Episode 32: Remote HR with Federica Gianoglio - Mo Resumes, Mo Problems

Federica Gianoglio: 0:00

Instead of focusing on past experiences, it's rather better to just focus on potential on how well a person would perform in a possible position in our company.

Kyle Roed: 0:14

This is the rebel HR podcast. If you're a professional looking for innovative, thought provoking information in the world of human resources, this is the right podcast for you. All right, Rebel HR listeners, I'm extremely excited for today's guest, we are speaking with Federica genovia. It's a really fun name to say. She is the HR success manager for pearl lemon, and she has never met one of her employees. So today we're going to be talking all about remote work, how to make it work, and the new normal. So welcome to the show. Federica

Federica Gianoglio: 0:59

Hi. Thank you for having me.

Kyle Roed: 1:02

Well, I'm so excited for for today's conversation. And and I'm just fascinated to hear more about, about your organization and your story. So why don't we start off? Why don't you tell me a little bit about how you got into the field of human resources?

Federica Gianoglio: 1:17

Yeah, sure, I'm really happy to share my experience, even if I'm quite new to the field of HR. But I think it's really interesting to share in particular, this, this journey that I'm still living with her lemon, I joined her lemon seven months ago, and I was hired as the HR success manager. So that means that was mostly focused on the development of the team. That means ensuring progress both for each individual as well as the overall team, then I soon switch to head of HR, because I was in charge of everything related to human resources. So that means recruitment, building new company processes, building, organizing, training, materials, managing onboarding of more than doing a bit of project management, a lot of stuff. And yeah, and as you mentioned, I am actually managing, let's say, quite a small team, that is 100% remote, the company I work for per lemon has always been entirely remote. So that means we never really get to meet the people we work with closely every day. And if you do meet some people, you're quite lucky. And that's super interesting to meet up at last. But to me, it never happened. And I'm really happy to actually experienced this feeling because it's quite unusual, isn't it? But I'm actually enjoying it because you see that it's a completely different way to connect with people. And it's very powerful. And because especially nowadays, we have the tools and means to just be connected despite being really far from each other.

Kyle Roed: 3:05

Yeah, that's, that's fascinating. So how many people do you have living within different countries? I mean, is it? Is it completely international? Do you have people focused around a certain geographic area? How do you approach that?

Federica Gianoglio: 3:20

Actually, we are all based in different parts of the world. So we have people coming from anywhere in the world, literally. Usually, we have people in at least 10 different time zones. So time zones is actually a big thing that we need to consider when dealing with team members, but also clients. And it's super interesting when you are working on something and then you go into bed and you see people waking up at that same time. And then the other way around when you wake up other people just ended their day. So yeah, we have people in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, in in in America, of course everywhere. Yeah, I

Kyle Roed: 4:02

can I can relate to the timezone issue coming from an international company myself. It's it's certainly is is something that you have to be thoughtful about. So as you as you look at timezone, do you do you have regular work hours that you set people up for? How do you how do you approach that?

Federica Gianoglio: 4:21

That is actually something that makes us quite unique? I think, because we don't have set work hours exactly for this reason. That means we we are able to work whenever we feel like no matter at what time we are always going to find someone else working with us. So we just have to achieve a set amount of work hours per week. And then if we want to work in the morning, in the afternoon, at night, it's really up to us.

Kyle Roed: 4:54

gotta believe that's, that's a challenge to manage. So as the HR successful Manager do you manage the actual like that the time work? Do you track the time work to kind of manage that in your role? Or what's your role in it?

Federica Gianoglio: 5:09

Yeah, we all so everybody in the team just keeps track of their working hours so that we can share that every day. So one of the ways that we we just keep in contact is by updating each other twice a day, every single day. So that means whenever you are starting to work, you're going to just say hi to the team, and then you're going to say, I'm going to start working so that everyone is is is aware of what the timezone, what the time is where you are. So you start by saying, okay, it's the same in this country or this time zone, so that everybody knows, okay, now I am active, no matter what the time is for other people, and you can reach out to me, at the end of the working day, it's the same thing, we send another message so that everybody is aware, I'm signing off, I'm not available anymore until the next day, unless there's anything urgent, but that is, let's say, an unspoken rule. But yeah, that is actually the way we keep each other updated, so that we are respectful of everybody's working hours and rest moments.

Kyle Roed: 6:27

Interesting. So. So you mentioned that you're relatively new into the field of Human Resources. As you look at, you know, the career opportunities ahead of you. What about human resources is something you enjoy?

Federica Gianoglio: 6:40

Yeah, it is actually something really interesting for me, and learning and in this environment has been super important, because I really got the feeling that sometimes it's not as complicated as it seems. But I also know that there are challenges I want to work on. So by keeping this in mind, I'm like, do I want to invest my time and energy on this? Yeah, I think so. Who knows what's going to happen in the future, but because you see how things progress in such a limited amount of time, for example, in seven months have seen things have been really, things have changed a lot. Things were completely different since I first joined the company. And I'm happy to just see the change and know that I contributed to that, because I was actively actively working on specific challenges.

Kyle Roed: 7:43

So your organization is is, you know, an interesting business model, the decision to go full remote. Across the board, was that a decision from the beginning of the company? Or was it driven by COVID-19, and some of the things happening in the world in 2020,

Federica Gianoglio: 8:06

it was actually, since the very, very beginning, when Deepak Shukla, the founder of pearl lemon, decided to just start his own business. It started with a different brand name, and then it became pearl lemon officially in 2018. And he's always wanted to be able to work from anywhere in the world, because he was already traveling a lot and may be living in different areas of the world. And he was like, I don't want to give up on my business. And it's actually the same for everybody. And with this mindset, it's, it's really interesting to see that everybody that decides to join the company, starts from the same perspective from the same expectations from this point of view. So that means it's, it's different from a company that has switched to working from home suddenly, or because it was a decision that they really wanted to make for a while and not because of COVID. But in our case, it's different because you don't really have people struggling with understanding how working remotely works. Because, you know, this is what you wanted. This is what we offer. And this was, this is what you have. Absolutely.

Kyle Roed: 9:24

Yeah. So so clear expectations out front. It sounds like Yeah, yeah. I'm curious to maybe dive into into this process a little bit more. And one of the areas that you know, full, full disclosure, one of the biggest challenges that I've ran into, in, in this post pandemic world has been how do I how do I interview people and select the right talent and work through HR issues without actually sitting in a room with somebody it's really hard to for me because I'm not used to it. to gauge how somebody's feeling and interpret their nonverbal communication, and you know, all of these really, really important cues that we use in human resources. So, so I'm curious to understand, maybe First of all, when you get a an application, how do you make sure that you pick the right people for your organization?

Federica Gianoglio: 10:28

That is a super interesting question. Because I completely agree with the fact that verbal communication is fundamental when you're trying to communicate with someone. And you may wonder, okay, how do you do that, if you can barely see the person where it's true that these days, we have a lot of tools that keep us in contact. So that means that I can get to see the person that's in front of me, even if not entirely, it's still a nice picture of the other person, knowing how they just use the body language, the tone, etc. So talking about how prolamin recruits, it's super interesting, because our recruitment process is quite unique. And I've had people telling me that they hated it, and all the people loved it. So how does 411 recruit their team members? We have built a process that is step by step, but I will just focus on the main part that I think is super interesting. We value people being on the same level whenever they introduce themselves to us. And to do that, you want to ensure that everybody goes through the same user experience? How do you do that we built an application form that allows people to give us the same information. So this is the real, let's say, the the, the first point of contact with us that makes us understand, okay, who is in front of us? And then what may be surprising is that among the questions, yes, we do ask people to give us the usual contact details, the resume, etc. But we don't look at any CV. The reality is that we do this, because we want to give people the opportunity to introduce themselves in a more natural way. And because we are not able to see each other, then we decided to, to give people the opportunity to, to just record themselves. So video interviewing is a very well, interesting, in my opinion, way of interviewing people, but it's not like you hop on a call at the same time you give the candidates the possibility to just prepare themselves, and decide how they want to present themselves in front of the new company that they may not really know. And they may not even just know what what to expect from us. But from their point of view, it has been usually a funny, entertaining experience, because it really gives them the opportunity to stand out from the crowd be themselves and not really just stay behind our cover letter that is usually pretty cold. So this is really a way to have a warm mirror. Hello, and introduction video to prolamin

Kyle Roed: 13:46

got it so so if I'm hearing you correct you you have a be like, like a YouTuber, and they give you a resume that way

Federica Gianoglio: 13:55

basically, yes. Yeah, yeah, it's super fun for us to because you really see people that do everything they can to achieve their goals. And I've seen amazing videos really.

Kyle Roed: 14:12

So I gotta ask so what what's the like the best one you've seen? Is it like like special effects and explosions? Or like what's what kind of things are you seeing?

Federica Gianoglio: 14:21

More or less? That is what I what I saw, you know, you don't have an expectation. You're like, Okay, let me open the video. I don't know who the person is, what they're going to do. And some people really created made a short film like a short film with themselves being two characters and talking to the to the other character. So that was super, super fun because you really see the person interviewing themselves. So it was that was like very, very fun. And it really shows how, like what the workout is how motivated people are passionate They are about something that they really want to get like a new job opportunity.

Kyle Roed: 15:07

That's Yeah, thank you a lot of ways with that, you know, whether it's a split personality disorder, you know that. Yeah, that could be that could that would be really interesting. And I can only imagine some of the videos that you might see. So this is this is interesting because we were talking about this with a previous podcast guest. And talking about, you know, doing a video video interview with Mark, Mark Miller, one of our previous guests, who's an HR technologist, and one of the questions that I have is how do you prevent exclusionary hiring if somebody's maybe not comfortable with with videography, or, or editing that? Do you have any any thoughts on on how to address maybe that concern?

Federica Gianoglio: 15:59

Yeah, so before I mentioned this video that impressed me because of, of course, the video edits, and also the, just the imagination, the creativity that this person has used. But that is not the only thing that we value, because we totally understand that some people may not be keen on video editing, they may not be that good. But that is not important. It's just a plus, if you really can edit, it's just about being in front of our camera and talk about yourself a little bit of why you want to get that job, why you want to be with that company specifically. And just anything that comes to mind. So what we value in this case is really how the person wants to present themselves, how they try to maybe even deal with their possible anxiety or feeling of just being uncomfortable in front of a camera talking alone, we totally get that. And that is completely fine. As long as you see that people are willing to try. This is super important at prolamin, our company, willingness to learn willingness to just give it a go. Because at the end of the day, nothing bad is going to happen. And if anything, you're just going to show how much you try, despite some challenges,

Kyle Roed: 17:30

that that makes sense. Are you hiring or a lot of the position to hiring for creative?

Federica Gianoglio: 17:36

We do some, in some cases, because we hire for design and video editing, for example. But also, writing implies a bit of creative thinking anything is about creative thinking, for creating solutions. So thinking outside the box is really well, it's a it's a plus in my opinion.

Kyle Roed: 18:01

Sure, sure. So if I could sum this up, I'm just what I'm hearing is okay, by doing a video, you're not necessarily judging them on, you know, whether it's, you know, a, you know, hollywood level production. But But you're, you're judging them on a few things, is what I'm hearing. So one, you're judging them on, how much do they actually want this job? Because they're taking the time to do the video? How much thought did they actually put into it? And and how much creativity went into the project in mind? Am I interpreting that correctly?

Federica Gianoglio: 18:33

Yes, that's exactly the case. And also, it's a matter of understanding if what they say seems to be true. So whenever you're saying something, or you're writing something, you don't get the body language, the tonality, or anything that makes you understand that what you're saying can be true. For example, you cannot say, I'm good at selling stuff. I'm not really a good salesperson with a flattened it. So there is something that allows recruiters to understand, okay, what is this person trying to say? They're trying to say, Okay, I can tell you stuff, but you kind of say like that. So it really is a way to reveal potential of people.

Kyle Roed: 19:21

Sure. It's like asking somebody, you know, are you creative? Yes, I am creative. Wow, great question. Get a little more data with you with a video that's, that's interesting. You know, I haven't I haven't I haven't done that in my career, but I'm so fascinated. Do you make him sign a release so that if you get a really good video, you can like, like, put it on social media be like, check out this awesome video we just got done. Why not? I'm sure there's a privacy issue there. I'm

Federica Gianoglio: 19:56

sure GDPR is all over that. So yeah, no, I'm sure that's probably So I'm sure about that. But I also feel like some people would love for us to post it. Because after that much commitment at fourth, why not? Why not using it? But But yeah, of course, we're not going to do it. Usually it's just the HR team checking it, and no one else.

Kyle Roed: 20:19

Sure, yeah, you're the privacy officers wouldn't like that very much. Yeah, exactly. So going in the same topic, one of the things we were talking about, before we hit record was the fact that you don't use a CV or a resume at all, how does that work?

Federica Gianoglio: 20:35

Yeah. So as I mentioned, we decided not to do that, because, well, first of all, you read, you see a lot of case studies of companies. Okay, we're not looking at any CV. So the first reaction is really okay, how does that work? How is it possible? But then if you really think about it, there are tons of reasons why CV are not as important anymore. What happens is that we used to see the CV as the not the only way of introducing for a candidate to introduce themselves to a company. But it has it used to have a really important place in the recruitment process, we don't want to give that much of importance to past experiences, because sometimes you really miss out on talent. So you need to consider a lot of, well, usually what happens is that you have a CV, you know that, that is the first impression that you're going to give the person so you will know, first impressions count. So how do you do that CV just encourage people to embellish them. So I usually summarize this as two possible scenarios can come up, first, people start lying, or just giving misleading information about themselves. And that is not really helpful, because usually recruiters may have different expectations, then what what a candidate really is. And second, the second possible scenario is in case someone is not really good at marketing themselves. So they are not even as good as presenting what they know. So you may, you may think of people who gain practical knowledge experience just by doing and not really by attending a specific course or university. And it will just put them in a disadvantaged place if you focus on the CV only. So, at the end of the day, when whenever, when you're looking at CVS, it takes time to just go through it and understand, even understand what what does that mean, what does that experience can mean if we put this candidate into our organization. So we think that instead of focusing on past experiences, it's rather better to just focus on potential on future on how well a person would perform in a possible position in our company, that is more important, because we want to give, we want to value no skills, and the word cast it is more.

Kyle Roed: 23:32

So if you if you'll humor me, I want to do a little bit of a, an exercise here, because I think one of the points that you call out is really critical. And that's somebody's ability to market themselves. And so, you know, I first of all, I think resumes are, they're a data point. But if you are using just the resume to determine whether to hire somebody or not you you're totally missing, missing the point. And so I want to do a quick, quick exercise. So, so Federica, tell me something about your, your current job that you do. That's super boring, but it's like just something that you do on a regular basis.

Federica Gianoglio: 24:10

Yes. So if I think about something that I do on a daily basis, it's checking all emails.

Kyle Roed: 24:20

Sure. So Okay, so here's, so here's where I'm going with this. And, you know, as we think about like, resumes or CVS, it is so much about just how you how you put things in there and the buzzwords that you use a lot of times, it truly does not reflect somebody's performance. And here's my example checking emails, right. So if I were writing a resume, the way I would tell people that I check emails every day is I interpret and synthesize data in a context rich environment to ensure that I respond to my internal customers needs which is a good Absolute bs way to say I check email. Yeah, but that's I think that's exactly the point. Right? It's like, so the people that are good at that, and you know, have a natural skill for understanding, you know, either written or verbal communication, typically, are extroverted aren't necessarily always the best employees?

Federica Gianoglio: 25:23

Yeah. 100% Yeah.

Kyle Roed: 25:26

Yeah. So so I'm with you, I think. And I think it's one of those things. It's a it's a point of caution. If you do use a CV or resume, you know, it, just use it as a data point. It's not the end all be all for individuals. And yeah, give me hard work all day long. And, and the ability to learn. And that's a winning combination in my mind.

Federica Gianoglio: 25:50

Yes. 100%. Agree. Yeah.

Kyle Roed: 25:55

Thanks for humoring me. So I want to dig into to your last comment a little bit more. So you talked about gathering feedback? And and and then taking action on that feedback? How do you do that? When you're not face to face? How do you enable that feedback mechanism? And then how do you respond when there are challenges and issues that come your way.

Federica Gianoglio: 26:20

So feedback is super important, in general, especially if you are a remote team. And when I say that, it's because we want people to feel more connected. And especially if you encourage team members that never met in person, and that maybe at the beginning, they don't even really know each other. If you encourage them to give each other constructive feedback, it's a way to connect on something that they both know, or if someone doesn't know what they're working on, it's a way to just get to know the other person. And that allows people to just be engaged with what they're doing first, and also with the, with another person or with the overall team. So this is something that we we do quite often, or let's say quite regularly, it doesn't have to be, let's say on a daily basis. But we spend some time to just show other people what we do. Because if you're not in the same office, you don't necessarily know what other people in your team are working on. So a way to do that is just by recording the screen for a few minutes while you speak. And you show people what you do. You don't tell people you do you show them. Because we are working remotely, we are all working on the laptop. So we just spend our our day. And we do our task on the laptop. And from there, you simply record what you're doing. And you explain to someone else and you show to someone else what you're doing. It may happen that by encouraging this feedback, the other person may say, Okay, you know what, I can do that. But in a quicker and easier way, let me show you. So that is something that pushes and encourages interaction. So that is one way we give feedback. If I have, for example, to collect feedback on something that is just involved in the overall team, what I would do, I would just message people one by one. So that might take quite a while to just collect ideas, but is really, really powerful because you let people talk freely, because you're not going to judge them. And you want to just encourage feedback for improvement. You see how people may not have been able, let's say, in during an event or a meeting or a training session, to say, Okay, this wasn't as clear. Okay, let me organize that. And let me make sure that this is going to improve next time. So to summarize, feedback that we exchange among people over a remote team is by sharing comments related to a video screen via a video recording of your work. By just while using WhatsApp. We use WhatsApp a lot for instant communication, or we create forums that is more formal, more structured for just collecting ideas that we want to possibly take and keep long term.

Kyle Roed: 29:37

Yeah, that's interesting. That's been one of the one of the more challenging aspects of of, you know, working from home and in some of the remote work has been has been gathering that feedback. The The other challenge I'm curious, if you are have any examples of this is dealing with conflict in the workplace and you know, I think conflict can be Very healthy if it's managed in a healthy way, and managed appropriately but but one of the things that I've noticed is it's it's really easy for conflict to occur that doesn't need to occur because people aren't in the same room together or don't understand the the context of comments that were made. So how do you work through conflict management, as a as an HR professional managing people you've never been in the same room with?

Federica Gianoglio: 30:32

Well, I think the first way to address this is by trying to prevent conflicts to happen from happening. So, if you know that, if you kind of expect some miscommunication to happen and to cause more problems are we trying to do is to really show that transparency is fundamental here. So by setting friendly and informal environment, we let people be free to say, Hey, this is not working, before actually getting into the conflictual situation that is harder to deal with, whenever it has to happen, that there is something harder to just manage, then we take the time to do a video call with the people interested and try to sort things out by understanding from the beginning, what is happening, what, what is making you feel this specific situations, and so on. So we don't really do many, many vehicles, because we think that vehicles should be a valuable moment for you and the other team member, because you are in different time zones, you are all super busy, you may have other other responsibilities. So whenever you you do this video call is really to, to spend to make the most of that time. And usually, by just addressing the problem or asking the good questions, then you get to solve the problem. Because, of course, anything can happen. And the I think among the biggest challenges that I have had to deal with, it's really understanding what is happening, and in the team when you're not there. So that is something that I found really challenging, because it's different from when you are in the office, and you can simply walk in the office, and you can feel something's wrong. So how can you do that when you are remote? So rather than the actual conflict is understanding when there is conflict? So as soon as you feel something is wrong, something is off, you may just go to the person. Okay, let's have a chat. And when you have that chat, it's quite serious or quite important to share that moment and make sure things are ease and sold when the call and

Kyle Roed: 33:09

interesting. Yeah, I'm sure that you know, that's that's been a challenge that many of the HR professionals that listen to this, I'm sure have dealt with is the you know, that, that conflict management dealing with somebody who may be, you know, has a has a workplace concern, and not being able to be face to face, it just makes it makes it challenging. I've I've one one interesting question here. So I noticed that your, your LinkedIn profile says you're learning how to play the Columbo. What is it Columbo?

Federica Gianoglio: 33:42

Oh, I was wondering what the question was, Oh, actually, the Columbo is an instrument that allows you to just play. It's like so you have keys, think of a piano. But they're not like that also, because the way you play them is with your with your thumbs only. So it's a super small object that you keep in your hand. And the sound is super interesting is it's just super funny particular as an instrument. I'm definitely not an expert in music, but it's something that I'm learning to play. I'm not sure if my explanation is quite clear on what to expect if you've never seen it.

Kyle Roed: 34:32

I don't know. All I know is I'm gonna have to google it now just because I'm really curious. And you know, when we have you on the show, next we'll have to do an intro with a colomba colomba solo by Federico.

Federica Gianoglio: 34:45

I have to prepare a start your career with that. How's that? Yeah. JOHN.

Kyle Roed: 34:53

All right. Well, this has been an absolutely wonderful conversation want to shift gears and go into the rebel HR Flash round. So, in this round, we're gonna ask three quick questions to understand a little bit more about your perspective. Question number one, what are you reading right now.

Federica Gianoglio: 35:13

So at the moment, I'm reading a book called first break all the rules of what the world's greatest managers do differently. It's by Marcus Buckingham, and Carr Kaufman. And I find it super interesting. Well, first of all, the title really caught my attention. Because it's something that we do our company, we try to do things differently to always change the way we see things that we are in constant change. And with this book, I think it's interesting to see how to enhance talents, in particular, to really make the most of them, but also how to manage known talents. Because you don't want known Well, everybody has known talents, right? But you don't want that to come in the way and you want to rather prevent them from turning into weaknesses. So I think this is really useful to understand who you have in front of you, whenever a candidate is applying, or whenever you have a team to train and to kind of shape to make the most of them, and make it fit for the company. And the other winner,

Kyle Roed: 36:29

love it. Perfect. Perfect for an HR rebel. Yeah. All right. Question number two, Who should we be listening to?

Federica Gianoglio: 36:38

I think I would recommend if you're looking for something quite practical, I would recommend a podcast that's called recruitment on the go. And that is a of course, recruitment is not the only thing that HR professionals do and work on. But I think this is super useful if you're looking for really practical tips. So episodes are just 10 to 15 minutes. And at the end, you have actionable tips and steps that you can think of and maybe try to apply to your environment, your organization, I think this is something I would really recommend.

Kyle Roed: 37:20

Great, awesome. I'd love to have to check that out. All right, last question, how can our listeners connect with you?

Federica Gianoglio: 37:26

LinkedIn, I think LinkedIn will be the best way to go. So you can find me at Federico giannantonio? Well, I can give the link the URL, I guess it will be easier. I know my name is quite hard to pronounce, quite unusual. But yeah, LinkedIn will be the easiest to use.

Kyle Roed: 37:48

Perfect, and we'll have that that link in the show notes. So if you want to connect with Federica, learn a little bit more about pr elimite and maybe swap some some awesome recruitment videos. That's that's where it's at. So I want to just say thank you again, Federica for taking some time, this this evening to talk to me and share some of your stories really fascinating. And, and I would, dare I say groundbreaking differences within the the world of HR for for the next century. So thank you so much for sharing your experience with us.

Federica Gianoglio: 38:24

Thank you so much for having me and for the great conversation. I've had a great time and it was great just exchanging ideas on this new way of, of just leaving the HR world. Love it.

Kyle Roed: 38:39

Keep on keep on rebelling. Have a great rest your day. Thanks. All right. That does it for the rebel HR podcast. Thanks to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at rebel HR podcast, Twitter at rebel HR guy, or see our website at rebel human resources.com. Use it opinions expressed by podcast

Jude Roed: 39:14

maybe