Luis:
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the DistantJob Podcast, your podcast about building and leading awesome remote teams. I am your host, as usual, Luis, and with me today, I have Harris Fanaroff. Harris is the founder of Activate Onboarding and is here to talk about, well, obviously onboarding, but I hope a lot more. Let’s see where the conversation takes us. Harris, pleasure having you.
Harris Fanaroff:
Thanks so much for having me, Luis. Super excited to be here. Appreciate you thinking to me and excited for this conversation today.
Luis:
Let’s jump right into your relationship with remote work. When did you first starting working remotely? How much of your company is remote? I guess, how did remote work influence your career?
Harris Fanaroff:
It’s never been a bigger time of remote work in this conversation, so I love it. Actually my first job out of school, out of college, was 95% in-person. It was a little bit remote. I feel like I’ve rode the wave of remote work. So then my second job was a little bit more remote. It’s about 50/50 remote versus in-person, and now I’m 100% remote. I have really rode this wave of all in-person to about 50/50, and now I’m fully remote. There are definitely challenges that come with being fully remote, but there are a lot of good benefits to being remote as well.
I’m sure we’ll get into this today, but I am passionate about helping organizations keep their people engaged in a remote world. I think it’s really hard to build that connection when you just walk 10 feet to your left or downstairs to your office and it’s like, why would I care about that organization? Organizations need to be so intentional about creating that connection to help keep people in the remote world.
Luis:
Activate Onboarding is fully remote?
Harris Fanaroff:
Fully remote, yes, sir.
Luis:
Was this a no-brainer, or did you have to think a bit about it?
Harris Fanaroff:
As a startup, it was a no-brainer. I think down the road there might be opportunities and ways that we have a home base and bring people together to the home base maybe for two or three days a week. But for the most part, we can get what we need to get done as a small organization fully remote. I do think there is value in getting people together, but I think that you have to weigh that a little bit with the talent that you’re able to get. I can’t necessarily get the same talent if I’m requiring them to be in Washington, DC three days a week. But if we get together once a month, that seems to be more of a situation that allows for how work is evolving.
Luis:
Yeah, that’s interesting. I know that there are some people that are very dogmatic about the remote all-in. In my case actually, some of my best clients are of the hybrid model. And as with anything, I think that it is a decision on a case by case basis. It depends a lot on I’m sure it will get into culture, and it does depend a lot on culture, a lot on business, a lot on the people that you have. I have some friends that absolutely hated working remotely. A lot of who they are is being in that office and enjoying life in that office. Some people just thrive there.
Even though this is a podcast about remote work, I always take the approach of not being too prescriptive and just telling people what works for me, which is definitely full remote forever is a long time, but I expect forever full remote. We don’t know what we don’t know, but I don’t expect to change my opinion, but I totally understand people that for them the right amount of remote is zero. I guess that most people will land somewhere in the middle, right?
Harris Fanaroff:
I think that a big part of that is personality and it’s also what you do. I think if you’re an extroverted individual that gets their energy from being around people, and you also don’t spend your time on a lot of Zooms and phone calls and MS Teams meetings, that can be really difficult. That’s when you’re like, “All right, I got to be around people. I have to be in an office.” I think that plays such a big role, and people need to do the inner work to understand themselves and what gives them energy.
If they are extroverted, go out and meet people, go out and meet clients that are around you, or go out and meet different colleagues. I think that that is such an important aspect, because no doubt it can get lonely being completely remote, especially if you’re not consistently talking to people. I think fully remote definitely has its dangers, it has a lot of benefits, but I think making sure that as a company you’re providing ways for people to engage when they’re fully remote and connect with others is a really underrated aspect of the fully remote workplace.
Luis:
I want to take a step back because you were talking about your career path and how you became progressively more remote. You also have a business that is centered around onboarding. Correct? Wanted to ask you, during this progression when you were starting to become more and more remote, what was your worst onboarding experience and why? In a sense, what planted the seed that this was something that you needed to help people deal with?
Harris Fanaroff:
Absolutely. I personally don’t have a story that I had the worst onboarding ever. But what I will say is during the pandemic, I was working for an organization and I was talking with chief HR officers and founders all the time. We really took a step back and were like, let’s just talk about some of the things that they’re struggling with. I would just have hundred plus conversations. I said, “What’s going on?” They said, “We have to add people. Adding in the remote world, we don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know how to make them feel connected and engaged to our organization in this remote world.” People are starting and they’re like eh. All right, that didn’t work.
They’re leaving after a week, or they’re leaving after 30 days. They’re not building that connection to the organization. That’s where my wheels started to spin around onboarding. I was talking with all these chief HR officers and then I was like, okay, let me do some research around talking with the new joiners, the new people that are starting the organization. No joke, 90% of them had a horrible onboarding experience. 90% of them were like, yeah, nobody really reached out. I still don’t really know what I’m doing. I feel awkward. There’s no sense of connection and belonging that they were being built.
A lot of this was spawned from the pandemic and the remote world that we were living in. It was like, what is one of the big issues of this new remote world, and onboarding was a really big one. What used to happen was you’d go in and you’d meet with everybody. They’d show you a tour of the building. You sign all the forms in there. It’s like, well, that’s all gone. We can’t actually get together in person, but we’re still adding people because we’re still doing work. How can I make sure that companies provide a world-class first impression for their new hires was really… I went down and rabbit hole.
I was like, what would make part of that? I started having many more conversations, which is what ended up launching Activate Onboarding. Happy to go into it a little bit more, but that really came about from the remote world that COVID forced us into.
Luis:
If you can get more specific, you had a lot of conversations, what is the most salient complaint, I guess? I mean, to me it’s very weird. Maybe I come from a privileged position, but to me it’s just very odd, the thought that someone starting at a company logging in and no one telling them what they’re supposed to be doing there, right? That’s very weird to me.
Harris Fanaroff:
You’re in the minority of that. Some of the biggest complaints I heard, I feel like a number, not an important contributor to the organization. I know you’ve had this one. Every IT or my technology or computer wasn’t set up. 95% of people had that type of issue that happened. I don’t really know who to connect with inside the organization. My manager’s really busy and doesn’t have time for me. Those were some of the big things that I kept hearing about. Who owns onboarding? HR kind of owns it, the hiring manager kind of owns it. Because both kind of own it, nobody owns it. You’re left on an island as a new joiner.
Those were some of the big issues that I kept hearing, and that’s why I said, okay, I want to tackle this problem. I want to help organization because I care about people. Anything that I do in work is all centered around people and making people feel more comfortable and engaged. We spend over 90,000 hours of our life at work, and I want to do my place in the world to make it better for people. We should be happy at work. We should feel connected. We should feel engaged, all these things. They have to start from day one. They actually have to start from when you accept the offer. And that builds the momentum for what will look like your tenure at that time.
Luis:
Again, that’s a bit surprising to me. What do you usually propose specifically in a remote environment? Because we understand that if you’re in an office, some of that will just kind of seep in osmosis. You’re sitting there, you’re around people. Someone will eventually approach you. You will eventually approach someone. But when it’s you at home in your computer, I can understand how that can be a bit more less intuitive, let’s say. What do you usually say to the people that are having this terrible experience or to the people that are responsible for them?
Harris Fanaroff:
It’s a loaded question, but I like it. I’ll try to narrow it into three different things.
Luis:
It wasn’t intentional.
Harris Fanaroff:
No, no. I’ll narrow it into three.
Luis:
I can tell you a bit how I usually do it, though I think that my way is a bit unorthodox.
Harris Fanaroff:
I’ll share these three ideas. I’m curious if you do any of them. The first one that I do that I like to ask is ask the new joiner, what brought you the organization, what’s going to keep you here, and what motivates you? Get that information up front so that you have it and it becomes the blueprint for keeping them at the organization. That’s one is utilize a motivation survey. Number two that I recommend is give them a buddy or a mentor, somebody who’s I like between six months and 18 months inside the organization that can be there for all the “dumb questions” they have. There are no dumb questions, but that they might not feel comfortable asking to other people.
And then three is I would make sure that you’re training your managers to consistently reach out to those new joiners. In the beginning, make sure that they’re doing so several times a week. Even as time goes on, making sure that they’re just checking in with them. Managers are busy. It’s easy to forget about, hey, I wonder how Harris is. Easy to forget. Put it on your calendar, I’m going to check in with Harris every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. I’ll call him on Fridays for the first three weeks to make sure that it’s going well.
Just to make sure that you’re holding yourself accountable for keeping them engaged. Motivation survey, buddy or mentor, and manager checking in consistently. What do you do, Luis? I’m curious.
Luis:
I’m going to steal the survey, the first thing, your point one. I’m definitely going to steal that. It seems a no-brainer now that you said it, but I actually never thought about that. It really is a nice idea to have that information, especially as you move on to one-on-ones. I came from a video game industry background somewhat. Video game industry. I deal with a few detours that are not useful for the conversation right now. But while I was still going through college, I got a part-time just to get some leisure money in the video game industry. I’ve always been attached to it in some way or another. I was big into MMOs.
When I became a manager, I designed my onboarding. I try to gamify it. I try to make bit of a quest. Everyone who joins my team gets like an RPG massive multiplayer online game kind of quest list where they have to check these things. They are usually about things like talk to the department managers, find a way, figure out how to reach the company president and how to get a call with them. There’s always a note that, if you get stuck at any of these, here is the person that you have to reach out to. Hit Slack. Treat this as a game. People are expecting it and figure out how to do these quests.
Of course, the quests are stuff that are meant to as they try to solve those problems, those video game like problems, they will organically get in touch with the components of the company and the software that they need in order to do their job. That’s why I usually say when people ask me what they need to get done in the first week, I’m like, your first week project is really just getting to know the company. We can talk about work later. Now, here’s this set of objectives. Figure them out. Hit Slack. Ask questions. Figure them out. If you ever feel stuck, no frustration. This is supposed to be a frustration free environment. Here are the people you need to poke.
Harris Fanaroff:
I love that, love that. You built a gamified experience for them around onboarding, if I understand that correctly. That’s cool. I like that idea. It sounds very similar to like a real life…
Luis:
Go on.
Harris Fanaroff:
I was going to say a real living, breathing version of 30, 60, 90 day goals, which is really cool.
Luis:
One of the things is that we have an open culture where ideally everyone has access to the president of the company, but obviously the president of the company is a busy guy. Can’t always be available 24/7. That’s like the end boss. The final stage of the quest is, hey, you need to meet the boss. Figure out how to do that. You have Slack. You have Zoom. Go on and figure out how to meet the boss, figure out how to reach him. Eventually what I find is that at the end of the week, people ask those, like you said, stupid questions that don’t really exist, because there are no stupid questions.
We are a mistake friendly environment and a question friendly environment. But the thing is that I find that people just feel more rewarded when they figure it out by themselves. As long as they know that if they’re treating it like a game, there’s always a safety net. You never die in a game. Not really, right? Maybe you need to restart, but you don’t get fired from the game.
Harris Fanaroff:
I like that idea. It’s nuanced and different, and I really like that idea as a way to make it fun when you’re starting. There can be a lot of anxiety and nervousness when you’re beginning, and creating it like a game and treating it like a game can be a really good way to calm those nerves.
Luis:
I mean, let’s talk a bit about now, unless you want to expand a bit more about onboarding and about remote work after we’ve had this small discussion, curious, what is your usual management process like when dealing with remote teams? What is a day or a week in your life as a remote leader?
Harris Fanaroff:
You say management process for dealing with individuals from a remote perspective?
Luis:
Yes, yes. What is a day like? How do you usually prefer people to get in touch with? How do you usually balance your maker time versus your management time? How do you deal with these in a remote setting? Because again, you mentioned at the start that you got remoter progressively, and I have to think that these things become a lot different as you do that.
Harris Fanaroff:
I might not be the best example of this, because I will communicate in every different format constantly throughout the day and throughout the night. In a way, it can be a little bit much, but maybe this is a good thing. I don’t know. But I am consistently on email, Slack, Teams, text message, voice, constantly responding, proactively reaching out, engaging with different team members, sending different things that I’m seeing. Maybe it’s a consistent way to be on and to be focused and to be sharing information with people. That as a remote individual makes me feel constantly connected. Actually by the end of the day, I’m like, wow, I could really use some alone time.
I’m an extroverted individual, which is relatively interesting as I kind of reflect on it there. I think a big thing that I like to do is be intentional with my calendar. I will put three hours work on this proposal or do outreach, but then I’ll be like reach out to Luis Tuesday at 9:30. For me, if it doesn’t get calendared, it doesn’t happen. I think that’s where people don’t tend to build those relationships with individuals. It’s like, oh wow, it’s been four weeks since I reached out to Luis. And yeah, we have our one-on-ones every week, but I don’t think that’s enough. If you’re managing somebody, you also have to have different connection and engagement points throughout the week in addition to those.
I would recommend 30-minute one-on-ones with all your different direct reports. But I think as well, those little aspects of like, hey, Luis, I think you’d find this article interesting, or your favorite sports team just won and I’m going to reach out, that’s another thing that I think makes a big impact in the remote world is we don’t have those what we call water cooler talks. It’s not like I’m just bumping into Katie when I’m getting water. We don’t necessarily have those. We have to find ways to build those connections. At the beginning of meetings, we’re getting to know each other personally. We did a good exercise recently where we started the meeting.
It was an eight person meeting. Everybody just talked about what was going on with them at home and professionally. They spent two minutes, three minutes each just airing that out for us to get to know one another. Because when we feel that connection, we’re more likely to stay at the organization for longer and want to actually do better work for that organization when, oh, Luis is my friend and he works with me on a consistent basis.
Luis:
What would you say is your ratio of async versus synchronous communication?
Harris Fanaroff:
30 synchronous, 70 asynchronous, I would say. What about yourself?
Luis:
That sounds pretty healthy. That sounds pretty healthy. I think I’m a little bit less, but not much. I’d say I’m probably 20, 25% synchronous. Mostly those check-ins, those weekly check-ins that you talk about. Though it varies, right? Usually it depends on the level of trust. I have a high level of trust with my team, so it’s mostly asynchronous. But then when I’m meeting with outside providers, I do try to make it mostly synchronous.
Harris Fanaroff:
That’s an interesting question. I haven’t been asked that question before, but it’s an interesting way to think about it. I mean, I’m constantly on my phone. I am intentional as best as I can about blocking off time for dinner with my wife, but really constantly throughout the day responding to different messages, reaching out to people. But I get a lot of energy from that.
Luis:
That’s cool.
Harris Fanaroff:
It’s not something I would ever change because I love doing that.
Luis:
You’re living in the future, in the cyberpunk thing, where the messages are just in your head all the time.
Harris Fanaroff:
Right, exactly. My Notes app is crazy when you look at all the different things that I want to do and am doing.
Luis:
Yes. What does that look like? You say you use your Notes app to organize what’s up in each conversation. Is that how it goes?
Harris Fanaroff:
For the individual conversations, I use Evernote. That’s how I keep things. I have a folder for each of the people that I talk with, where I put in a lot of work stuff and a lot of personal stuff. Because I want to make sure, hey, John has three kids and I want to check in and make sure how his kids are doing. John’s a Washington Nationals fan and I want to make sure that I’m talking with him about it.
That personal aspect I think makes such a big difference as well and really building those connections. That stuff probably comes up pretty normally in in-person environments. Oh, I see John has a picture with his three kids there, but because I never see John, I need to write that down and to remember it. That’s something that’s been pretty helpful for me to keep things straightforward.
Luis:
That’s a software that I’d like to make. I actually have that Note, on my bucket list, create software for this. I wish someone would make it so I didn’t have to go through the trial, because I’ll probably realistically never get to it. But I found that we have a hundred different CRMs that are all about the same thing. They have those very strict columns about this is cold, this is hot, this is sell, this is et cetera, and I’d like to have that.
But instead of being directed for a very finite sales cycle, just with a lot longer cycle, probably in months or even years, just for relationships, just something that warns me, hey, you haven’t gotten in touch with this person for a long time. Here’s the last thing that you talked about with them. Here’s the kind of stuff that they’re into. Go there and be social. I wish I had a more organic system for that than just the notes.
Harris Fanaroff:
It’s funny. That’s one of my ideas. And to your point, I’m never going to get to that one. I know somebody actually who’s building something specifically for that because it is. I’d love to know if I haven’t reached out to a friend in six months, that means a lot to me, by no means malicious, but it is. There’s so many things going on. But if it just pinged me and said, “Hey, go reach out to Luis. You haven’t talked to him in six months,” I would love that. Oh, and here’s what Luis… I agree with you so much on that. I know somebody who’s building one. I don’t know how far along he is with it, but it does feel like a missed opportunity that I think would help.
Life, in my opinion, is all about relationships. At the end of the day, that’s really all that matters. My most important relationship is with my wife. Family is after that. Friends are after that. And then there’s the work. But really it all is about relationships. That is, to me, everything that really matters. The more strong relationships I can have, the happier I am, the more connected I feel like to this world. I’m all about it. I love that idea. If someone’s building it, let me and Luis know. We’re happy to promote it.
Luis:
All right. What do you say we move on to some rapid fire questions? The questions are rapid fire, but the answers don’t need to be. I’m getting you off the hook on that one. You can expand as much as you’d like.
Harris Fanaroff:
Okay.
Luis:
The first question is physical onboarding packages, overrated or underrated?
Harris Fanaroff:
Underrated. I have a company that I love using. I utilize them all the time. It’s called SwagUp. Those are my friends. Those are my people. If you’re interested in learning more about them, reach out to me. I’m happy to be a reference for them. Super underrated. It feels really cool to get a sweatshirt with your new company that you get to wear all the time on Zooms or in person or a coffee mug. Super underrated in my opinion.
Luis:
We did the coffee mugs for a time and we need to get back to that, because we have some people in the team, not a lot, most people have them, but I want to get everyone their coffee mug. That’s actually a very low cost item that’s pretty cool and people seem to enjoy a lot. For remote work in general, not necessarily for onboarding though, of course, you can point out something for onboarding, what is the most overrated tool? Could be software, could be physical tool in general.
Harris Fanaroff:
The most overrated tool for remote work. This is going to be an interesting response because I think this differs from what I believe two years ago. Two years ago when we were in the middle of the pandemic and people weren’t really getting together, virtual happy hours where people brought a drink were a cool idea. They were fun and it was like, I don’t get to see anybody, so yeah, it’s nice to have a virtual happy hour with my office. I wouldn’t do. I don’t like them.
Nobody that I know likes them. We’ve moved on. Don’t do a virtual happy hour at 5:30 or 6:00 to engage. It’s just not the best way. Find some way that you can be more engaging. Bring in a wine enthusiast to give everybody wine. Just do something more than asking people at 6:00 PM to get on a virtual happy hour. That would be the tool that I would like.
Luis:
I agree with that. I agree with that. I will raise you to birthday parties. I am the grouch in my company that never wants to attend the birthday parties.
Harris Fanaroff:
For the most part, luckily, we’re getting together in person now that we can do that stuff. We’re doing that with friends and family and such. We don’t need the virtual happy hours in my opinion.
Luis:
Agreed. The next question, you probably already guessed it, for remote work in general, the most underrated tool.
Harris Fanaroff:
This is a basic answer, but I think that Slack and/or MS Teams are really, really helpful tools. To be able to quickly send something via Slack or MS Teams rather than have to send an email is a huge difference. The company that I was at before was pretty slow to adopt Slack. And then once we did, it was a pretty big game changer. I know basically everybody is utilizing Slack already or MS Teams or some version. But if you’re not, it makes a huge difference in productivity and ease of use. That’s my basic answer to the question.
Luis:
You’re welcome to disagree. I would say they are correctly rated. I will hold the banner for email for a bit longer and say that I do enjoy the context that an email trail offers, which is not always obvious on Slack. But yes, for general communications, I totally agree.
Harris Fanaroff:
What’s your answer to most underrated tool?
Luis:
The most underrated tool?
Harris Fanaroff:
Yeah.
Luis:
It’s a quality podcast recording microphone. I think that everyone should have them, even if they don’t record podcasts. Because what it allows us to do is have great quality audio, but because it’s also noise-canceling, and unless I have kids running around or something, I don’t actually need to be wearing headphones, which is a huge quality of life improvement if you spend a lot of times on calls.
I think people look at tools like the one I’m using a lot, the Blue Yeti microphone, which I’ve referenced in the show a lot, and they think, “Oh, that’s not for me. I don’t do media. I don’t do content. I don’t do podcasts. I just have meetings.” Don’t underestimate the comfort level and the boost in productivity you will have for not having to wear a headset or headphones for most of the…
Harris Fanaroff:
It’s a great one. It’s a really good one.
Luis:
Anyway, let’s talk a bit about tell me about one of your purchases. What was the purchase that most impacted your work-life balance or productivity, if you prefer that metric, in the last six months? It could be a year as well. Not picky on the timeframe.
Harris Fanaroff:
A tool that has most helped my productivity.
Luis:
Something you bought, right? Something you bought in the last six months, one year that has been a game changer for your work.
Harris Fanaroff:
A good camera. I will say a good external camera to my computer. I had one that was fine, but it was kind of finicky. I’m like, all right, let’s just bite the bullet and get a nice one. You want to be able to show your space. I mean, I’m constantly on Zoom.
Luis:
You have a lovely space. People don’t see because this is an audio show, but you have a nice… I love the living room or dining room in the background. It looks very nice.
Harris Fanaroff:
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, exactly. That’s the dining room table. I would say a nice camera. That would be my answer there.
Luis:
All right, okay. Could you get more specific? We don’t have a sponsorship, but I’m always happy for people to get specific recommendations.
Harris Fanaroff:
Logi, L-O-G-I, HD 1080p is what I use. I think it makes a pretty big difference.
Luis:
That’s a good number of Ps. I agree. What about books? Let’s talk about books for a second. Maybe you want to have specific for onboarding question, but maybe you can also have a more general remote work related question. What is the book that you give out the most, that you hand to people the most, when you say, hey, I think you’d like to read this book if you’re dealing with these things?
Harris Fanaroff:
Two of my favorite books. Actually three of my favorite books. Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi I think is the best networking relationship book that’s out there. I reference it often. I’m a huge fan of Keith’s book. I wrote a long Twitter thread about it that I shared with Keith and he responded, which was a lot of fun. That’s number one. Start With Why by Simon Sinek, one of the classics, all timers as far as leadership. It’s all about people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And then a third one that I don’t know if many people know, it’s called The Third Door by Alex Banayan. I think that’s how you say his last name.
That’s probably my favorite book I’ve ever read because the stories in there are unbelievable. It’s all about this guy’s journey in I think he was in college about how he got to meet some of the most famous people in the world and how it’s all about… In order to do so, you have to go through the third door, not the front, not the back, but there’s a side finicky door that you have to find a way to meet different… It’s just unbelievably good book. Those would probably be my three favorite books that I tend to share and/or tell people about. What about you, Luis?
Luis:
Me, well, I am a stickler for the classics. I’m a very big fan still of How to Win Friends and Influence People. I feel that that book has aged very well, as long as obviously we need to take it in the context that it was written, that industrialization, work in factory, big business context. The book is ultimately about people. If you abstract yourself from that context a little bit and apply the lenses to today, I still think that they are very, very, very valid. Just as a get better at what you do and work ethic, I’m a fan of fiction. I write fiction books. I think there’s a lot that you can learn from fiction. The best career…
Maybe not career, maybe just a craft book that I’ve ever read is Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. I’m probably not saying the name right. It’s been a while, so my Japanese author names aren’t up to speed. But it’s Musashi, the sword-saint of Japan. May be historical, may be fictional, but the historical novel paints a really interesting journey of someone that decided to dedicate their lives to a craft and how that looks like for their whole life. That I think is very interesting. You’ve probably heard of a documentary that’s also about a Japanese dude and as much the same concept, which is Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
That was pretty popular amongst business people a while back. Musashi is a similar kind of story, but on steroids across a thousand or so pages. It’s really quite epic.
Harris Fanaroff:
Interesting.
Luis:
Anyway, those are my recommendations. A final question for you before we close. Let’s say that you are organizing in dinner where you’re getting together the movers and shakers of the tech industry, of the remote work in general. People that are going to have a strong influence on the direction of the future of work. You’re organizing this get together, which I know you like because you’re a very social person, in a Chinese restaurant. As the host of this dinner in a Chinese restaurant, you get to pick the message that goes inside the fortune cookie. What will these people be reading once they crack open their fortune cookies?
Harris Fanaroff:
Be curious, not judgmental. It’s a quote one of my favorite shows ever. Well, I think it came from Winston Churchill, but it’s quoted in my favorite TV show ever, Ted Lasso. Be curious, not judgmental. I have it on the top of my Twitter bio and LinkedIn bio. I love it. Be curious, not judgmental.
Luis:
That’s a great quote. We all know that that 90% of all quotes for all time either come from Winston Churchill or Oscar Wilde. Abraham Lincoln also has a few, right? That’s what the internet does. You can basically assign any quote to one of these three men. But yeah, I love that. I love that. Be curious.
Harris Fanaroff:
Be curious, not judgmental. Try to live by it. When I start to judge, let’s get out the way. Let’s get out on my own way. Let’s get curious about what’s going on with that individual.
Luis:
That’s a great quote to finish on. Thank you so much, and thank you for being a guest. It’s been awesome conversation, though now it’s time to close. Please tell the people, the listeners, how can they continue the conversation, how can they reach out to you, learn more about you, about your projects, and about your company.
Harris Fanaroff:
Thanks so much, Luis. Really enjoyed the conversation. Follow me on Twitter @HarrisFanaroff, LinkedIn @HarrisFanaroff. That’s where I tend to be the most active. I also have a newsletter called The Optimistic Office, where I share ideas to help you and your employees enjoy work more, give different ideas that you can implement into your organization. As I mentioned, we spend 90,000 plus hours of our lives at work. My goal is to make it more enjoyable for those out there. And then I’ve referenced it a couple times, but Activate Onboarding is the organization that I’m the founder of. We do two different things. We have onboarding consulting.
If you want us to take a look at what you have going on from an onboarding process, provide some best practices, some different ideas and we’ll share some reports, that’s one aspect. We also have a software component that is all around giving your new hire a world-class first impression. Essentially you just put them into the platform and they get welcomed in a really, really strong way. We make it as easy as possible for you to do. If you’re interested in either of those aspects, I can be reached at [email protected] or reach out to me on Twitter and LinkedIn. I’m just grateful to be talking with you today, Luis, and really enjoyed the conversation.
Luis:
Yeah, it was awesome. Thank you so much for being a guest. It was my pleasure.
Harris Fanaroff:
Thank you. Talk soon.
Luis:
It was my pleasure to have you here listening to the DistantJob Podcast, your podcast about building and leading awesome remote teams. See you next week.
And so we close another episode of the DistantJob Podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, please, you can help us out by sharing it on social media. That would be great. It’s how we reach more listeners. The more listeners we have, the more awesome guests I can get in touch and convince to participate in these conversations that are a joy to have for me and I hope they’re a joy for you to listen to as well. You can also help a lot leaving reviews on iTunes or your podcast syndication service of choice. Reviews are surprisingly helpful in helping the podcast get to more listeners. Now, another thing that you might want to do is go to distantjob.com/blog/podcast.
Click on your favorite episode, any episode really, and subscribe. By subscribing, you will get a notification whenever a new episode is up and whenever we get the transcripts of the episode up so you can actually peruse the conversations in text form. And of course, if you need to find a great employee for your team, a great remote employee, you should take the whole world into consideration and not just look to hire locally, not just look to hire in your country. Look around the whole world because that’s the talent pool that contains the best talent. To help you with that, again, distantjob.com is the perfect place to start.
You will tell us who you need and we will make sure that you get the best possible candidate 40% faster than the industry standard. And with that, I bid you adieu. See you next week on the next episode of the DistantJob Podcast.
