Onboarding and vacation planning

An exciting and busy week as our team grew by 1. Here's how it all played out.

Happy Monday folks,

Another Monday means another weekly update and hopefully some business motivation.

Let’s jump in:

Story: A new hire and onboarding thoughts

The big news from last week is that we onboarded a new hire at Visto which is always exciting. We aren’t a huge company (yet?) so adding new team members is big for us.

There’s also some pressure this time, because I’m going away in about 3 weeks and we need our new sales hire to be able to handle all of our sales demos by the time I leave (because until now I’ve been doing all of them!). So far all indicators are pointing at him being fully capable of getting there, which is awesome.

I had spent some time a few weeks ago preparing because onboarding is a pretty important part of building your business. You can find the best people in the world, but if you can’t onboard and integrate them well into your company, it may not end well.

Doesn’t necessarily need to be rocket science, but it seems like the 2 keys to good onboarding are 1) educating them so they have the knowledge and tools they need to succeed, and 2) making them feel welcome, supported and appreciated in their new work environment.

Switching jobs can be a major, major change for people, and we always want to make it a smooth transition and a great environment to work in. And especially since we’re fully remote, it’s even more important.

One really good idea one of our advisors gave me was to schedule remote work sessions. So even though none of us are working in the same place, we had a few virtual work sessions last week where we hopped on a video call, muted ourselves and worked away - but it still had that “group work” kind of vibe that was nice.

I’ve even heard of websites or communities that offer this, basically the opportunity to join a video call with a random person so you can have a work session “together” and hold each other accountable.

Just one way we can build a more communal feel even if we’re apart.

Key takeaway: Get creative (and ask for help)

I think one of my strengths is being humble enough to know I’m not that smart and that there are so many amazingly smart people out there. If you surround yourself with them, you’ll never have to guess or work blindly.

In our case, one email to one of our investors who is very experienced in recruitment/HR led to invaluable advice on interviewing and onboarding new hires, especially as a remote company.

Whether you do or don’t have investors, I’d highly recommend networking and establishing relationships with people who have a wide range of backgrounds that fill in your “blanks”.

For example, if you’re experienced in sales, then you should probably know an expert in HR, and marketing, and product. If you’re a technical founder, you should befriend someone who can help with marketing, sales, etc. You get my point.

I’m not saying to do this selfishly - make sure you’re always giving value to those in your network too. But having a quality rolodex that covers a wide range of business topics never hurts…

Content for the week:

As always I made sure to get a weekly vlog out but don’t hold this one against me: I had to record it later at night, and my fiance was blaring Taylor Swift in the background…

I’m about half way through Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World about the bankers at large during the Great Depression. While I’m really enjoying it, it’s a very dense read that is taking me longer than usual.

I’ll try to power through the rest this week.

Thanks as always for following along on my journey and have a great week,

- Josh Schachnow

Canadian immigration lawyer, CEO at Visto.ai

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If you’re looking for more of my help, you can check out:

1. My immigration tech platform, Visto, that helps Canadian immigration firms prep and file applications much quicker.

2. Make sure you’re subscribed on Youtube where I post the weekly vlog and am also posting shorter snippets of my tips/advice as Youtube Shorts!