The world at work has changed and your teams are craving connection and context. Here’s how we’re giving you a richer, more powerful, and more flexible Pingboard experience to bring your people together!
In 2020 work feels lonelier than ever, and many of us were already feeling pretty disconnected. In a recent study from Cigna, 37% of employees reported feeling a sense of disconnection from others at work. That study took place before the global pandemic hit, and the danger of those feelings increasing in our less-than-ideal work-from-home environment is high. Pingboard wants to help.
If you’re working from home, you’re well aware that remote work can make you feel more disconnected from your colleagues. Feelings of loneliness at work were on the rise even before 2020’s global pandemic, so it’s no surprise that those of us suddenly finding ourselves separated from a pretty social space (the office) might be feeling even more isolated.
Buffer’s State of Remote Work report for 2020 revealed that the two biggest difficulties for people working from home by choice were “communication and collaboration” and “loneliness.” Even if you’ve returned your employees back to the office, things like handwashing signage, social distancing, and flexible work schedules have us doing all the right things but feeling a bit, well, wrong.
We get it. Our team is feeling disconnected too.
We also feel that the future of work depends on all of us feeling connected – even if we can’t be physically together the way we were before. We want your teams to feel empowered with the knowledge that they understand what your organization looks like and how it works, and we believe that the right context can also give them the courage they need to reach out to each other and connect. To tackle this increased need for connectedness, we made several changes to Pingboard to help your people continue fostering strong relationships with their colleagues and company.
Read on to learn about our new additions that will help you bring your people together!
New Widgets for Directory Pages
At any size company, context helps everyone work better together. Context gives you the detail to see how everyone is connected, and a “jumping off point” for more organic conversations when you’re reaching out.
‘Does anybody in the Austin office have a birthday coming up?’
‘How many designers do we have assigned to the Epsilon project?’
‘When’s the last time someone on the Customer Care team got some applause?’
We’ve added answers to those questions and more to every Location, Group, and Department in your account:
Applause – Each page in your Directory displays Applause received by its members near the top of the page. For leaders, this is a great way to make sure that you’re remembering to cheer each other on and see your team members getting the praise they deserve. For employees, it’s great to see your team or office being recognized, and provides a great reminder to recognize someone else.
Titles – The Explore widget lets you see the most popular trends for any public Choice or Tag field in Pingboard (like Skills or Interests) or certain other special fields (like Job Title). Have you ever been curious to find out what your design team’s top “Favorite Book” might be? Or wondered what the top job-title is for your Remote employees? Or maybe you just want to see how many people in your Chicago location have the same favorite food (deep dish pizza, obviously). The answers are in the Explore widget for each of those groups.
Celebrations – Just like on your homepage, the Celebrations widget will list any Department, Location, or Group’s upcoming birthdays, work anniversaries, or new (and recent) hires. It’s a great way to see what’s coming up to help you plan, make sure people feel celebrated, and give group members a central place to see what’s happening with their colleagues.
Open Roles (Locations & Departments) – In addition to appearing in Locations, Open Roles will also appear on Department pages that those roles are associated to. For instance, if you add an Open Role beneath the person who manages your Quality Assurance Department, that role will appear on Quality Assurance’s Department page in Pingboard as well.
Quick tip: you can hover over an avatar in the Celebrations widget to see specific details for their upcoming celebration.
Open Roles (Locations & Departments) – In addition to appearing in Locations, Open Roles will also appear on Department pages that those roles are associated to. For instance, if you add an Open Role beneath the person who manages your Quality Assurance Department, that role will appear on Quality Assurance’s Department page in Pingboard as well.
Better Browsing with Filters and Search
Your main Directory page and each Location and Group have been given filters so that you can take a closer look at the people in your organization and see how you’re all connected. We include filters for Group, Location, Job Title, Skills, and Interest by default, but any other public Tag or Choice fields you add on your Custom Fields page will appear as options for filtering, too.
In addition to those filters, we’ve also added a search bar to the top of every Group and Location page to make it easier to find exactly who you’re looking for and access their profile quickly. Start typing a name to quickly filter those pages and reveal the person you want to find.
Locations for Open Roles
It’s a huge relief when an employee slam dunks a referral. You found and hired a rockstar without even having to look that hard! Or maybe you’re hoping that someone will apply for their next big position internally instead of making an outside hire. You rely on your employees to help with your hiring efforts – but how can they help if they don’t know you’re hiring?
To clarify where you’re hiring, open roles now show your employees a corresponding location! New, Open Roles your team is hiring for will display any specific office locations that you assign so that everyone knows where that new person will work. They’ll also appear on the Location pages that were chosen so that the Open Role is more visible to team members working at that Location. If you ignore this setting and don’t assign a Location to a new Open Role, it will be displayed on all of your Directory pages and won’t include any specifics about which Location it belongs to.
Additional Fields for Your Location Pages
Your Pingboard Directory includes individual pages for each of your organization’s locations, and until now they’ve listed a handful of details: members, address, and an optional logo or photo. Now, you can add more context and information to make these Location pages even more helpful and relevant to employees (especially new hires). Even if you’re not going into the office for a while, you can get this page ready for the return back to work when it happens, and maybe even give employees a stronger sense of place while they’re working from home. Each Location page now includes fields for:
Phone
Main contact (Your front-desk person or the best person to reach out when employees have a location-specific question.)
Hours
Local time
Transit and parking
WiFi Details
Despite the current moment, we know a lot of companies are hiring and hope that these changes make your Location pages more useful for the onboarding process. After all, who likes forgetting the right person to call if you’ve locked yourself out of the front door (or the WiFi network)?
What other info do you want to see on your Location pages? Click here to let us know!
Our modern moment at work is challenging, but we hope that with the right tools – including these new ones – we can help you and your people feel empowered to help each other stay confident, connected, and cared for. Keep up the good work!