EO25: Optimizing Employee Onboarding: Celebrating Wins and Building Connections (w/ Aashni Shah of HypeDocs)

Join Erin Rice from Process Street and Aashni Shah, founder of Hype Docs, as they dive into creating impactful employee onboarding experiences.

In this episode, Aashni shares insights on celebrating wins to boost engagement, the importance of pre-boarding, and how to build meaningful connections in a remote or hybrid work environment.

Learn how to automate onboarding processes while maintaining the human touch, foster early impact and recognition, and ensure new hires feel welcomed, supported, and aligned with company values from day one.

Transcript

Erin Rice (00:01.742)

Welcome to the employee onboarding podcast, where we unpack great onboarding ideas and best practices from the world's top HR practitioners and thought leaders. At Process Street, that starts with our mission to make work fun, fast, and thoughtless for teams everywhere. My name is Erin Rice and I am the people and operations specialist here at Process Street. Today, I'm joined by Ashni Shah. Ashni is a multinational citizen who grew up in Kenya before moving to Canada.

She is currently the founder of Hype Docs, a platform that focuses on helping people celebrate their wins and use their wins to power future goals. She actively works and supports other companies, holding board and advisory roles at other tech and non-tech companies. Prior to this, Ashne was a software engineer with experience working for companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Square. Ashne is passionate about bringing more tech to developing countries and increasing the representation of girls and women in STEM and has been recognized with awards such as the top five inspiring women in STEM in Canada. Wow, Ashley, that is amazing. I am so happy that you could join us today.

Aashni Shah (01:10.549)

Thank you. And likewise, I'm super excited to chat and meet you and then also anyone else that's listening in.

Erin Rice (01:17.454)

Awesome. So before we dive in, I like to ask an icebreaker question. So today, what is something from your childhood that you still love to this day?

Aashni Shah (01:28.437)

So I feel like the thing that I still love today, and I try to make it as big a part of my identity as I can, is scuba diving. It's something my dad introduced me to when I must have been like 10 or 11 years old. And the first dive I ever did, I walked from the beach into the ocean and we went out to the reef area in Kenya, or in the coastal area in Kenya, and then came back. And it's not a very exciting dive because we didn't see much in terms of fish, but just being able to go out and do that at such a young age was amazing. And today I now try to plan any of the trips that I'm making to include at least one or two dives. And my favorite dives always have sharks or turtles or whales in some capacity.

Erin Rice (02:13.774)

That's really cool. I went scuba diving once, one of those quick classes that they do the class in the pool the day before. It was in Key West, Florida. I would agree. It was amazing. It was just such an amazing time to be in other ocean life's natural habitat.

Aashni Shah (02:34.261)

Yeah, yeah, and I was trying to plan a trip out. I was in Key West Florida area and tried to plan some dives out there, but unfortunately we were only there for a day and we got in too late to do the dives because usually dives are in the morning. So hopefully I will take the name of the place you went diving at and I can try that out next time I'm there.

Erin Rice (02:53.39)

Yeah, that's awesome. Awesome. Well, what we really came here for is employee onboarding. So I'd love if you could share a little bit about your path and how you ended up sort of in an onboarding space or HR space.

Aashni Shah (03:08.629)

Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to make a little pun over here and say, let's dive right in. So my background is in software engineering and I've worked at some really incredible companies. At one of those companies, I had a not so great interaction with a manager and it's one of those that really shook my foundations in terms of, am I capable of doing this job? Am I able to be a software engineer at this company or just in general?

Aashni Shah (03:38.709)

And I've since learned that that's not an uncommon experience for a lot of people to go through. I also know that there's this very common saying, which is people don't leave their companies because they want to, they leave it because of their managers. And that was a hundred percent true for me in this situation. And since then, I've started learning a lot more about leadership strategies, communication techniques, and then also become friends with a lot more HR folks, both at companies I've worked at and then externally just to understand some of the challenges that they face, whether it's onboarding, which is a focus today, or handling difficult situations, creating policies in the workplace, but then also watching everything that happened during COVID. How do you handle things like engagement and motivation at a company as well? And as all of these different things, or as I continued learning about all these different things, my heart yearned to build something in that space as well.

And there's this concept I'd heard of for quite a while called Hype Docs, which is essentially a list of all of your achievements. And I just knew that there was something that I could build there that would actually help with a lot of these different missing pieces that I felt both that tied back to that original experience I had with a not so great manager to just helping everyday people achieve their goals by actually celebrating the successes that they're having, whether it's small or big every day.

Erin Rice (05:03.278)

And so you founded the company and can you talk a little bit more about how those products are used?

Aashni Shah (05:10.485)

Yeah, absolutely. So Hype Docs is, as we described earlier, it's a platform that lets people track their accomplishments. And the way we built it out is, you know, we didn't want to create just another third party tool that a lot of people would just forget about. So we built something that's embedded into Slack, and we will eventually launch Discord and MS Teams versions as well. And from the Slack perspective, employees are able to very quickly go and add messages or comments on stuff that they've done that they're proud of. So you add a title, you add a bit more information about it, and then you can also attach it to any of the goals that you are working towards. So for example, if you're a developer, which I am or have been, you know, maybe this code review that I've just submitted to help launch a feature is tied to my goal of having bigger ownership on projects. So I can attach to that goal.

I can also attach it to company values or team goals as well so that my manager is able to see it in a more holistic perspective. And this is one of my favorite parts. I can attach or mention any of my coworkers that have helped me achieve this. And so when I add this or I save this into my hype doc, it gets shared out on Slack if I want to so other people can see it. And the folks that I tag get notified about it and it gets added to their hype doc as well. So it's almost combining the sort of goal setting karma recommendation, not recommendation, sorry, reward systems together, but doing it in a way that focuses on your everyday wins. And then on the manager side, there's a portal that you can go and access and you can see all of these goals and heights. And what we're focusing on next is how you can use those to have better one-on-ones, have faster feedback loop cycles. So instead of speaking, once a year at that annual employee review time, you're actually doing it on a more regular basis, like every two weeks during one -on -ones. And that we're finding has been having such a huge impact on the way that employees are performing and working. And so we've launched that out. We have a few folks that are piloting it at the moment. We have a couple more companies that are getting onboarded in the next couple of weeks. And it's just been really exciting to see this idea that I formed because of a really crappy experience, how it's actually making a huge impact on these different companies that are using our product today.

Erin Rice (07:41.582)

turning lemonade from lemons. Yeah. And that's what HR professionals have to do a lot of times. So I bet in HR, we talk a lot about pre -boarding, that really onboarding starts when that person signs their offer letter and the little things that we can do throughout that process to help them get excited. I bet on their first day when they come in to Slack, and they see these hype docs and people shouting each other out, I bet that just solidifies everything that they learned in the candidate process.

Aashni Shah (08:17.653)

Ideally, yes, in a good company, in a good setting, yes. Could you imagine joining on your first day and you just see a massive welcome message from your manager and it goes out to everyone in Slack and everyone's commenting, welcoming you, emoji reacting to it in a positive way. And then that's also something that just gets added to this HiveDoc document of yours that you're able to track forever.

it, it really makes a huge impact. I actually have a friend who just started a new job last week and that was one of the first things they told me was like, it was so heartwarming and welcoming to see that and to feel welcomed like that in such a disconnected remote world. but you're a hundred percent right. It is that pre -boarding concept of there's certain things an HR team needs to do and the manager and you know, sometimes the teammates that you're joining need to do to make sure that you've got all the information or the knowledge access to everything you need so that you have a really strong first day.

Erin Rice (09:13.774)

For sure. And what would you sort of, I heard you say that warm and welcoming is important in that onboarding experience. What else would you add are like keys to making sure that that person feels a part of the team?

Aashni Shah (09:28.117)

Yeah, so this is something that I hold true with my team. It's easier for us to implement because we're such a small team. So of course, at larger teams, it's a little more tricky. But I always want to make sure on your first day, you push something out to production. So whether it's changing a line of code or it's launching a social media graphic, if you're on the marketing side, whatever it is, I want to make sure that through the onboarding process, I'm able to get you set up in a way that you are able to make a change and it goes out to the public and you can then go home and share it with your partner, your family, your parents, your friends and say, look at this, I did this. And it's just such a big moment that happens like getting that first change out there. Cause there's some companies that have really long processes and policies where it sometimes takes you two weeks before you're able to actually make any changes. So that's one thing I think is really important is how quickly can we get you to push something out? And it doesn't have to be, you know, very heavy technically or anything like that. It could just be something really minor and small, but that sense of accomplishment means something really big. And then another area, and it might not be on your first day, but it should definitely be within your first week is having one -on -ones with each of your manager and each of your teammates. And it doesn't have to be formal. It's really just a chance to get to know each person on a more personal level, understanding where some of their interests are, some of their skills are, and the types of things that you can go and ask them or approach them about, especially when it comes to onboarding onto this team. And then more formally with a manager in your first week or two, like max two weeks, but really it should be in your first week, is really just coming together and saying, hey,

These are the areas I'm interested in. These are the goals I'd like to set. But what are your expectations for me as the manager and sorry, as the manager, what are your expectations and how can we make sure that we're aligned on both of those so that we're starting on a really strong footing and we're working on the right things from the get go.

Erin Rice (11:36.174)

That's amazing. So I really like the idea of having them contribute so like, kind of dramatically, for lack of better words, to the product, like in that first week.

Aashni Shah (11:50.549)

Yeah, I had that at one of the companies I joined where we had a very small change go out within my first day. And I just remember our team had onboarded eight new people in a team of 30 or something like that. So it was a lot of us, but they made sure that every single one of us launched a code change. We were all engineers. So each one of us was able to launch a code change and be able to point to it, whether it was in the product or on a landing page or wherever. And that was the one goal for the day. It was amazing.

Erin Rice (12:23.278)

It sounds amazing. So my first day I'm welcomed, I feel warm and fuzzy. I've sort of been given evidence that what I thought was going to happen is actually what is happening. I meet my manager, hang out with my teammates, and then I get to have an impact on the product all in the first week. I would guess that has some impact on retention. Do you have any details on that?

Aashni Shah (12:45.557)

Exactly.

I don't think I have a stat or number behind that, but from my experience and the experience I've had of other folks, when you feel like you're part of the team and you feel like you're making an impact, and then of course getting recognition for that, it has a massive positive impact on retention. Whereas, you know, the opposite of that is you join a company in your first week, everyone is remote, you have one meeting with your manager and then you spend the rest of your day or the next three days just going through onboarding documents through workday.

And you don't feel like you just feel like you're filling out a bunch of paperwork. You don't necessarily feel like you're a part of the team yet or that you're actually contributing or making an impact. And not saying that that necessarily will make you leave the company because, hey, you just joined, but it doesn't give you that sense of belonging as quickly.

Erin Rice (13:36.75)

Yeah, I know that makes sense. At my current company, I was pulled into focus groups in like the end of week one, week two. And I was like, I came from a teacher background. So all of the trust that I earned was earned. And when I came to a tech company that gave me that trust on day one, I was really overwhelmed. I'm like, who am I? Like, this isn't important. You know, like my opinions on these things. And it was the exact opposite because they had already vetted me in the interview process, you know, and they already trusted me. And it really does make a difference.

Aashni Shah (14:10.965)

Yeah, and I'll say it's time for you to trust yourself in a really great way. Because I actually felt that I had a similar situation. So when I left the company with a not so great manager, I was, I felt terrible. I actually was close to quitting the industry altogether and moving back home to just hang out with my family and join the family business. And then I joined this other company instead. And it was a complete night and day experience where from day one, they gave me so much trust.

Erin Rice (14:14.254)

Yeah, exactly. Right? That's so true.

Aashni Shah (14:40.373)

They ended up putting me, and I was one of the youngest people to join this company too, they ended up letting me lead an entire product launch for one of our products, which is crazy when you think about it. And having that level of trust is a little overwhelming, but it taught me so much about myself. It taught me so much about the team and that is, hands down one of the best experiences of my life just because of how much trust I was able to build with the company and then just the impact of the work that I was doing there as well.

Erin Rice (15:11.406)

Yeah, that makes total sense. So you came from an engineering background and now you're the founder of a company. How would you say that your viewpoint or your thinking on employee onboarding has evolved or changed over time?

Aashni Shah (15:25.813)

Well, the very obvious part to that is not everyone gets on boarded as an engineer. So it's not about giving everyone GitHub access and making sure your code environment is working, which I know how to do very, very well. Some of the stuff I've had to really learn, and it's all been learning on the job, is what do other teammates need for their roles? For example, and I've had a lot of interns play different roles. So a lot of what I've about shares, like what I've done for interns in particular, but we had like some interns join as sales folks. We've had some interns join as like marketing folks, which is not my area of expertise, but I've had to learn enough to make sure that they have enough sufficient work to do and I know how to onboard them on day one. And so some of the things that I've done, again, small startup compared to very big organization is just make sure I've got a standard checklist. And on day one that they come in,

Usually at 9 or 10 in the morning, assuming they're in the same time zone as me, I'll make sure we have an onboarding call. I usually set it for at least an hour. If it is someone that's more technical, it's two hours. And in that hour, I just, if it's one person, it's very easy. If it's a group of us, then I make sure we always do a round of introductions. And those introductions is always your name, you know, the role you're doing, and then always tell me something fun and unique about yourself.

And that way it helps people remember things about other people more easily. Like, hopefully, folks on this call will remember that I like scuba diving and I like diving with sharks, which is different to, she's just that person that's building that company kind of a thing. And I find that helps build a lot of that initial connection. And then from there, we start talking about the company and the types of impact that they can have at the company with the work they're doing and what their roles mean for the work that they're doing.

So for example, with a marketing person, this is, this is HypeDocs, this is what it's about. This is where we are today and what we're hoping to achieve in the next four months or six months. And the work that you're gonna be focusing on is in this area. And then sometimes we'll dive in a little bit more just, depending on how much time we have. And I find that that always helps put the work and the stuff that they're doing in perspective and helps them connect with the role a lot more as well. And Hype Docs is one of those companies where, you know, it's about celebrating, but it's also about how can we make everybody feel welcome. And I try to make sure that that really is back to anyone that works on our team as well.

Erin Rice (18:08.686)

And so where do you sort of see the future of onboarding going?

Aashni Shah (18:14.037)

I know that there are so many tools out there trying to automate this, trying to remove people from the process so that you're not getting blockers. I think those are smart tools, but we need to make sure we don't remove people from the process altogether because you're not onboarding onto software, you're onboarding onto a team. And so how can we improve and enhance that team networking, that team community, especially when most folks are joining in some sort of remote or hybrid capacity. 

So if you're working in a team and you're all actually going into the office and meeting, that's different because you can actually see the folks that you're working with. But if we're in this continuously more disconnected perspective, I think it's really important to try and set some boundaries or maybe not boundaries, guidelines in terms of, you know, like, these are the things that we want you to feel and understand on your first day and in your first week making sure that that's not lost as we continue using some of these automation tools to help with the onboarding process.

Erin Rice (19:19.63)

Yeah, for sure. Obviously, I work at Process Street and we are a process management software platform. And in our onboarding checklist, there are certain tasks that are as simple as a teammate being assigned to schedule a call with a person. And here are some topics that the hiring manager wants you to make sure you talk with them about. Maybe they already know you have something in common, like you're both from Ireland and that's a reason for you to get on a call together.

Erin Rice (19:47.566)

So we automate as much as we can so that we can have the bandwidth for the human touch, which is exactly what those tools are for.

Aashni Shah (19:57.717)

I love that. I actually love the, that connection part. I didn't realize that that's something your team did. Cause I obviously looked it up prior to our call and I've seen it. It's an awesome technology. but it's, it's just what you said. It's that human touch. We can't lose that human touch because otherwise what, what differentiates one team from another? Yeah. And I love that Ireland example. I, I don't, I've never been, but it's high on my list. So hopefully one day I can find somebody to show me or tell me more about Ireland before I go there.

Erin Rice (20:17.07)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we actually, I have two teammates that are both from Ireland. One actually lives in Canada now and the other one is still in Ireland. And that's actually a real life example because when our one that lives in Ireland now started, I immediately like scheduled or told the other one to schedule time with him so that they could connect because they had that in common.

Aashni Shah (20:47.989)

And are they on the same team or were they just like different people across the company?

Erin Rice (20:53.23)

In that particular situation, they were on the same team, but that wouldn't have changed my outcome if they had been on different teams.

Aashni Shah (20:58.933)

Cause I feel like, like, I love that. And I feel like that's the part that's missing, especially as teams grow bigger. So if you're under 20 people, it's pretty easy to meet and get to know everyone. But the moment you start hitting, you know, hundreds and even thousands of employees, you sort of get siloed into your little niche group. And it becomes so much harder to meet folks from other parts of the company, even if you share interests and maybe one other area that this is a whole other conversation, but around groups like whether it's an ERG group, so women in engineering, or it's purely based on interest, like a hiking group or a camping group. Surfacing that earlier on in the onboarding process and making it really easy to find some of those some of that type of information. Most companies have wikis for it, but you know, making it really easy to go through and defined and like almost pairing you with a buddy to help get you to a point where you're able to find and understand all of that and like find groups to join, I think is really helpful. And I know companies have their own setups for this, but finding optimal ways of doing it without disrupting the workflow.

Erin Rice (22:10.286)

Yeah, and making time for those like really intentional connections that we don't get because we don't run into each other in the hallway.

Aashni Shah (22:18.037)

Exactly. This remote and hybrid culture just makes things so, so fascinating and so interesting. Like all the things that you stereotypically would have done before, you have to tweak them and make sure that they still work. Because like, hey, this hiking group sounds amazing, but we're in five different countries. There's no way we're all flying on a weekend, you know? So how can you bring that sort of hiking element into a virtual world? And maybe it's not hiking, maybe it's just having an afternoon where you can play among us or some other sort of game, or hopefully you've heard of the company Wavy. They're phenomenal and they host these virtual events, like learning how to make drinks, both alcoholic and non, or painting, or things like that that just bring that sense of team back into play. However, that's all down the line, that's not necessarily onboarding related.

Erin Rice (23:07.214)

And I think culture and onboarding go hand in hand because during the onboarding process, you want those people, again, to our point earlier, to have it reinforced what they thought they were walking into instead of your experience where you were disappointed and it didn't feel good.

Aashni Shah (23:24.341)

Yep. Yeah. Definitely.

Erin Rice (23:26.542)

Awesome. Well, Aashni, this has been so lovely. Thank you so much for your time today and all of your good nuggets of information. Before we go, I'd like to ask you one final question I ask all of our guests, and that is, what is a one wow moment that a company can create for the new hire?

Aashni Shah (23:48.117)

So I haven't worked at a company in a couple years, like I've been running my startup and so I'm trying to think of things that happened that were like a wow moment for me. Is it like from an onboarding perspective or is it just in general?

Erin Rice (24:18.574)

Yeah, I think from an onboarding, I think mostly related to like, like that wow moment when they're like, wow, like this is what I thought it was, or these people really care, or.

Aashni Shah (24:32.885)

Okay. So one wow moment that I had, and I can share it with my friend went through this when they joined their new company last week is, having all of your stuff get to you before you start or like the day that you start your role. And it's yes, of course you need your laptop and you know, your desk set up and all of that, but it's also the small touches, like the company swag, but.

I think what makes it more wow or what can make it more wow is if any of that gets personalized a little bit, so it really is unique to just you, or it's something that you can build on top of. One of the things I've seen and I kind of want to deploy with our team at some point is those Lego blocks that say, hey, I've been here, like today's day one, I've been here for one year, two years, five years, and things like that. Though I think that might not be so much of wow moment, more a sense of belonging.

But getting that box, like that initial box is a little bit of a wow moment, especially for anyone that's new to the company, but also more importantly, new to the industry. So I'm thinking of like folks that this is their first time joining any sort of company that that's always a really big wow, I didn't expect this moment. Whereas folks who've been around for a while, like, you know, just it just gets added onto the pile of other swag that you've got hidden in that closet.

I think something that would really impress me is having some sort of call in the first day or the first week, which is just really casual and a way to get to know the other folks on my team. I'm definitely much higher on the EQ side and I know some people wouldn't enjoy this, but even some sort of random trivia type thing or not necessarily two truths and a lie, but a way, like some sort of game that you can play with everyone else on your team to just bond everyone and get to know them better. And I think knowing that they're doing that specifically for me and for us to get to know each other better would be something that would wow me and make me go, okay, they really do care. And now I know a little bit more about everybody and I don't feel as brand new to the team. I feel like I know a little bit more about them as well.

Erin Rice (26:59.278)

Yeah, and to your point earlier about the importance of impact and recognition, adding that warm fuzzy back in there is really important.

Aashni Shah (27:03.893)

Exactly.

Erin Rice (27:10.19)

Amazing. Well, thank you so much again. This has been so great and I appreciate all of your time.

Aashni Shah (27:16.821)

Not a problem, and thank you for the questions and thanks for everyone for listening in. Lovely to meet you, Erin.