A new hire’s onboarding experience doesn’t stop after their first week. Once you jump into your team’s projects and day-to-day work, it’s easy to be distracted from your personal vision and Spreetail’s overall purpose. Plus, the first few months of a new job can be stressful and overwhelming. Spreetail Spark encourages team members to unplug from work, remind themselves of why they’re here, and reignite the passion they have for our vision.
We started by creating the purpose and vision for Spreetail Spark, and continually reminded ourselves of it as we built each activity. Six People & Culture team members pulled ideas from past workshops, our annual week-long event of trainings called Spreetail Connect, external experiences, and research to build each session. Initially the retreat was set to launch as a 1.5-day experience at an off-site location to really set the tone for stepping away from your work. Once we realized that putting 10+ people in one room was no longer safe, we adjusted the program to fit the virtual environment.
First, we tried doing one-off sessions throughout the week, so team members could sign up for each session at a time that was convenient for them. This made it difficult for participants to really disconnect from their work, so we shortened the retreat and re-launched it as a one-day, fully virtual experience. Facilitating virtual retreats is difficult – how do we ensure the content is entertaining and impactful for remote attendees? It takes a lot of talent to engage participants over video for even a brief period of time. Thankfully, we have great facilitators that have mastered the art of virtual engagement!
Spreetail Spark Sessions:
- Mantra & Me
“The session did a great job combining personal and professional reflection.”
- Culture of Feedback
“This is a CRITICAL session for all Spreetailers.”
- Strengths Activity
"Steph is the most knowledgeable person on Strengths that I have ever met. I love Spreetail's focus on Strengths and Steph's energy around it too."
- Innovation Activity
"Fun activity to end the day and see how people think!"
Within the first 90 days of their new careers, Spreetailers are invited to attend the workshop. Prior to the event, our new hires are greeted with a package containing details of the day, StrengthsFinder 2.0, a notebook to jot down takeaways, and of course snacks to enjoy throughout the day.
There are three pillars we focus on accomplishing through Spreetail Spark including getting to know the company better, the other members of the group better, and ultimately getting to know yourself better. After each session we survey the participants to measure if the content from the workshop is relevant to their job and personal life as well as if the program is well organized and a good use of time. We aim to average a 4.5 out of 5 in these areas and use a Net Promoter Score (NPS) to determine overall satisfaction. In our virtual workshop, our benchmark for NPS was 50 and we are excited to announce our current NPS is 88!
Beyond scoring the sessions, Spreetailers are also able to provide qualitative feedback. This feedback is reviewed after each retreat and summaries are sent to the presenters. A brainstorming session follows so we can continue to find ways to improve Spreetail Spark for new hires.
“Every session was really awesome and got me to think outside of the box and it was a great way to meet some of the team I have never met before.”
What’s next for Spreetail Spark? We’ll continue hosting one workshop each month and revising the programming based on feedback. Once it’s safe to have 10+ people in a room together, we’d like to host the retreat at an offsite location to provide a more unplugged environment.
To learn more about the experience of being a new hire at Spreetail, check out Overcoming Obstacles: Onboarding While Social Distancing.
Training & Development Specialist
