Speaker 1: I'm here with Tara. We want to talk a little bit about remote work, hybrid work, how to keep your workforce engaged and productive, and how to feel like you can operate a hybrid team really effectively without having to bring everyone back to the office for that same level of collaboration and effective communication that some companies are missing right now. When I joined Trainul, which was almost four years ago, pre-pandemic, we were 15 people in a small office all together in Phoenix, Arizona. Obviously, with the pandemic, we shifted to remote and made a very intentional decision to hire remote employees that did not live in the Phoenix, Arizona area. One of the reasons for this was because we had access to talent that didn't live in Phoenix. We hired some incredibly smart, kind, values-aligned people that lived all over the United States. This was hard, though. This was our first time doing this. When we opened up our office again in 2021, we realized, like, oh, this is weird. We're not all remote anymore. We have this hybrid kind of wonky environment. And so we had to spend a lot of time thinking through how do we optimize the experience for every single person at Trainul, regardless of where they live or when they work. Tara, you do such an amazing job of managing our onboarding, supporting with employee resource groups, employee communication, all of our all-hands. So what are some of the tips that you would give small business owners who would like to continue to offer remote work but maybe are struggling with keeping their team engaged or with communication? I think that's something that Trainul does very well. Yeah, thanks, Sasha. That's a great question.

Speaker 2: I think there's so many different elements that come into play when you have a hybrid working environment. Some of those things, well, I guess the most important thing would be communication. I think here at Trainul, we do an excellent job of communicating expectations after, like, a company meeting. We are really good at communicating out information that you need to know to be successful in your role. And so I think it comes down to communication. What are the tools that

Speaker 1: we use that are very effective in driving consistent communication regardless of where

Speaker 2: you live or where you work? Perfect. So one area that I think we really excel in is Slack. We love Slack. We use Slack to the nth degree, I would say. Anytime there's something that's super important that you need to know, we use Slack. Also, you'll see that we have a lot of engagement that's very random in Slack, and it's very organic. We have, like, a pets channel. We have a plants channel. We have a random channel that everyone has to be a part of. It's really important. We have a team channel where if there's something that's a really big announcement, it goes in there. There's a lot of communication that comes to our team via Slack. Another tool that we use, Asana. Like, we are Asana power users. Anytime that you're involved in a project, there is a chance that you are connected on Asana to that project. You can see in real live time what's going on with the project, who's involved, where it's at. I feel like those two are very successful for us. They make communication a lot better. And obviously, Traneal. We use Traneal for everything. One thing that Traneal does that's super powerful is it's a good area for us to have our content. It's a content knowledge spot. So folks can work async. They can work at night. They can go and get the answers, the information that they need instead of waiting on someone else in the team to give them the content or the important information that they're looking for. They can just jump into Traneal real quick, get the information, and therefore, we have more

Speaker 1: successful ACP. Yeah. And it's almost like a virtual knock on the office door. So instead of being like, hey, Tara, I need this from you right now, you can ask Traneal, like, hey, what does Tara do when she does XYZ? I need to plan this event with her. And you have all the information you need, whether you're working weird hours because of your childcare schedule or if you work like eight hours in a different time zone. It just gives so much flexibility and information

Speaker 2: parity so you can be effective no matter when and where you're working. Yeah, for sure. I think another really unique thing that we use with Traneal is the fact that we're able to plug in

Speaker 1: video content. I love video so much. I think this is so important to like when we're onboarding a

Speaker 2: new hire. Yes. They get that information. They get to feel what the culture is like. They get to know these people through a video. And it's so engaging. It's so personal. I feel connected to Traneal when I watch a video and I understand who the leaders are, what's important to them. So I love that we have that video element where we can like really paint the true picture for our

Speaker 1: new hires. And it's wonderful from the connection building aspect, obviously, as a new hire, someone absorbing new content. But as the person creating video content, it's a lifesaver. It's one video that everyone gets to watch instead of me having separate meetings with all of these different people. And so it's time saving, really efficient. And then it's probably the best possible experience because you can very particularly curate what message you want to portray rather than doing it live. And I think hybrid work is so much more difficult than fully remote or fully in person because you're accounting for us at the office and the people who live in Minnesota and are like super far away and have no idea what's going on. And I think it's really easy to fall into this trap of like, we talked about it live. We're having this fun water cooler conversation and leave it at that. But we've gotten into a really good habit of documenting everything. So a huge place where documentation occurs is Traneal, but also Slack and Asana. So if we're having a quick chat, like we were just talking about new swag, as an example, and Tara was out of the office. So I quickly did an update on our Asana project. Like here's what we talked about live at the office. It was a five minute chat, but she would have been totally in the dark if we hadn't quickly closed the loop. And so developing habits like that to make sure your remote team is always getting the same information that your in-person team is getting is crucial for that feeling of parity and closeness for everyone on your team, regardless of where they are. And it's almost like we approach our internal communication, like external marketing communication. Like you have a PR plan. If something big happens, you're working with all these different networks to place your articles here, the announcements. We do the same thing. When are we going to make an announcement? Through what forum? Is it documented in Traneal? We're announcing it live. It's immediately being sent. So the entire team can then consume the videos and the written content immediately after to reabsorb the information. And I think that that is so important. So they feel like no matter where you are, you are just as important and deserving of the information in that moment. If I can impart any wisdom to those of you watching this video is if you are managing a remote or hybrid team, be really intentional with everything from how you communicate, what channels you communicate in, where your information is documented, making sure information is accessible at all times so folks can work when and where they want. Be sure that you're thinking about the experience from a remote perspective. And just always think about if I were in their shoes, how would I feel? And ensure that everything you do is intentional and thoughtful for every single one of your employees.