How Notion Uses Its Software to Improve Experiences Within the People Team With Notion Head of People Ops Maryanne Caughey
In this episode of Redefining HR, I’m joined by Maryanne Caughey, head of people ops at Notion. We are discussing her role at Notion, what she learned from scaling and growing their operations, what it was like joining a new company just a few months into the pandemic and how Notion’s software is improving their people team.
Like most HR professionals today, Maryanne didn’t start her career in the HR space. She began her career at Google in the sales department. She moved into a sales position at Dropbox that allowed her to shift into recruiting. While her career started in sales, the people space wasn’t far from her mind. “I’ve always been passionate about the people space,” Maryanne says. “Even before I went into sales, it was always something that was always very fascinating and interesting to me.”
Maryanne—who is the person that sits next to a stranger on the bus and strikes up a conversation to learn more about them—soon gravitated into the HR and people space. She now works to improve the people experience for Notion’s team and other businesses.
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Ep 116: How Notion is Improving Experiences Within the People Team with Maryanne Caughey
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What is Notion?
Notion is an all-in-one workspace that helps companies combine all their notes, docs, wikis, projects, and team projects in one accessible place. The platform is customizable to meet the specific needs of the companies and individuals who use it.
Maryanne explains, “You can make them all customizable to fit your needs as a user. So if you’re an individual user or you’re an enterprise business, you can really tailor the software to meet your specific needs.” Notion is dedicated to allowing its users to shape the tools that shape their lives.
Using Their Software to Improve Their People Experiences
In the current job market, candidates are taking a deeper dive into the jobs they apply for. They don’t just want to know what the job entails—they want to know who the company is. Most candidates resort to scouring the Internet for bits and pieces of information. But at Notion, the company uses its own software to ensure candidates find everything they need in one place.
When done right, recruiting is a “matchmaking process” that allows companies to be transparent with candidates about their values and mission, empowering potential employees to make the best long-term career choices for themselves.
At Notion, the company uses its software platform for almost everything within the people team. Notion has established a home base for key documents such as their mission, values, OKRs, product roadmap and more. In addition to essential documents, Maryanne shares that the team also has “people-specific pages.” These pages create numerous benefits for the Notion team, including building a stronger sense of community, connecting with more coworkers, getting involved with affinity groups, and more.
“We try to keep it as diligently, updated as possible. So that way, everyone can really take part of the whole culture and experience of being at Notion,” she says.
Maryanne’s Top Notion Templates
Notion is customizable to fit an enterprise’s or individual’s needs, so it’s only fitting that the platform has a gallery filled with a variety of templates for customer use. And, of course, Maryanne is constantly using them with her own team.
A few of Maryanne’s favorite templates are:
Applicant tracker: This tracker allows people to track their progress throughout the day or week. “I’m one of those personalities that loves to be able to check off, like what I have accomplished over a given day,” she says.
New hire onboarding: This template helps create a better and smoother onboarding experience for new hires and ensures “employees are looked after in their first 90 days at the company.”
Careers page: This showcases all aspects of the company’s culture, and gives users the ability to add and update roles as needed.
Process docs: A searchable hub for team processes.
Job board: Users can create their own job boards. “So you can actually make your own career site, and you can track how candidates are going through your process,” Maryanne explains.
These are only a few of the templates that Notion has available. But enterprises and individuals can find a template for just about anything on the platform, courtesy of Notion’s online community. “Almost anything you could imagine probably exists as a template that’s been curated by this amazing community of Notion users,” she says.