I’m a Senior Manager at Rock Content, a global leader providing content marketing solutions. I lead the Talent Network team.

Our team serves Rock Content’s vetted freelance talent pool of content marketing creative professionals that help clients generate more revenue and grow brand awareness. We provide educational content, business best practices tips and networking opportunities to help freelancers grow their businesses and delight clients. ‍

How big is it?‍

Currently we have three teams - Talent Admissions, Talent Neighborhood & Talent Growth. We have four full-time people on each team and leverage Rock Content’s network of 80,000 freelancers.‍

Where are your teammates located?‍

We’re in the U.S. & Brazil.‍

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

Freelancers are at the heart of everything we do. We’re responsible for freelance talent having a great experience and successfully growing their businesses on Rock Content. 

Specifically - we’re responsible for finding great new talent, vetting them & helping them get set up for success. We provide one-on-one business support to freelancers working with Enterprise Clients when they need it. We also manage the talent blogs, community, educational content & networking opportunities. Basically, we support all things freelancer –with the exception of providing general product support, which is handled by our customer support team.

Communication norms and practices are the heart of a strong remote culture and a few things I focus on are:

1. Vision, mission & values are clear. People understand the impact their work makes.
2. Over communicate. Put yourself out there and proactively make and foster connections. 
3. Create a team culture where people take extra time to get to know each other. Personally, be curious and care about your team members. And help them connect with each other, too. Foster opportunities for small talk at the beginning or end of your team meetings. Use an ice breaker sometimes. Be mindful of how the way you arrange work impacts team relationships.

First, I strive to hire people who are passionate about their work. And, who have a vision for how their immediate work fits in with their long-term goals. When these values and vision are aligned, the employee and company growth opportunities are also aligned – which helps people to be happy & engaged with their work.

Wouldn’t trade my remote, global team for anything. Still, I’d love to see them more!

We have team parties, use ice-breakers, and other online activities and events.

We do. Having a host with Jackbox Party games has been the most popular.

It’s too hard to choose! Our most recent ice breaker was “favorite Karaoke song”.

We use our communication tools - Slack, email, and meetings to build culture and morale.

Definitely. I’m always learning. My favorite recent book is The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth about Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller. It provides great tools, techniques and insights about how to achieve more by focusing on what matters most.