I’m the Recruitment Communications Manager at Boldly. I lead our efforts to attract and hire our talented team members!

How big is it? ‍

The recruitment and communications team is made up of 5 people including myself. We have 3 people working directly in the application and hiring process, and 1 person that leads our social media and internal communications content.  ‍

Where are your teammates located?‍

My team is located throughout the US and Europe! I’m in North Carolina and my team is in Colorado, New Jersey, and France. Our company as a whole is headquartered out of New York and has 150+ team members located throughout the US, UK, Europe, and Canada. ‍

What does your team do? What are you responsible for?‍

The focus of our team is to recruit and hire highly skilled executive assistants. This begins with developing marketing and communications initiatives to raise awareness about our open positions. We aim to be very transparent about our company culture and what employees can expect when they join the team. It continues with managing the applicant screening and interview process so that we identify candidates who share similar values and who would excel as part of the team!  We try really hard to ensure that every applicant has a positive experience regardless of the outcome.

First and foremost - hire people who share your values, because those values make your company culture!

At Boldly, we are very intent on hiring team members who are kind with a positive outlook on life - and who are passionate about service and going the extra mile. Imagine the work environment you get when you put together 150 people whose default behavior is the sort of friendly positivity and kindness that leads to lots of laughter! It makes for how we communicate together, and for how we support each other to succeed. ‍

Second, keep it human! This is often easier done when “in-person” because when you spend all day in an office with someone, you get to know them beyond work. So as a remote company, keeping it personal takes extra attention. We have tons of ways that our team stays connected on a daily basis - whether that’s through our online watercooler or by participating in a virtual meet-up or a fundraiser - we even have a company mascot that travels the world to visit each member of the team and then they and their family share their experience! It’s a fun way to introduce ourselves to each other.

But beyond the “fun and games” - keeping it human for us is about caring deeply about the individual beyond work. All of our team are assigned a Team Leader - someone that they get to know and trust and someone who’s got their back when the going gets tough - a bit like a friend that they can talk to!‍

And lastly - if you are serious about a great company culture - give it some resources! At Boldly we have a Chief of Cheer and a Chief of Happiness who play an active role in engaging with our team and keeping our remote culture buzzing! Our next event is a Virtual Christmas Cocoa Party!

Good managers influence employee happiness in a multitude of ways. It starts with building trust through open and transparent communication and in a remote environment, it’s usually best done with “over” communicating!

It then follows by providing every employee with measurable goals and clear expectations and the tools and resources for how they can do their best work. Our team is highly qualified, many of them with 15 and even 20+ years of experience, so oftentimes we find that helping someone be happy and engaged at work is simply to listen and be a sounding board.

And perhaps the ultimate measure of whether you have a happy team is their longevity with the company - many of our team have been with us since our inception in 2012 and, every month, we continue to celebrate many long term anniversaries!

My biggest challenge as a remote leader is “turning off” work. When your work life and your home life are in the same location, it’s easy for the two to become blurred if you don’t stick to a schedule. To help me unplug when I am not at work I will snooze notifications and get out of the house. I like to go for a walk every afternoon and I find that helps me transition from work to family time.

One of my favorite team building activities was launching a t-shirt campaign to raise funds for Direct Relief in support of our amazing frontline workers. Our team all submitted t-shirt taglines and then voted for the top 3. The winning taglines got a special prize and were then turned into new swag. Everyone received a new shirt on us and we matched the price of their shirt plus any additional purchases with a donation to Direct Relief. 

We celebrate just about anything and everything from birthdays to baby showers (yes on Zoom!!). In the past year we have had holiday parties, a virtual easter egg hunt, game night, luau celebration, themed lunches (bring your pet!), Halloween costume share, and more!

We work hard, but we also love to have fun. Everyone always enjoys a good game of scavenger hunt where we give them a list of items, themed around the celebration, to go find in their home and bring back. Whoever brings back the most items wins! 

And a blind drawing contest is always fun - just make sure your team knows to bring a blind fold to the party!

For 1:1 meetings we always start with a check in on how they are doing before engaging in any business work. For larger meetings we will have a quick icebreaker, such as a “would you rather” question. Next time you meet with your team, ask them “would you rather get rid of one bad habit or get three new good habits?” - you’ll be surprised at the responses!

Boldly has its very own Chief of Cheer who helps coordinate all the fun! Our watercooler is always filled with fun questions, photos and trivia!

I’m always researching and reading! Some of my favorite resources for news in the remote work space are Harvard Business Review, Forbes Magazine, and the blog at FlexJobs. I also think it’s important to stay up to date with what’s happening on social media and LinkedIn Learning is a phenomenal resource for professionals of all levels.