Amplify Digest: Return to Office Déjà Vu

Written By Lars Schmidt

Subscribe to the Amplify Digest: a weekly newsletter designed to help modern HR operators stay on top of the latest news, trends, and resources in all things people.

Welcome to the Amplify Digest. Every week, I break down five articles in five minutes; discussing the top people news, stories, and resources that are worth your time. Scroll down for links to the articles covered in the video (and more), a helpful thread from the Amplify Accelerator Community, and curated jobs from the Amplify Job Board.

This week’s digest is a special episode explores round three of return to workplace plans, connecting Ukraine refugees with remote jobs, and more.

 
 

Sponsor

The Amplify Digest is sponsored by Greenhouse. As modern HR leaders and professionals, you know that your company’s ability to hire great talent is as important as ever. Whether you need to scale your team quickly, or improve your hiring process, Greenhouse gives you the right technology, know-how, and support to take on what’s next.

 
 
 

Amplify Accelerator Echo Cohort (April 21-May 20)

The Amplify Accelerator is a new approach to building readiness for modern HR and people operators through cohorts (peer-based learning). Designed to build capability and connections, the Amplify cohorts help modern people leaders build the necessary skills and network equity for the new world of work.

Accelerate your HR career and become a more confident people leader, armed with a new global peer community and a toolkit full of actionable advice, resources, templates, and more.

The Echo Cohort runs April 21 - May 20, with live sessions Tuesdays & Thursdays 1:00 - 2:30pm ET.

“The only thing better than the resource library and the world-class speakers is the community, an engaged group of vetted peers from whom I can learn and with whom I can collaborate.” — Claire Kennedy, Axios VP of People Operations

 
 

NEW: ✨ Amplify Community Wisdom ✨

The Amplify Accelerator Community was specifically designed to help modern people operators expand their networks, thinking, and connections. Each week, I'll spotlight a helpful thread from the Community to help Amplify Digest subscribers learn from the discussions.

[Question] Curious how your organizations communicate leaves, particularly voluntary leaves. Do you allow employees to share organization-wide and celebrate or is it done more at the department level? This seems to be a sensitive topic. I like to lean into celebrating employees, especially tenured and if they are moving on to a better opportunity, however, some of our leadership feel differently and tend to want to protect how these things are shared. We're a 70 person organization. Thoughts or approaches that have been successful for your organizations?

  • A1: We communicate resignations during the company All-hands (bi-weekly) so everyone is aware. On behalf of the company, we organize a farewell gathering and every team member is welcome to join. Usually, peers from the same team and main stakeholders from other orgs participate.

  • A2: We communicate all exits (voluntary or involuntary) on Slack, which is our internal comms channel. We allow exiting employees (even involuntary) to craft their slack message and then the manager approves it before it goes on Slack. In rare occasions where the exit is truly sensitive, our leadership or manager communicates it instead of the departing staff. This way the whole organization is aware and able to celebrate/or thank the departing staff member for their contributions and wish them well. Teams and managers organize virtual good-bye calls as well where anyone can join and say a few words, play a game, share appreciation etc.

  • A3: For us, a lot is dependent on tenure and who it is. We are a much bigger company (5k) so we can’t recognize everyone . At our corporate office, a celebration is not as common, but, smaller team and department farewell lunches are. I’m a big fan of these. We will send out company-wide notes when either a long tenured or highly visible person leaves. It’s very short and the purpose is more so for awareness. I think it’s also important to take into the consideration of what the person who is leaving wants. I have found some teams try way too hard to do a nice send off when the person really just wants to gracefully leave quietly.

  • A4: We communicate all leaves in our weekly People & Culture Update, but department leaders also announce leaves in our weekly 15 minute stand on Friday mornings. This is true for both voluntary and involuntary leaves - but we keep the language high level so the reason behind the leave is not apparent. Department leaders and/or managers also have the discretion to do a virtual send off or pass around a virtual card.

  • A5: I love that your team shares weekly people and culture updates, it's something I've been thinking about as well (well, monthly ones). Can I please ask for a few examples of the sort of stuff/news you guys share? So many thanks!!

  • A6: Here is a copy of each update I sent out for the month of February. It’s not super fancy, but folks have responded really well to this. I use the same format every week to keep it simple for myself and predictable for our staff (Learning Resource, Quick Links, Announcements - I try to include a benefit highlight here, New Hires & Transitions, ShoutOuts)

  • A7: Thank you so much for sharing! You truly inspired me to create something similar and also finds way to show/communicate to our people that our roles mean so much more than just employment related processes. Your P&C update is amazing and I can see why people respond so positively to it. Thank you for inspiring me and million thanks again for sharing!!

You can learn more about the Amplify Accelerator Community in this post or by clicking the button below. 

 
 
 
Lars Schmidt
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