 notes

riichardwilson · 5 years ago

Text

4 Essential Rhythms for a Happy Business

September 10, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

We all know bad singing when we hear it. Without proper melody and pitch, the song simply doesn’t work.

A distinct beat, hypnotic timing and a synchronized pattern — that’s what works. A well-executed rhythm serves as the base and backdrop, the foundation of good music. It pulls us in and leaves us wanting more.

There’s a similar rhythm to successful, happy businesses. But it’s one too many of us are trying to sing without.

As entrepreneurs, we sometimes push beyond our capabilities. In the drive to achieve certain goals, we make commitments that tend to overwhelm our available resources. We go too fast, say yes too often and pull too many over-nighters. Then, before we know it, we’ve dulled our creativity, compromised our health and possibly even damaged our finances.

How do we get back in harmony? We reset our rhythm.

Related: CEO Survival Guide: Leading with Authenticity, Transparency and Trust

Here are four essential rhythms — strong patterns not hardline rules — that if repeated regularly and consistently, will help our businesses flow better.

1. Peace

If you’ve been feeling out of sync, maybe you’re lacking the peace of mind that comes from living out your core values.

Determine, in advance, what matters most and you can stop white-knuckling your way through both little and big decisions. As you consider these values, don’t just throw together some cute phrase that looks good hanging on your wall. Take the necessary time to examine your inner fundamental beliefs.

What meaningful principles will serve you and keep you peacefully centered? What determines success for you? Use these answers as cornerstones, or markers to monitor your progress, so you can determine when you’re getting out of step.

Sometimes we dive so deep into building the business, we forget who we are and what we really want. But when your core beliefs and standards serve as your guide, you will remember why you’re doing what you’re doing, and how you’re going to do it.

To consistently experience peace and purpose in your business, align every decision you make beneath these values. Make moves that lead you to the life you want to live.

2. Performance

In that same vein of alignment, perhaps you also need to take a realistic look at the performance of your company promise.

Are you delivering on your promise? Are people having the outcome you desire after engaging with you? From customers to employees to suppliers, what type of influence or lasting impression do you want with others?

Dissect your capabilities. With blunt honesty, determine what you can successfully execute within your current parameters. What are your strengths? Weaknesses? Your skillset? How do you align these so they respect your core values?

Mindfully establish your promise. Then activate this promise with the necessary words and actions. As you learn to integrate who you are with the skills you’ve mastered, you’ll begin to block any unrealistic expectations that might try to knock you out of rhythm.

Your performance is a vital rhythm that directly impacts the speed of your growth. Keep it in line.

Related: The Dangers of Overpromising and Underdelivering

3. Pace

To get back in sync, sometimes you have to change the pace. While a speedy, efficient response is worthy and admirable, a constant, fast-moving sense of urgency can kill your happiness.

Reframe your thinking around what matters most.

How do you make your business work for you? Examine your processes. Are your workflows efficient? Is your control center optimized for peak performance? Analyze the commitments you’re making. What things can be delegated? Deleted, even?

Audit your time. Are you allowing distractions to rob you? Does your expenditure of energy reflect wise investments? If not, what needs to change? As an entrepreneur, you have the autonomy of living life on your own terms—renegotiate those terms as necessary.

Our priorities shape our choices, but not everything is a priority. To assign an equal level of importance to everything creates unnecessary anxiety. Sometimes, in order to focus on true opportunities, the things left over at the end of the day can afford to be leftover.

Related: How to Prioritize When Everything Is a Priority

4. Possibility

Something dangerous happens when we get so out of step that we’re no longer willing to take chances: We stop thinking about growth. The need for security starts to bully our boldness.

Too often the demands of running our business rob us of the creativity that originally led us here. Don’t stop creating. Don’t stop risking. Continue to ask questions. Experiment with new ideas and possibilities. Each day should contain multiple “What if …?” scenarios.

The ability and willingness to take healthy risks is a distinct, critical rhythm for an entrepreneur. It takes a lot of courage and resilience to try something new, to develop a new product or unique service and to launch it into new or foreign markets.

If you can’t remember the last time you took a risk, you could be offbeat. I’m not saying you have to take every chance, but this rhythm is necessary for success.

If you want to stop singing out of tune in your business, make it your mission to establish and practice these rhythms until they become habits. Live out of your core values. Establish and activate your promise with excellence. Maintain a healthy pace in your business. And don’t stop taking risks. Because these habits are the rhythmic foundation that can lead you to a healthier, happier business.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/4-essential-rhythms-for-a-happy-business/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/628960039314636800

0 notes

scpie · 5 years ago

Text

4 Essential Rhythms for a Happy Business

September 10, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

We all know bad singing when we hear it. Without proper melody and pitch, the song simply doesn’t work.

There’s a similar rhythm to successful, happy businesses. But it’s one too many of us are trying to sing without.

How do we get back in harmony? We reset our rhythm.

Related: CEO Survival Guide: Leading with Authenticity, Transparency and Trust

Here are four essential rhythms — strong patterns not hardline rules — that if repeated regularly and consistently, will help our businesses flow better.

1. Peace

If you’ve been feeling out of sync, maybe you’re lacking the peace of mind that comes from living out your core values.

To consistently experience peace and purpose in your business, align every decision you make beneath these values. Make moves that lead you to the life you want to live.

2. Performance

In that same vein of alignment, perhaps you also need to take a realistic look at the performance of your company promise.

Your performance is a vital rhythm that directly impacts the speed of your growth. Keep it in line.

Related: The Dangers of Overpromising and Underdelivering

3. Pace

To get back in sync, sometimes you have to change the pace. While a speedy, efficient response is worthy and admirable, a constant, fast-moving sense of urgency can kill your happiness.

Reframe your thinking around what matters most.

Related: How to Prioritize When Everything Is a Priority

4. Possibility

Something dangerous happens when we get so out of step that we’re no longer willing to take chances: We stop thinking about growth. The need for security starts to bully our boldness.

If you can’t remember the last time you took a risk, you could be offbeat. I’m not saying you have to take every chance, but this rhythm is necessary for success.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/4-essential-rhythms-for-a-happy-business/

0 notes

laurelkrugerr · 5 years ago

Text

4 Essential Rhythms for a Happy Business

September 10, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

We all know bad singing when we hear it. Without proper melody and pitch, the song simply doesn’t work.

There’s a similar rhythm to successful, happy businesses. But it’s one too many of us are trying to sing without.

How do we get back in harmony? We reset our rhythm.

Related: CEO Survival Guide: Leading with Authenticity, Transparency and Trust

Here are four essential rhythms — strong patterns not hardline rules — that if repeated regularly and consistently, will help our businesses flow better.

1. Peace

If you’ve been feeling out of sync, maybe you’re lacking the peace of mind that comes from living out your core values.

To consistently experience peace and purpose in your business, align every decision you make beneath these values. Make moves that lead you to the life you want to live.

2. Performance

In that same vein of alignment, perhaps you also need to take a realistic look at the performance of your company promise.

Your performance is a vital rhythm that directly impacts the speed of your growth. Keep it in line.

Related: The Dangers of Overpromising and Underdelivering

3. Pace

To get back in sync, sometimes you have to change the pace. While a speedy, efficient response is worthy and admirable, a constant, fast-moving sense of urgency can kill your happiness.

Reframe your thinking around what matters most.

Related: How to Prioritize When Everything Is a Priority

4. Possibility

Something dangerous happens when we get so out of step that we’re no longer willing to take chances: We stop thinking about growth. The need for security starts to bully our boldness.

If you can’t remember the last time you took a risk, you could be offbeat. I’m not saying you have to take every chance, but this rhythm is necessary for success.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/4-essential-rhythms-for-a-happy-business/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/09/4-essential-rhythms-for-happy-business.html

0 notes

theliberaltony · 5 years ago

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

We’re in a political moment that’s anything but normal. The usual expectations for how politics, and life in general, operate are pretty much all on hold, and America is dealing with a lot of anxiety about politics.

First, there’s the Trump administration’s ever-changing response to the coronavirus. Then there’s the question of how individual states are handling (or not handling) the crisis, and lastly, there’s the very real question of how our democracy will function come the general election in November. Already we’ve seen the first cracks, with a number of states deciding whether and how to postpone their primaries and local elections. The political infighting will likely get worse, too, as states try to figure out how to ensure a safe election, and in many cases, there may not be any easy answers.

In times of crisis, a lot of rules and expectations wind up getting shifted or bent. For instance, disasters sometimes lead people to give up freedoms they otherwise treasure or rally around leaders they normally oppose. But crises also have a funny way of underscoring which values are actually vital to our democracy.

In 2018, I wrote about the importance of democratic values and how they are what actually matters when we talk about norms being violated or eroded. And I offered a few examples of democratic values that have been at the root of some of the early (and ongoing) complaints about the Trump administration, including President Trump’s disregard for other institutions’ independence (think his clashes with Congress about fulfilling its oversight duties) or his inability or unwillingness to gracefully handle dissenting viewpoints as part of the political process (think insulting reporters and using unflattering nicknames for political opponents).

Now, though, in this moment of crisis, a whole new set of norms is coming into tension with our democratic values, once again highlighting which values are most at risk. Take the controversy around former Vice President Joe Biden’s relative silence during the COVID-19 crisis. The presumptive Democratic nominee has kept a low profile, sparking criticism in some corners that he’s failing to lead, but his behavior is arguably in line with expectations of how a presumptive nominee should act — i.e., don’t criticize a sitting president in a crisis or campaign during a moment of national tragedy. But Biden’s decision to not do more to question Trump’s leadership of the crisis might run afoul of deeper values, like the need for transparency and the importance of a vibrant political opposition.

As political scientist Jonathan Bernstein has observed, Trump has never been very good at the ceremonial part of his job, or offering reassurance and messages of national unity. But both are central functions of presidential rhetoric, especially in times of uncertainty and stress. Yet Trump has been combative and inconsistent in his leadership, and Biden has made only limited efforts to fill this symbolic void. Norms say we must rally around leaders and suspend politics in emergencies, but by remaining silent, Biden may be risking the larger democratic value of holding our leaders accountable.

We’ve also seen the script flipped in this crisis, though, where Trump isn’t actually violating some norms — he’s holding a White House press briefing pretty much daily, for instance, which falls in line with norms we have about how the president should communicate with the public. Yet Trump has still managed to subvert the norms of presidential behavior in a way that attacks democratic values.

He has insulted both members of the press and leaders of the Democratic Party, undercutting the idea of legitimate opposition — that is, the give-and-take of political conflict between different parties and the press who holds them accountable. He’s even asserted authority over the nation’s governors, disregarding the distinct powers of state and local governments in the federal system (and tweeting about “liberating” some states from rules set by their governors). He’s also brought numerous CEOs from private companies to the press conferences, where they’ve both praised the president and mentioned their brands — violating a norm that public purposes and private interests should be kept separate. This is less an instance of norms clashing with democratic values and more an indication that going through the standard motions of governing doesn’t necessarily guarantee respect for the principles of democracy.

And at a time when extreme measures need to be taken, honesty and transparency from our government leaders is critical to helping the public understand what’s happening and why sacrifices are needed to protect the nation. Yet Trump’s talking points, especially early in the crisis, have often undermined the recommendations of experts. For instance, he initially downplayed the seriousness of the COVID-19 threat and has repeatedly talked about “reopening” the economy even though public health experts say states lack the resources to do so safely. This means some governors, including New York’s Andrew Cuomo, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and Ohio’s Mike DeWine, have drawn the national spotlight for their leadership during the crisis. But governors’ leadership may only go so far in encouraging national unity in the face of this crisis, and without a unifying message from Trump, a wider national effort to combat the virus may fall apart.

The second big area where we’ve seen norms and democratic values clash is in our elections. Under normal circumstances, changing the timing or method of an election at the last minute would be a deeply anti-democratic move. But governors in several states concluded that the public health dangers posed by the virus were significant enough to merit postponing contests to avoid the risks of in-person voting. And this was actually an important example of upholding a democratic value — the right of all voters (including those most at risk from COVID-19) to have equal access to the polls — at the expense of the norm that election dates shouldn’t be moved once they’re set. But the decision to forego this norm and postpone an election can morph into a highly political affair, jeopardizing the very real democratic value — preserving fair and safe elections — that leaders were hoping to protect.

Take what happened in Wisconsin’s primary. It was always going to be a bit trickier for Wisconsin to postpone voting than other states because it wasn’t just primaries on the ballot — the state was also holding elections for several local offices whose terms begin on April 20, meaning the election had to take place before then. But part of the difficulty also lay in just how much bad blood exists between Gov. Tony Evers and the Republican legislature, which always made it seem unlikely that they would reach an agreement on how best to balance the health risks of holding an election with the risk that delaying the election posed to democratic norms. And sure enough, Republicans successfully challenged Evers’s last-minute emergency order to postpone the primary, with the state Supreme Court striking the order down.

That meant the Wisconsin primary proceeded as scheduled on April 7, but it was a mess. Polling places closed throughout the state due to the lack of poll workers, and voters were forced to stand in long lines. Turnout was also down in several parts of the state (though not everywhere). Perhaps the one silver living was the huge surge in absentee ballots returned, but ultimately the Election Day debacle in Wisconsin highlighted the challenges the nation might face in November, in particular how elections risk becoming a source of partisan division.

Crises can make it hard for our leaders to operate according to the usual political norms, but they also have a way of crystallizing the importance of our democratic values even when the two are seemingly in opposition. When the government steps outside its usual boundaries, special attention to core democratic values like transparency, equality and the role of legitimate opposition is needed. And the backdrop of crisis makes it easier to see which informal rules are simply the product of routine and expectations and which are crucial for making our democracy work.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Julia Azari

0 notes

ncmagroup · 6 years ago

Text

by Samantha McLaren

Teamwork is more than just a nice idea — it has real, measurable results. For example, a Stanford study found that compared to working alone, people who work collaboratively stick to their tasks for 64% longer and are less fatigued, more engaged, and more successful. In fact, the researchers discovered that just the feeling of being part of a team can make people more motivated to tackle any challenges that arise.

For recruiting teams, good collaboration both within the team and with key partners, like hiring managers, is essential to making the best possible hires, quickly. If your team is struggling on this front, making a few simple changes to the way things operate can help everyone work more seamlessly together.

Here are just a few ways you can encourage thoughtful teamwork, strengthen working relationships, and fuel motivation for a happier, more successful recruiting team.

1. Outline team-wide goals and consider gamifying them to boost engagement

Setting individual goals and quotas can be effective for keeping team members accountable for their own performance. But when your team is working toward a common goal, it’s easier for everyone to keep their eyes on the prize — and keep each other accountable.

Team-wide goals might relate to specific metrics you want to hit, like cutting your organization’s time to hire in half or doubling the number of employee referrals you receive. Discuss your targets with your team to make sure everyone understands what’s expected of them and what they’ll need to do to help achieve the goals. Ideally, try to tie internal goals back to your company’s mission and value to emphasize why they’re important and help the team feel more connected to their work.

Applying aspects of gamification to your goals can also have a big impact on your team’s productivity and engagement. This could involve creating a team-wide leaderboard, offering points each time someone completes a specific task (like sourcing a referral) and awarding a small prize at the end.

A great example of this approach in action is the recruiter leaderboard created by DocuSign, the eSignature and digital transaction management platform. To help engage the recruiting team, DocuSign used its data to rank recruiters based on factors like their number of hires and the difficulty of the roles they filled. Every week, the top performers were recognized, motivating the entire team. And if someone was struggling, the company could step in and offer them more support.

Best of all, throughout the 12-month program, engagement scores went up and not a single recruiter left the team.

Fostering a little healthy competition encourages the team to discuss their goals more often, keeping them top of mind — and creates more visibility into the whole team’s efforts.

2. Increase visibility and stay organized with an applicant tracking system (ATS)

Lack of visibility can be one of the biggest barriers to collaboration. When team members can’t see what their coworkers are working on, inefficiencies and embarrassing mistakes can happen — like thinking you’ve found the perfect candidate only to reach out and discover your colleague contacted them a week ago.

With your team’s workflow spread out over several platforms, it’s easy for vital information to slip through the cracks. To avoid this, make sure your tools are properly integrated or use an all-in-one hiring solution like LinkedIn Talent Hub.

Talent Hub allows you to the source, manage, and hire from a single platform. Once you’ve added relevant team members and hiring managers to a project, they’ll be able to share and access notes and feedback about every candidate in the pipeline. This reduces the likelihood of crossed wires, helping everyone work in tandem. Also, Talent Hub integrates with your most common hiring tools, including DocuSign, Zoom, and HireRight – see which other integrations are available here.

3. Prioritize communication and aim to share important updates in real-time

Communication is a cornerstone of strong collaboration, especially if your team is large or spread out. Having regular team meetings is one thing, but keeping constant lines of communication open encourages more collaborative discussion and ensures problems are flagged before they spiral into major issues.

Using online communication and collaboration tools like monday.com or Basecamp can help your team share important updates as they happen and keep everyone in the loop. They also allow team members to discuss strategies, helping everyone improve their skills.

If you use a messaging app to stay in touch, you can maximize these tools to share critical information, get approvals, and keep things moving. The recruiters at Slack use their own platform for this very purpose. Faced with handling tens of thousands of applications, the small team prioritizes communication and organization to keep information flowing smoothly. To do this, they’ve built a five-step process that involves using private Slack channels to approve job posts, assign recruiters and start planning their strategy, co-ordinate interviews and discuss feedback, and make offer decisions.

Whatever tools you use to communicate, it’s also worth taking time to talk face to face as often as possible. If you can’t do this in person, scheduling weekly video calls via platforms like Skype or Google Hangouts helps put faces to names and builds stronger ties between team members.

4. Teach team members to successfully navigate conflict and turn it into a healthy debate

Conflicts crop up in every team from time to time — but if your recruiting team isn’t properly equipped to deal with them, they can utterly derail collaboration.

You can get ahead of conflict and teach your team to deal with it healthily by having an open forum in your team meetings. Letting everyone voice their opinions, explain why they agree or disagree with certain approaches, and discuss alternative options helps creates a safe space where all ideas are valid and open for debate. For example, if most of the team thinks they should extend an offer to a candidate but one person has reservations, fostering an environment where they feel comfortable voicing those concerns can help you make more informed decisions and avoid potential mistakes.

That said, some conflicts might not relate to the work itself or might slip your notice. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to keep an eye out for any conflicts within your team and avoid being an enabler, intentionally or otherwise. If you’re not sure what’s going on, schedule confidential one-on-one sessions or gather anonymous feedback to get a pulse on your team’s happiness. Otherwise, you may end up being blindsided by claims that a team member is causing conflicts — or by a top recruiter leaving.

Holding group training on how to evaluate a situation, de-escalate the conflict, and come to a resolution can prepare the team to handle future issues on their own. LinkedIn Learning has some courses on conflict resolution that can make it easy to train en masse. This downloadable worksheet developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is also a handy way to help team members think through conflict strategically and come to a more meaningful resolution.

5. Make transparency and honesty core tenets of your team’s culture

Building transparency and honesty into the foundations of your recruiting team’s culture is another way to improve communication and avoid conflict.

You can help foster a culture of transparency by openly discussing successes and failures with the entire team. Things won’t always go smoothly, and leaving mistakes unspoken will only increase the chances of them happening again. Rather than dwelling on the negative, frame mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow. To that end, encourage team members to start the conversation with the phrase “Can you help me?” instead of launching straight into a description about what’s going wrong, putting their coworkers in the right frame of mind to proactively think about solutions.

As a leader, you play a crucial role in making these values stick. If you show you’re comfortable discussing mistakes you’ve made and reflected on what you’ve done differently, your team will follow your lead. Try doing a daily standup to share what you’re working on, then prompt the team to do the same, evoking a feeling of transparency while boosting camaraderie.

6. Run more effective meetings and establish how crucial decisions will be made

Team meetings can fuel collaboration, or throw a wrench in the works. Meetings where everyone talks over one another are neither productive nor collaborative, so introducing some structure into the mix can help things flow efficiently.

Start by considering who actually needs to be in attendance and what they need to know in advance. Share a clear agenda ahead of time and stick to it. If someone is talking more than they need to and making it tough to keep things moving, consider speaking to them privately about it afterward. Chances are, they may not realize they’re hogging the mic, so emphasizing the importance of giving everyone the chance to talk can help them approach meetings more thoughtfully in the future.

At the start of the meeting, you should also outline exactly what decisions you need to make by the end and how those decisions will be made. This will help your team avoid getting bogged down by indecision — or upset by someone making decisions for them. One option is to tell the team that decisions will be put to a vote, but that the manager will ultimately decide if the vote ends in a tie. So long as you outline this process from the very beginning, the chances of conflict are significantly minimized.

7. Lead by example to help your team prevent burnout and grow their careers

When your team is busy, it’s easy to adopt an “I’ll just handle it” attitude to tasks and problems that come up. But this can hold back collaboration, encouraging members of the team to take the same approach — and increasing your risk of burnout.

Instead, think actively about how you can collaborate to get work done, whether it’s asking who has the bandwidth to help with something or crowdsourcing solutions to a problem. This cannot only ensure that work is distributed equally, but can help your team advance their careers by taking on more responsibilities and meatier tasks. If you treat work like an island, others will follow suit, so look for ways to build bridges and rafts to ensure the whole team prioritizes collaboration.

8. Learn from your data — and from each other

No matter how well your team collaborates, there’s always a little room for improvement. Regularly pulling reports from your ATS and diving into the data can help the team see where they’re excelling and where they could be doing better. This can stimulate group discussions about strategies and help everyone feel like they’re in it together.

You can also look at the data to see how team members are using your recruiting tools. This is one benefit of using LinkedIn Talent Hub. By providing insights into individual contributions, you can gain a better understanding of recruiters’ strengths and weaknesses, making it easier to set the whole team up for success.

Data like this can also open up opportunities for the rest of the team to learn from their coworkers. Encourage high-performing team members to share their tips, tricks, and insights with the team — making learning a more collaborative process that helps everyone perform at their peak.

Final thoughts

When recruiting teams work together like a well-oiled machine, the work is easier and more enjoyable for everyone. Engagement goes up, fewer mistakes are made, and team members feel more connected and supported.

True collaboration doesn’t happen on its own, so make sure that everyone is aware of what you’re working toward and willing to put in the effort. Keep practicing it at every opportunity and it’ll soon become second nature.

Go to our website: www.ncmalliance.com

8 Ways to Increase Collaboration Across Your Recruiting Team by Samantha McLaren Teamwork is more than just a nice idea — it has real, measurable results.

0 notes

makemoneyonlineprofit-blog · 7 years ago

Text

25+ Best Pitch Deck Examples, Tips & Templates for 2019

https://120profit.com/?p=1095&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr Let’s face it: presenting your brand, company, or idea to a group full of strangers is hard. A few of them know your company, but most of them have never heard of your brand. So you’re already fighting an uphill battle from the start. Plus there are so many things you want to talk about, but not enough time. That’s why you need to make sure you have the best pitch deck possible to help you out. With the right pitch deck, you can: Explain the most complex topics Talk about why your brand will dominate the industry Or just tell a story about why the company was founded All of those things and more are achievable with a perfect pitch deck. You just have to take the time to create one that’s as unique as your ideas! If you’re not sure where to start, you really couldn’t be in a better place. Below you will find a plethora of the best pitch deck examples, tips, and templates! So let’s get into it. 1. The best pitch decks stick to the rule of threes on each slide CREATE THIS TEMPLATE I thought it would be fitting to start this article with a company that everyone has probably used, or at least heard about. This Airbnb pitch deck also happens to be one of our most popular presentation templates! Now, there are a lot of great things about this innovative pitch deck, but I want to focus on only one in this example. If you take a look at all of the slide below, there’s not one that has more than three sections of information: This rule of three has been drilled into my head since middle school art class, and that’s because it works. In my opinion, only the best pitch decks follow this simple rule on their slides. 2. Use a timeline to show how your company has grown CREATE THIS TEMPLATE The best pitch decks tell the real story about your company or brand. You want to not only sell the audience on your product but also how you built that product from the ground up. An extremely simple way to do that is by creating a company or product timeline like in the example above. We have found that people are already very familiar with timelines and know how to read them quickly. Plus you can fit a ton of information about your brand on a single slide. Check out how well the timeline fits into the Buffer pitch deck example below: If the designer wouldn’t have used a timeline, this information would have probably been spread over five or six extra slides! 3. Introduce your core team on a single slide CREATE THIS TEMPLATE Another important part of your story is the people who helped you build the company. These people are the lifeblood of your brand and what helps it stand out from the competitors. Now I’m guessing you have already planned on adding them to the pitch deck. However, I would recommend using only a single slide like they did in this example. You can use a team photo if you want to talk about the whole team. Or highlight the most important individuals, like below: Whatever you choose to do, don’t forget to talk about your team and highlight what makes your company truly great. 4. Use a similar layout for problem and solution slides CREATE THIS TEMPLATE Explaining how your startup is going to solve a specific problem is a vital part of any slide deck. Without that information, investors and the audience are going to be left with more questions than answers. Make sure that your problem and solutions slides are easy to understand by using a similar layout on both. This will ensure that the audience will be able to quickly recall the main problem you want to solve. Not sure what I’m talking about? Take a look at the slide example above and note how they use almost exactly the same layout. This visual symmetry will help the audience connect your solution to the problem almost instantly. Even if the slides are separated by a few other points or ideas. 5. Visualize the problem you’re solving in the pitch deck Source Not everyone is going to be able to explain their problem and solution as succinctly as the previous examples. Some are going have to take a unique approach to get their point across. That’s why I want to highlight how Front masterfully visualized the problem they are solving. I think they realized it would be a lot easier to create a killer flow chart that visualizes the problem. As you can see, all they needed was a single visual to explain the core problems that they identified. Also, I really like how they distilled each of the problems down to a single phrase. That approach, combined with the visuals, will help it stick in investors minds as the best pitch deck. 6. Include a slide with information on how to contact your brand CREATE THIS TEMPLATE Sometimes you’re going to give your pitch to a small room of investors. Other times it will be to an auditorium full of random people in your industry. And I can guarantee, not everyone is going to know your brand off the top of their head. Your job should be to make it extremely easy for people to find out more info or to contact the team with any questions. I would recommend adding this to the last slide, like in this pitch deck example. Or on a slide that will be seen the longest, like the title slide. This will help anyone that is interested write it down as the event organizers get things ready. 7. Split up text on slides with visuals CREATE THIS TEMPLATE Helping the audience make the right conclusions about your company should be an important part of your pitch deck strategy. Without saying a word, the visual choices you make can greatly impact your message. For example, take a look at the slide from an organic food company above. It splits the competition slide right down the middle to illustrate the differences. It also shows exactly how the processes differ between the two entities. I like this tactic because it shows how your company is better at a glance. It will also help them recall this information late because they can tie each brand to a certain color. 8. Pick a consistent theme for your presentation background images Source The best pitch decks keep things consistent, mainly because there are so many moving parts in any presentation. You want each of your slides to feel like they are connected by a singular feeling or theme. An out of place presentation background image can throw that off. Keeping things consistent when you use a solid background color or pattern isn’t hard. But things can get a little tricky if you want to use different photos for your backgrounds. But if you pick presentation background images that have a similar color palette, you will be fine. Check out the images in the pitch deck from Crema below: Also if you’re struggling to find exactly the same colored photos, you can use a color filter to make things a little more uniform. 9. Introduce your company and important stats early in your pitch deck Source The behemoths at WeWork still have one of the best pitch decks, even though this is a handful of years old. In fact, the slides contained in this presentation actually helped them raise money at a $5 billion valuation. My favorite thing from this example is that they outline their key metrics on the second slide. They waste no time getting down to business and let the audience know they are killing it from the beginning. A lot of the time brands hide these metrics at the end of their presentation, but WeWork made sure to put it front and center. I think this illustrates that they are a company that values transparency and honesty. This approach puts the audience in a positive state of mind, which can help them be more receptive to the pitch. 10. For long pitch decks, switch up the slide layouts CREATE THIS TEMPLATE A lot of pitch decks are rather short, only covering a few main points across a handful of slides. But sometimes your deck needs to cover a little more information. There’s nothing wrong with having a long slide deck, as long as you switch up the slide layouts a few times. No one wants to see basically the same slide with different metrics or points across 25 slides. For example, this slide deck template that we created based on the famous Uber deck has 20 or more slides! And as you can see in the slides below, the layout switches a few times: However, just make sure to keep the design elements, color palette consistent across all these layouts. Otherwise, you will have a very messy slide deck and annoyed investors. 11. Inspire your audience with a powerful quote or statement Source Sometimes you have to set the mood of the room before you jump into your slide deck. A simple way to do this is by adding a powerful statement or famous quote at the beginning of your slides. This may sound a little cliche but the creatives over at Crew use this approach extremely well in their pitch presentation. In the slide above, they make a very simple statement that puts the rest of the presentation in the right context. By claiming that every business is an online business, they instantly change the way that people think about the business sector. Additionally, the designers used this straightforward statement to set up the rest of the presentation perfectly. As you can see in the next few slides, the potential market is explained. Without the statement, I don’t think these numbers are as impactful. 12. Use similar charts and graphs for easy comparisons across slides Source One of my favorite tips from my presentation ideas roundup article states you should never make the audience do the math. You can also use this mantra when you’re adding data visualizations to your slides. Make each slide extra easy to consume, as well as, easy to compare to other visualizations. Let’s take a look at the graphs and charts the Crew team used in their slide deck. Above you can see that the line charts use the same color palette, size, and typography. And below the pie charts use the exact same elements as well: If the designers would have used a different example, the audience would be distracted trying to decipher the information. But consistent design across multiple visualizations will ensure your audience can make comparisons and the right conclusions. 13. Pick a pitch deck background image that fits your messaging CREATE THIS TEMPLATE A good background image is the foundation of a great presentation. There are millions of stock photos out there for you to pick from, so finding a few great ones shouldn’t be hard. However, when you’re picking your presentation background images it’s important to make sure it matches your message or brand. Take a look at this presentation example, the slightly crumpled paper fits an eco-friendly startup very well. This minimalist background image was a great choice for this presentation as well. Especially because eco-friendly living and minimalism share some of the same core tenants. 14. Put viewers in a user’s shoes with simple screenshots Source Highlighting digital problems is tough when you have limited space and time. Like when you’re pitching your new digital product to a room full of investors. The best pitch decks include screenshots of the problem that your digital product is solving. As you can see above, the people from Mattermark used screenshots to show how unorganized SAAS reporting was. At that time it was spread over a ton of different sites, with different reporting standards and values. Their product solved this messy reporting by bringing all of the data and information under one roof. It would be difficult to sell an investor or audience member on their product just by talking about the market. Mainly because not a lot of people have experience in that specific niche. But with a handful of screenshots, they were able to highlight the product potential almost instantly. 15. Use different colors to break down key findings or stats Source In the slide above, you can see the team at Mattermark stuck to the rule of three. This rule will help you keep your team from overwhelming the audience with a flood of stats or figures. They also decided to make these figures a little easier to consume by highlighting them in different colors. Not only will this make the slide almost effortless to skim, but the varied colors will also make the numbers stick out in an investors mind. Compared to a boring list of figures, it’s a lot easier to remember three distinct colored numbers. Plus because the background colors get darker as they go, it will naturally pull the reader’s eyes down the slide. 16. Tell an origin story that your audience can connect with Source In a lot of our presentations, we talk about how Venngage started from humble beginnings and has grown to a 50+ person company in just a few years. That’s because people really love origin stories. It helps the audience connect with your brand and see where it came from. Plus in this day and age, consumers love to see a brand build itself up from nothing. For example, take a look at the pitch deck from Dwolla above. In a single sentence, they are able to outline why they were founded. This rather straightforward statement both identifies the main problem they are wanting to solve, and why the company was founded in the first place. Just be sure to talk about your company founding in the first few slides of your pitch. Otherwise, it won’t have the same impact on the audience. 17. Don’t just list your ideal users, create visual personas Source As a design company, we always love to see people create great visualizations in their pitch decks. Particularly when these visuals help illustrate a certain part of your presentation. Like when it comes to talking about your ideal users! I have seen a lot of brands just talk about their users, but I would recommend creating visual user personas. As you can see above, the Dwolla designers created a few visual user personas for each of their main use cases. These visual user personas can help the audience put a real-ish face to your user base. And if you have many ideal users, like Dwolla, it can help them keep each group organized. 18. Create graphs and charts that cover the whole slide Source Be proud of your brand’s growth and metrics in your slide deck. You all worked hard to grow a company from nothing and that’s a big achievement! So why would you want to make that growth hard to see? You wouldn’t! However, I have seen a lot of people inadvertently hide their key metrics by using small graphs and charts. The only solution to this problem is…bigger graphs! And I mean huge graphs, like Kickfolio used in their pitch deck above. Their graph is so large and imposing, every audience member could see it clearly. 19.Feature illustrative icons in your pitch deck Source Icons have been making a comeback in the design world over the past few years. According to this year’s graphic design trends, they will continue to be extremely popular and can add a little bit of whimsy to any pitch deck. This presentation from Yalochat is one of the best examples of using illustrated icons correctly. Each icon that they used perfectly illustrates the point they are making on each slide and gives you a ton of instant context. They will definitely catch the eye of almost any audience member because they have been used so well. Just remember to follow their lead and use consistently designed icons! 20. Add icon headers to your important content CREATE THIS TEMPLATE I could write a whole article about using icons in your presentations correctly. There are so many ways you can use them to upgrade your slides. One of my favorite ways to use icons is as visual anchors for your written information. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, just look at the slide deck template below: Each of the main points has an icon that gives a little instant visual context to the audience. These icons also draw the eye almost immediately to these important facts and figures as well. Just remember to use icons that have a similar style and color palette. Otherwise, you run the risk of them becoming a distraction. 21. Use contrasting colors to emphasize important points Source Color isn’t just about making your designs looks good. It can also help you draw attention to important information. For example, take a look at this simple pitch deck from Purple Go. They contrast deep purple with white to help certain sentences pop. This is a simple way to give your slides a lot of impact; pick colors that contrast boldly with each other. 22. Highlight how your company stands out from competitors CREATE THIS TEMPLATE I’m guessing your pitch deck is already going to touch on how you stand out from the competition. Bug just listing a few things that set you apart in the industry may not be enough on your slide deck. You may need to add some visual cues to help the audience out. In this minimalist pitch deck template, our designers used visuals to make the main company stand out even more. And best of all, it doesn’t distract from the minimalist theme of the presentation. This simple addition to your slides will make your help your information jump off the slide. And provide a strong visual break from the other related companies. 23. Reduce your slides down to only the most important metrics Source Generally, slide decks are full of important metrics that they want you to remember. But not all of those numbers are presented in a way that would make them easy to remember. Some are hidden in long paragraphs, while others are smashed together with less important findings. That’s why I’m a huge fan of how Park Evergreen included important numbers in this slide deck. As you can see below, each metric is given its own slide: With this approach, the audience members place their full attention on that number. And they will be able to recall the related information a lot quicker. It may look overly simple to some, but the best pitch decks use this tactic a lot. 24. Feature a minimalist title slide to build some suspense Source You probably know that presentations don’t always run as smoothly as planned. With breaks and technical problems, the time between presentations often ends up being rather long. A lot of the time you see the title slide longer than the whole presentation actually takes. So if you really want to build some anticipation for your pitch, create a minimalist title slide. As you can see above, the designers at Hampton Creek did just this. The lack of information will make the spectators want to learn more about your brand. And you will most likely have a more engaged group of people. The only negative part of this tactic is that no one is going to know the name of your company. 25. Build the presentation around your background images, not on top CREATE THIS TEMPLATE Most of the time your pitch deck background images are supposed to be used in a supporting role. These beautiful stock photos are meant to fade, well, into the background. Then all of your important information is added on top of them. However, you can also design your presentation around the background images to create the best pitch deck. As you can see in this pitch deck template, we added written content to the white space in each of the stock photos: I think this makes each of the slides feel more real, and like it was almost printed on the paper! Plus no one can really copy your pitch deck layout, so you will instantly stand out from other companies. The only words of advice I have are to pick photos that share the same color palette and theme. Otherwise, the benefits of using these kinds of presentations backgrounds will be lost. 26. The best pitch decks do the math for your audience Source People hate doing math. So you never want to make the audience or investors try to do quick math on any of your graphs or charts. Out of all the tips in this article, this one might be the most important. Mainly because forgetting this idea could instantly doom your brand. Especially when you’re dealing with millions of dollars, tiny percent changes or other complicated numbers. That’s why I recommend you “do the math” on every slide you include a graph or chart. Kinda like how Sickweather did above! By pulling out the main growth metrics from the graph, they made this slide a lot more consumable. And showed the audience exactly what they need to pay attention to on slide. Conclusion You made it to the end of this rather long article! But I think we covered a ton of great tips that can help you create the best pitch deck for your company. Some of my favorite tips include: The best pitch decks add icon headers to your important content Use similar charts and graphs for easy comparisons across slides For long pitch decks, switch up the slide layouts Pick a consistent theme for your presentation background images Don’t just list your ideal users, create visual personas Use a timeline to show how your company has grown Do the math for your audience And if you want to learn more, there are a ton of other presentation design resources you can take a look at next: 12+ Business Pitch Deck Templates and Design Best Practices 120+ Best Presentation Ideas, Design Tips & Examples 15 Presentation Design Statistics to Know For 2019 (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.0"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); 120profit.com - https://120profit.com/?p=1095&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr

0 notes

dorothydelgadillo · 7 years ago

Text

6 Things You Should Accomplish While Building Out Your Culture Code

A few years ago, after seeing HubSpot’s Culture Code slide deck, we knew we wanted to create one for ourselves.

After creating something that we really liked at the time, when we recently took a look at it we realized it needed a total refresh.

We wanted it to represent the IMPACT we are today, which is very different than the IMPACT a few years ago.

While some important things didn’t change (core values, mission, etc), there were a lot of elements that we left out.

Before I jump into what those elements are, I think it’s important to cover why a company should have a culture code.

Why Should My Company Have a Culture Code?

If you’re asking yourself that question, I’m sure you’re not alone.

Knowing the purpose of creating this document is essential to mapping out what you’d put in there. Without going into too much detail, here are a few reasons a culture code is important to your business.

It attracts talent. While some companies keep their culture code internal, it has a ton of power outside your organization. Culture is starting to become the most important aspect applicants look for in a company. Why not create documents that outline exactly what your culture is like?

It sets expectations for your employees. Even employees sometimes need a refresher on what is expected of them at an organization. Creating a document that clearly outlines expectations is a great way to keep everyone aligned, and know when people are doing the right things.

It educates your clients. A lot of prospects have told us they heavily weigh a company’s culture into whether or not they choose to work with them. At IMPACT we do the same thing when choosing to work with companies so we wanted to have something to easily hand prospects to truly understand who we are and why.

What Should I Focus on When Creating My Culture Code? (Or updating it)

It can seem really intimidating to get started with creating this piece of content (I know it was intimidating for me!).

What should and shouldn’t I include in it? How do I make all of that flow together? Is this fully representing our company?

A lot of questions might go through your head.

However, when I looked back at my process, I pulled out a few key drivers of how we redesigned ours that will help guide you through the process.

1. Talk with the Right People

The person who created the “why”

The first thing I did when I went to update the culture code was schedule out time with Bob Ruffolo, our Founder, and CEO.

Me and Bob, our CEO

While all of the employees know what IMPACT’s culture, Bob can tell all the details and the stories behind why it is the way it is.

When I told him my plan, we decided it was best to just have him talk about the key things that have made IMPACT the company it is -- all the way from the beginning to where we are now, and where we are going.

While he talked about all of these things, I took detailed notes and asked any clarifying questions, until I had pages of information to pull from.

People who have been around a while

These are the people who can add color about what the employees really felt during all of the different phases of the company, good and bad.

Sometimes executives can have very different views of past events, so it’s important to get a bunch of different perspectives.

Slide from our culture code showing some of our employees who have been here since the beginning. That’s me up top rocking the bell bottoms...

The people in the day-to-day

Building off of the last point, it’s important to get a really rounded view of your culture -- one that accurately represents the employee experience.

The CEO can certainly tell you what he envisions, but as we like to say, culture is what happens even when the boss is away.

People in the day-to-day at your company whether they’ve been there for a long time or not can give excellent input and feedback as to what it feels like to be an employee.

Make sure to have at least one person like this involved in the creation and finalization of your culture code.

Some awesome IMPACT ladies.

2. Explain why you do what you do.

Your Purpose

What gets you out of bed in the morning? What drives the business forward? What is your company’s purpose?

After reading through your culture code, people should understand why your company is in business, and taking it a step further - how you make that purpose a reality.

Understanding your purpose is what will excite applicants, guide employees, and encourage clients to want to be a part of your company.

For us, our purpose is to “help people and their organizations succeed.”

Using us as an example, here are a few ways we incorporated our purpose throughout our culture code:

We stated our mission

We explained the different types of people we help

We talked about our past with achieving our mission (and how we weren’t very good at it)

We mapped out the current 3 top ways we help people: Education, Community, Transparency

We explained how helpfulness is a core value, and what that means for our employees

We included how we want to be helping people in the future

All of these examples show how we are driven to fulfill this mission, and it’s a part of everything we do.

But don’t just talk about it - show it!

Showing different ways you practice what you preach in your culture code builds trust and understanding with your reader.

For example, in our new version, we show quotes from clients and other agency owners, show examples of recognition employees have received for demonstrating our core values, and include real photos of our team in action.

Slide in our culture code showing team member recognition. These people aren’t too shabby...

3. Describe the kinds of people who work there.

Why is this important?

The people reading your culture code should know exactly the types of people on your team.

Slide from our culture code intro'ing what our team is like.

Doing this does the following things:

Guides and reminds your employees of the behaviors expected of them.

Demonstrates to potential employees the types of people who fit in (encouraging them to apply if they fit the bill or discouraging those who don’t)

Shows potential clients the type of people they’d be working with, hopefully encouraging them to go with your team.

Where to Start

If you’ve done the step above and explained your purpose, you’ve already laid a great foundation.

From there, however, it’s time to dive into your core values.

For us at IMPACT, these are the deal-makers or breakers when hiring talent, and are a prerequisite for every single team member across the company.

When talking about your core values, here are a few things you should cover:

What they are.

What each of them means.

Why they’re important at your company.

Examples of how you put these values into practice.

Slide from our culture code showing ways we are helpful. On the left, we’re volunteering for Christmas Wish CT. Check it out, it’s an amazing cause!

4. Talk about where you’re going.

Another important part of your culture code is explaining your vision for the company in the future.

Slide from our culture code intro'ing our vision section.

People like to know that they’re building something with you, not that everything is already built. They want to know exactly what your company intends to be so they can better see their own future there.

Get your employees, job applicants, and clients all excited about where the company is headed so they’ll want to be part of the journey.

Slide from our culture code showing one of the pieces of our vision.

5. Be Honest

Everyone says honesty is the best policy, but this is especially true in your culture code.

In our recent revision, we purposely wanted to include some negative things about our company’s past, and even the fact that we don’t have everything figured out.

In fact, publicly admitting to our failures and humbly explaining how we eventually got things right is a big reason people come to us for our content, advice, and jobs.

The more honest and transparent you are when explaining your culture, the more trust you’ll build rapport with the audience.

6. Make sure It feels like your company

After creating your culture code, make sure it accurately represents the vibe and brand of your company. Aside from things like your company colors, make sure to use photos of your people as opposed to stock photos, and write in the tone that best represents how you actually communicate with people.

Make sure the person writing and designing it knows exactly what it feels like to be at your company so they know when they have it right.

Make it a Priority

It can be easy to push off a document like this when there are so many things going on at work.

For us, making it one of our company’s quarterly objectives was what finally got us to make our culture code revamp a priority.

If you already have a culture code, or after you’re done creating it, I’d love to check it out!

Please post a link in the comments, and include any other key parts you think should be in there as well.

Like what you see about IMPACT? Check out our open positions!

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/building-company-culture-code

0 notes

dawnajaynes32 · 8 years ago

Text

How to Establishing & Maintaining Brand Authenticity

[Call for Entries: The HOW Logo Design Awards]

The old adage of “Fake It Until You Make It” has been replaced with a new statement –– “You Can’t Make It If You Fake It.” During HOW Design Live 2017, Hamish Campbell of Pearlfisher discussed how to build the world’s most desirable brands, challengers and icons. In it, he discussed his belief that brands are losing their core truth in the world of design and advertising. It’s what he’s calling Brand Faux-Thenticity.

Brand Faux-Thenticity and Why It Matters

According to Campbell, “Brand Faux-Thenticity” is the result of brands losing sight of their identity, their reason for being and chasing trends without balancing that with their truth. This results in lost time, cost and customers, as the brand struggles to be something it’s not. Campbell suggests that brands, challengers and especially icons stop attempting to jump on every trend and find inspiration from within their own brand’s’ core truth.

[Related: 25 Branding Pros to Follow on Instagram | Vallier Bistro’s Beautiful Brand Refresh]

What Consumers See When They Look at Your Brand

More and more, brands are playing a large part of consumers’ lives and identities. They have chosen a brand for a reason bigger than just a jacket or handbag, a reason that resonates with their view of the world. So, when a brand moves away from its core truths, the consumer is aware of it immediately and will only fleetingly wait for the brand to regain its authenticity before moving on to something that they better identify with. There is no fooling your consumer in an age when they connect brands to their lives—not just buying a product/service.

How to Build an Authentic Brand

Understanding a brand’s purpose is the first step to building authenticity; it’s what makes up its ethos and ultimately its story. Ask yourself:

Why was this brand created?

Where did it originate?

Was it to provide a product that aligned with a value structure—fair trade, sustainability, impeccable taste, or luxurious beauty?

The reasons for being are truly endless, but one or two will be at the core of your brand. Once you discover that core truth, you can begin seeing how consumers will relate to it and design for that truth.The real trick is holding true to this brand truth when the winds of trend are blowing away from it. Campbell used Patagonia as an example of a brand staying true to it’s core truth—theirs was conservation, responsibility and sustainability:

Instead of following the overall activewear trend of always wanting something new and fresh, Patagonia launched a campaign to fix up the jackets people already owned. This kept brand loyalty and stayed true to themselves as well as demonstrating their longevity as a brand.

Above: Patagonia’s first “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad in the New York Times on Black Friday 2011. Below: Worn Wear, the Patagonia site that evolved from the original campaign and still operates today.

Three Ways Design Can Reflect a Brand’s Core Truth

According to Campbell, there are three ways design impacts everything related to the brand. The responsibility of design is to see the opportunities to stand out from the crowd, be imaginative and tell the brand’s authentic story. Design’s role in creating and sustaining this core truth comes down to this:

Understand who you are at the core—be transparent, truthful, individual.

Use imagination not imitation—authentic, honest, refreshing

Use design as a tool for telling your brand story

Campell uses The Coca Cola Company as an excellent example of design staying true to the brand:

With 130 years of design and marketing history, Coca Cola has long equated its product with happiness, smiling and the good things in life. With the recent campaign against soda and other sugary beverages, Coca Cola evolved. It still sent a message of friendships and good feelings (as always) but began offering smaller serving sizes (see the Coke Mini ad below), talking about making the choice of a drink and using their evolution in their marketing to continue to have a valued place in consumers lives. Coke expressed its understanding and honesty about new nutritional standards and care for it’s consumers. This shows the value of knowing your brand’s core truth and using it to overcome challenges and changing times.

youtube

Losing Customer Trust and How to Get it Back

If a brand loses customer faith due to being false to their brand identity, it is no small thing to recover from. Since consumers identify personally with brands, the lack of authenticity becomes a betrayal. To restore faith, a brand must respond quickly, be honest and transparent and then devise a plan to reconnect with customers. Admitting the wrong quickly and tying it back to the core brand truth to show understanding of why the wrong was counter to the brand is very important. This step begins the restoration of believability of the brand. Campbell used Volkswagen as an example, referring to how Volkswagen introduced MOIA in response to the scandal of cheating the diesel emissions testing was uncovered. MOIA is focused on ride-sharing and ties back to Volkswagen’s core truth of working towards cleaner energy in their vehicles. Volkswagen showed an increase in profits in the U.S. for the first quarter of 2017—the first since the scandal in 2015.

Staying True to The Brand

As you can see, any brand that has longevity in the market will evolve and incorporate new products, but the key to keeping your customers loyalty and having success is to know your brand truth. Trying to be something you’re not won’t suffice. Once you understand the brand’s mission or reason for being, you can design product, marketing and more with confidence, knowing your customer’s will get it.

Want to be part of the design conversation? Register for HOW Design Live 2018 today!

Brand Building 101: How to Build, Manage and Market a Brand

The post How to Establishing & Maintaining Brand Authenticity appeared first on HOW Design.

How to Establishing & Maintaining Brand Authenticity syndicated post

0 notes

theopentable · 8 years ago

Text

Encountering the Sacred Voice of Love in the Wildness of Our Lives (Matthew 3:1-17)

Discomfort, uncertainty, upheaval – these are all part of the human experience.

We don’t get to avoid these things.

Matthew’s gospel pays attention to these things and even holds before us ways that we too might hold firm in the midst of the chaos that happens in every human life, even when our previous sources of security have been shaken at the core.

And we know on some level that if we don’t transform our pain then we will transmit our pain.

It will sit close to the surface and emerge in surprising ways that we might not even be all that aware of.

And so we come to Matthew 3 and we have this enigmatic figure by the name of John who is as real and as honest as they come.

I don’t know if you have a “John” in your life.

You don’t get to pretend and make out everything is going fine when you have a “John” in your life.

But what John offers is something vital.

John breaks the silence and holds a space where people can enter into their own experience[1].

He draws people into the wilderness as if to help people engage with the wildness in their own lives.

John knew that if there was any hope of God’s people summoning any kind of spiritual energy that might hold them in those times when they are doing it tough,

or even in those times where they are just plain numb and living in survival mode,

then there needs to be spaces where they could honestly name their experience,

where they could name their fears,

their grief,

their shame,

their insecurities,

their powerlessness.

In other words, John helped them to come to terms with their humanity.

Here in the wilderness God’s people were able to acknowledge the “wild-things”; the out of control realities at work within and around them.

When he says “Repent” he’s really saying, “Come home, come join in the new things God is doing.”

That’s what repent means in the bible. It’s exile language. It means come back to the promise land, where God is, where you belong.

John helps them to recognise they’ve lost their way so that they can begin to find their way back home to God, to themselves, to each other.

* * *

But what about us,

Are there spaces like this for us?

Is our experience of church like this?

Are our relationships together the type of relationships that can handle the wildness of our lives?

Or do we tend to offer only the tidied-up versions of our lives?

One of the things that has shaped me is the wisdom of the Christian recovery movement.

What many have found through participation in AA groups and the like is that there is a safety in these spaces to tell the truth that is rarely found elsewhere.

What these communities know is that the starting point for a spirituality that transforms lives is honesty and openness,

a way of living transparently in the context of communities that help us to gather strength and summon hope in the midst of the challenges that life throws us.

We need safe spaces for mutual vulnerability so that we may lift the weight of debilitating shame together.

So John holds this kind of space for people. John gets that it’s our ability to tell the truth in our communities that serves as a vital aspect of our return from exile.

But how?

How do we get to the point where we feel safe enough to do that?

And how do we engage with this stuff in a way that doesn’t just keep us in a cycle of shame and blame and feeling crap about ourselves?

One of the critical things that John names is that this telling the truth and getting baptised thing is good but it’s not the full picture.

John talks about two baptisms: a baptism of water and a baptism of Spirit and fire.

The second baptism is the one that really matters – the baptism of Holy Spirit and fire.

The Spirit and fire baptism is where you really know and experience God’s transforming presence.

It’s not mere head knowledge, but rather an inner knowledge of infinite love.

Love has to come first; this is the awakening of truth and goodness we need to know deep in our being. Every other love is merely a second love.

We need to discover infinite love like an earthquake in the heart.

Encountering the Sacred Voice of Love

Among the great number who went out to be baptised by John was a surprising figure: Jesus.

John protests but Jesus insists.

As Jesus is baptised he hears the words that every human being longs to hear: You are a beloved son! You are a beloved daughter! And in you I am well pleased!

This is sacred voice of love.

Thomas Keating said that the ‘human heart is designed for unlimited happiness – for limitless truth and for limitless love – and nothing less can satisfy’.

That’s why hearing this voice is our great initiation into Life.

Life has not begun if we don’t know who we are.

But here is the ultimate truth of who you are: You are God’s beloved. In you God is delighted, ecstatic.

Of course, we don’t always hear it. Or maybe we’ve heard it but we don’t believe it. Or maybe somewhere along the line we forgot.

Or maybe we’ve never heard it. Our culture doesn’t know how to tell people that they are inherently valuable, inherently good!

In the movie Blood Diamond, set in the explosive civil war overtaking Sierra Leone in the late 90’s, there’s two men, one an ex-mercenary turned diamond smuggler, another a fisherman.

Each of them have their own missions: one seeks to recover a rare pink diamond of immense value;

another seeks to rescue his son who was conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.

In this scene, Solomon is finally reunited with his son whom he loves and has been desperately seeking.

Only his son has been brainwashed by militia, forced to do horrible things. He doesn’t remember who he is. He thinks he is a soldier, not a son.

Watch this clip and see the power of a father’s love.

Come home with me and be my son again!

This is the gospel!

Come home with me and be my daughter again!

Do you hear that?

Let those words wash over you! They are God’s words directed to you.

Come home with me. Be my child.

If you can hear this then you’ll be okay with the mess and the muck and wildness in your life.

When you encounter the infinite mercy, presence, and availability of God you become secure in who you are.

You are at home in love. You drop your guard. You don’t have to pretend any more.

And you’ll start to be okay with the messiness in other people’s lives too.

We can learn to live transparently together.

Really repentance is getting to the end of ourselves.

It's saying "I can't do this all in my own steam. I need help."

Repentance is about opening ourselves up to something beyond ourselves and at the same time something we have complete access to.

In some ways it's discovering that God begins where we end.

God's loving presence can be found even, or perhaps especially, in the wildness of our lives.

And so we cry out.

We step into the waters.

We open our hearts to a Higher Power.

We learn that God’s love is as real and as available as the water flowing in the Jordan!

And that’s when we begin our journey again, set our sights for home, align our lives with “the way.”

So open yourself up.

Cry out.

Come home.

There’s love here, even in the wildness of our lives.

[1] And John knows the experience of the people. To start with, you have this troubling military presence on every street. Your God is supposed to be in charge and yet your lands are occupied by a people with foreign gods? What’s going on here? And then they’ve got this shiny great temple and yet there is a profound sense of disconnection from God. The religious leaders are either in bed with Rome or busy drawing significant lines between who is in and who is out.

God’s people no longer know how to convert their blessings into blessings for others. They’ve forgotten who they are. John knows the people have lost their way. Israel are stuck in a holding pattern. And the worst part is the silence. The numb silence. For 430 years they’ve only known silence. Where is God? What is God up to?

0 notes