Silke English
We started an interview series which was called ‘Meet the Team’. Every week one of our team members was interviewed. This interview series was meant for our customers and business partners, to get to know the people behind Yodel. Surprisingly, we gained some important value for our business out of it as well.
We here at YodelTalk are a completely remote team that is distributed over two continents. This means that we do know each other through our daily video chats but we do not get to have coffee breaks or meetups at the watercooler. The bi-annual meetups are always packed with lots of tasks that we are looking forward to collaborating on when we finally meet in person, so there are only a few hours left to talk to each other. That makes it tricky to get to know your coworkers on a personal level.
As we started the interview series, we thought about questions that would cover the background and the vision of Yodel of each team member. Never did we think that through this conversation, many hidden talents would surface.
Of course, you will read up on the person you hire, though sometimes you do not realize how much passion they have for things they do outside of the field they apply for. One of our developers that was hired to code, has a background in web design and really likes working on websites. Knowing this, we can ask him for help instead of outsourcing it. Another skill set that we know of is, that we have an audio technician as well as a professional photographer among us. We learned that some of us find our balance in doing art, while others like going for hikes on the weekends. Random facts about each and every team member were also included, which are btw hilarious. All this information is really valuable and results in our team feeling closer to each other. It also proves that we are a very diverse team but we all do believe in one thing: doing the best we can to make Yodel thrive.
The interviews were a great way of getting us to talk about each other and our lives before Yodel. Fridays became our #teamfriyay. Every week we were curious about the interview that got published and the answers that were given by the team member who was in the spotlight that particular week.
Our advice is to take out that time and start an interview series with your team. No matter how small or big your business is. We ensure that you won’t regret it!
If you are now curious about how our interviews look, here you go: The People Behind Yodel
