🗞️ Hot off the press: our new employee experience newsletter
June 4, 2021
Today is a special day for us at Back. We're launching our own newsletter focused on employee experience. Why? Because we can all need some inspiration on how to navigate the current wave of change in the workplace. 🌊
Remote and hybrid models are changing the world of work for good. Chat and real-time collaboration are taking teams by storm. And losing talent is more costly than ever. Now's the time to shine for everyone whose work affects the employee experience.
Let's not just try to survive this wave of change. Let's surf it like pros. 🏄
As our humble contribution, we'll share what we learned, wrote, and created. Enjoy reading the first issue of this newsletter – and let us know what you think!
All the best,
Maresch from Back
All the best,
Alex from Back
New from Back
POLICIES
Write down these 8 HR policies before even thinking about growth
Growing pains. If you've ever worked in a fast-growing company, you've experienced them. Some are inevitable. But the right rules and guidelines can ward off many disasters. Policies also help shape the employee experience. After all, they exist not only to impose rules but to create fairness and help people confidently navigate their work-life. Based on conversations with HR leaders and consultants, here are eight policies worth putting in writing.
COMMUNICATION
No one reads your employee handbook. Here’s what to do instead.
Wait, hear us out on this one. We're not saying your handbook is useless. It probably does some things really well: explain your company's mission, lay out your values, and so on. But most handbooks are overloaded with policies for every edge case, making it hard for (new) employees to remember any of them. In this article, we make the case for creating a hierarchy of information that takes every employee's intent and context into account.
What we learned
Most workplaces are still not LQBTQ-friendly enough. With about half of LGBTQ people experiencing conflict or discrimination at work, fostering a culture of allyship is key. (Not just during Pride Month, by the way.) [The Conversation]
There's a list of companies going fully remote, hybrid, or back to the office. You can find out about post-COVID reopenings at Asana, Coinbase, Google, etc. [Range]
Employees have a dystopian vision of the future of work. In contrast, business leaders anticipate a bright technology-enabled future. For companies, bridging this digital disconnect will be a key challenge to solve. [Citrix]
Letting employees pick their WFH days can amplify inequality. Hybrid teams are prone to generate a "home out-group" that gets passed over on promotions. That's why Stanford University researchers are in favor of letting managers decide which days their team should work from home. [HBR]
There's no one-size-fits-all approach to career progression. The People team at Whereby shared how they developed a progression framework that aligns with their unique values and compensation philosophy. [Whereby]
The freelancer experience deserves more attention. Gig work is on the rise, but HR teams are yet to rethink their operating model with the whole workforce in mind. [Forbes]
Overheard on Twitter
People ops jobs
🇺🇸 Director, People at SoundCloud (NYC or LA)
🇺🇸 People Operations Manager at ParcelLab (NYC/remote)
🇬🇧 People + Culture Partner at Unleashed (London/remote)
🇩🇪 People Experience Business Partner at Staffbase (Chemnitz, Dresden, or Berlin)
🇩🇪 People Operations Specialist at Marley Spoon (Berlin)
Want your job opening featured here? Just reply to this email!
See you next time 👋
This newsletter is brought to you by Back. Back helps companies provide a seamless employee experience by giving them easy access to the support they need – from onboarding journey to parental leave request to payroll question.
Know someone who'd enjoy this newsletter? Invite them to sign up here.
