Storyblok knows something about hypergrowth.
Within 12 months, the Austrian scaleup hired 106 new colleagues, raising the headcount from 33 to 139 people.
And they did that as a fully-remote company.
Storyblok has developed a headless CMS that makes it easy for developers to create fast websites and for content creators to edit content.
But that is not all.
There is no “HR” department at Storyblok.
Instead, they decided to call themselves a team of People Experience Managers - because fun, an engaging and overall great employee experience are at the core of what they do.
But how do you bring together fast growth and a remote-first company that values people experience so much they made it their primary purpose?
As Markus Schwarz, People Experience Manager, knows, starting a new job isn’t easy. And being fully remote doesn’t exactly help:
Naturally, people will be at home with their laptop, without seeing anyone in person.
This causes remote workers to feel:
“If you don’t solve this, you simply won’t be able to keep people for long in a remote setting”
- Markus Schwarz, People Experience Manager
So the goal was clear:
Creating an onboarding experience that is:
- Showing new hires exactly what to expect to take away anxiety.
- Truly welcoming
- Introducing them to the team and making human connections despite being remote
- Properly demonstrating Storyblok’s unique culture.
“Onboarding is now a very diversified and engaging process. It’s not just a 50-page handbook. People get new nuggets every day. They grow into the company through an experience that takes them on a journey.”
On Zavvy, the team at Storyblok created a combination of journeys that all tie together into one, full onboarding experience.
In brief, Storyblok’s People Experience team structured the process as following:
Goal: Prepare people for day 1 and take away anxiety
Length: 4-6 steps
Channels: Email and Zavvy platform
The preboarding journey covers:
Goal: Make people feel welcome, learn all they need to, and connect with others
Length: 4 week-journey
Channels: Slack, Zavvy platform, Zoom
On day 1, new hires meet with their onboarding managers.
They get to know each other and discuss a clear roadmap of their first month at the company while getting assigned their onboarding journeys.
The roadmap contains things like:
All steps are sent out consecutively over these 4 weeks - piece by piece and when they are most relevant.
Goal: Get people up-to-speed on their role
Length: 2-5 weeks, depending on role
Channels: Slack, Zavvy platform, Zoom
Getting new hires up-to-speed regarding the product, best practices, and tools is another main priority in Storyblok’s onboarding strategy:
“Especially in roles like sales it’s extremely important for new hires to gain a lot of know-how quickly - as they are in direct contact with customers.“
This is how the BambooHR integration works:
1. New hires create their account on BambooHR where they add their employee data as usual
2. The People Experience team only has to click “invite” once
3. Zavvy automatically creates their account and syncs data like starting date, role, and people manager
4. New hires automatically get assigned the correct journey(s), reminders, and buddies
Storyblok’s company onboarding journeys are directly connected to Slack. This means that everyone involved gets their notifications directly in there - instead of having them get lost in the email inbox.
“Connecting the tool to Slack is extremely helpful because manager, buddies, mentors have extremely much on their plate. And messaging directly here helps a lot to motivate them to take action when it matters most.”
- Markus
Both teams are working together closely share feedback and get updates on new features.
“Our contact Berfu has been a huge support. We can reach out to her anytime via Slack or during our weekly calls and she is super patient. We never felt left alone. Whenever we have an issue, we don’t have to contact support via email - but there is really someone there for us.”
Overall, new hires rated their onboarding experience on Zavvy with 9/10 points.
Here are a few direct quotes from new hires who went through Storyblok’s onboarding:
And this is from a people management perspective:
Onboarding a new employee for Storyblok is now a matter of minutes. Instead of taking new hires through the same orientation sessions for 3 days every week, every new hire meets their onboarding manager for a 30-minute chat.
Account creation and journey assignment based on roles are thanks to the BambooHR integration all happening at a click.
To be more concrete, the team now saves…
- 1.5-2 hours during preboarding
- Roughly 15 hours (2+ days) during orientation
As Storyblok onboards new hires almost every week, this totals at 68 hours the People Experience team alone saves every month.
If we multiply that number by the average HR manager salary in Germany (+25% employer contribution), this results in
68 hours * 36€ = 2.448€ in repetitive work saved every month
And this number still completely neglects all the role-related training new hires are going through. So you could probably double that amount.
⭐️ 9/10 average rating from new starters
⏱ …while saving more than 68 hours (>2.448€) every month in repetitive work
💻 An overall consistent and engaging remote onboarding experience
Curious what a standout onboarding experience would look like at your company?
Get a free consultation with our team!
Markus:
“What surprised me most was that you can automate so much without sacrificing experience. We are sending people trackable tasks, engaging content, fun reminders via Slack, and connecting them to their onboarding buddies. All with a single click."
Nevena:
“I really like how straightforward, simple, and user-friendly the tool is. Even if you use it for the first time, you won’t get confused.”
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