I was chatting with the team a few days ago about an internal vs. external focus within Reclaim, and always making sure there’s some sort of balance happening there. The last few months have largely been consumed by launching a sister web hosting company, hosting a two-day event out of state, and phases of heavy support. I consider this external. Everything listed is for the people.
Now that Reclaim has entered a slower season (*knock on wood*) we’re focusing a little more on the internal happenings at Reclaim.We’re spending time on internal + external documentation & organization, training & onboarding, and taking a break. Some projects are far easier than others, but all the more reason to tackle them, right? We’ve also just brought on our newest team member, Meredith Fierro, so make sure to read our updated About page here! And speaking of updated web pages, we have added an extensive list of schools associated with Reclaim Hosting, as well as a Code of Conduct within the last month.
However, we can’t take credit for writing the Code of Conduct– it was actually adapted from a public handbook on Github. What’s more, we found that the full handbook embodied a lot of the customs + policies already in place at Reclaim Hosting, so we felt inspired to actually get Reclaim’s “handbook” written down. Which inspired another project: where do we put the handbook? Can we combine it employee onboarding & hiring documents? Vacation time + company events? Annual employee reviews?
So as a result, I’ve been like this over the last few weeks:
FULL day of writing HR policies means: pic.twitter.com/oO4AT7eJrJ
— Lauren Brumfield (@brumface) June 15, 2017
…while setting up Kin HR for Reclaim.
Quick Overview
Home: will have an overview (sort of like Asana) with upcoming information relevant to the employee.
You: Contains Employment details, Personal Info, Emergency Contacts, Bank Account Info, Tax Info, Compensation & Social Links. This is also where employees can keep track of personal goals & objectives.
Company: Home for all policies. Also has a list of Reclaim-recognized holidays, as well as a list of tools that we use with appropriate login links.
Calendar: Keeps track of company milestones, birthdays, vacation time, recognized holidays, and anything else we’d like to add. Can also be added to your personal google/outlook calendars.
Tasks: Has a check list of everything that needs to happen when we add someone to the Reclaim team.
Reviews: Keeps track of (at the very least) a yearly review/evaluation of the employee on the anniversary of their hire date.
Pros + Cons
I absolutely love that everything is in one place. Reclaim has a home base for all housekeeping tasks, policies, benefits, fine print, and employee reviews. Not only will this help any future employees hired at Reclaim, but it also eliminates any questions for the current team.
I wish that the integration with our payroll system, Gusto, was actually more of an integration. Knowing that there was a partnership between the two apps was a primary reason that I began checking it out in the beginning. I quickly came to learn, however, that the integration is really just a fancy import tool from Gusto to Kin. After syncing employee profiles, the ‘integration’ is useless.
Also, Kin really doesn’t accommodate for a scenario in which two people co-exist as “the boss”. For instance, I’m unable to coordinate an employee review with two managers. If I was to formally follow the procedures on Kin, I’d have to pick one manager, resulting in a semi-awkward situation where one boss doesn’t have access to the review. It’s a weird and unnecessary setting, @Kin. Fix it!
All in all, I’m super pumped (believe it or not) to crunch out the Reclaim guidelines and add a little organization and formality to the employee onboarding process. Can’t wait to see how we adapt to it over time.
