We have been reading a few books as a team and reviewing and presenting them to each other. Think book report from school, but with learnings applied immediately in the real world.
What are we reading? Here are the 4 that we are working on.
Want to follow along? Check out our GoodReads pages to see what next and feel free to drop a comment as to what books we should check out.
My ten-week internship with PayrollHero reached its end last week. As a fitting closure to my first post on hiring interns in Singapore, I thought it would be a good idea to write about my experience here. I’ve had an amazing summer at PayrollHero and learned more than I thought I would. Ten weeks flew by and it took a few days to organize my thoughts. Here is what I learned from my internship at a startup in Singapore.
Lesson 1: Learning is built in to PayrollHero’s DNA
The company doesn’t just declare its “Ridiculously Client Focused” psyche on the website, it lives and breathes the idea. To achieve that end, everyone is always learning new things through whichever means that they can. But it doesn’t end at just learning something by yourself, it’s all about sharing it with everyone else. When I joined the communication channel, Slack, the most interesting channel to me was the reading-list. A mandatory channel for all members, the reading-list includes articles that are relevant to the team from all kinds of sources. Anyone can share something that they have read, and anyone can comment on it.
One of the first things I did at PayrollHero was to broaden my reading base. As an economics student, the obvious reading material I blindly follow are opinion blogs by economists, or economics journals, and of course, the newspaper. But within two weeks, I had apps on my phone that gave me news about startups, tech blogs and more. It was awesome to see that everyone was invested in improving themselves and the team. It was also interesting to see what everyone was reading. Rarely does a college kid get the chance to find out what seasoned entrepreneurs are reading. And here I was, discussing the very articles with the founders of PayrollHero.
Lesson 2: You’re an intern, and you’re still taken seriously
Trust me, this one was huge. While I was interning at PayrollHero, I had friends interning at big accounting firms, consultancies and banks. I would often hear stories about their internships where all they did was photocopy documents for their bosses. This was not the case across the board, but I heard it often enough to realize that my internship was unique.
During the ten weeks, I never once had the impression that I was just an intern slaving away at something inconsequential. If it ever seemed like I was not doing enough, I could speak up about it and get more work to do. The great thing about working in a small place is that there is always something to do and the little that you contribute has a visible impact on the company. Furthermore, Steve ensured that the communication lines were open and that an intern in the Business Development team was equally important (and accountable) as any other member on the BD team. The feeling of being a relevant member of a team is definitely something that I will take with me from this internship.
Lesson 3: Diversity
When I read about PayrollHero before sending in my resume, I loved the idea of Adventure Engineering and knew that PayrollHero was based in the Philippines, Singapore and Canada. To me, that seemed to reflect diversity well enough until I met the team. If you hang out with the Singapore team, you will find yourself in a room with around 10 people representing at least 7 different nations. That is incredible and speaks volumes to the success of PayrollHero’s drive to attract talent, no matter where it comes from.
There are many studies that show how diversity improves results in a company. Diversity was a crucial aspect in my experience. Despite being an international student studying in a foreign country, I had never seen so many nationalities from across the world working together before I showed up at PayrollHero. Imagine this, a Canadian, Ukrainian, Polish, Indian and Filipino sitting in a hawker center, eating a plate of prata and talking about the latest episode of Game of Thrones. As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s just another regular day at PayrollHero. You can’t help but appreciate how easily PayrollHero has embodied the concept of diversity in a company.
Lesson 4: Hanging out with the team over beers
If I look back over the ten weeks I was at PayrollHero, some of the most memorable interactions with the team was not during work, but outside it, when everyone hung out with some beers after a long day of work. I learned the most about the people who make up PayrollHero during this time. Whether it was about their professional lives or just a casual conversation about what everyone’s “ah-ha!” moment was during the DDD workshop, these interactions helped me understand people in a world I had little or no idea about.
I think this is especially invaluable to interns because a large part of interning is to try and figure out what to do with our lives professionally. While colleges make an effort to conduct networking sessions with professionals from every field, it does not come anywhere close to actually spending time with the same people day in and day out.
Finally, all these elements together made for an internship that immensely broadened my perspective. When I first walked into PayrollHero, I wondered if an unstructured internship would teach me anything new or if the work would be rewarding. But the truth is, the very fact that it was an unstructured program made me want to push myself to do new things and be open to ideas that I wasn’t exposed to before. At the end of it, I came away having met inspiring people from all over the world, learning about the startup culture and learning more about myself through it all. I hope the little work I did at PayrollHero was useful to the company. I also greatly appreciate the time invested by Steve and Mike and everyone else to make my internship worth it. At the risk of sounding super cheesy right now: good luck, PayrollHero, and may the force be with you!
Editors Note: Thanks Pragya!! While Pragya is off on her next adventure you will still see her posting on the PayrollHero blog a few times a month.
The PayrollHero Interns in our Singapore office put together a Restaurant News Cast for Singapore. What do you think of their first attempt? Would you like to see more videos like this? Let us know by dropping us an email and posting a comment below.
Want to learn more about the restaurant scene in Singapore? Philippines? Download our Knowledge Kits now (free) for a boat load of helpful information for opening a restaurant.
The interns in the PayrollHero Singapore office got together and made a video that discusses where they are from, what it is like living and working in Singapore and what they have been working on. Check it out:
We have a new feature on the PayrollHero app!
Our Devs (developers) are constantly working towards improving functionality of the app. To that end, we have a new feature to enhance a human resource manager’s tools. It’s a simple addition to the app that allows the HR manager or payroll administrator to:
The feature sits in the Employees tab and under the Rollcall Days section. You can see the list of days that the employee has clocked in, their IP address, GPS coordinates linking to Google maps and the device that they used: TeamClock or #MyClock. If there are any issues with clocking in with a particular device, the HR admin can point out what specific device the problem arose from. This information can also be used as Business Intelligence to make decision on staffing and installing the best devices in your outlets.
The feature is already live for all PayrollHero users!
The PayrollHero offices are buzzing with new energy. This week, the entire team flew in from Manila and Whistler to Singapore and worked through two days of intense training on Domain Driven Design with Kiro Harada. After the rigorous learning retreat, the team emerged with renewed perspective and restless enthusiasm. In an endeavour to contribute to our community, we want to share with you what Kiro taught us.
The learning retreat was conducted by lean and kaizen expert Mr. Kiro Harada. Kiro flew in from Japan and spent time with us both as part of the workshop and to guide us after it.
Domain Driven Design is all about communication. The gap between what developers want to create and what stakeholders in the company understand can be massive, potentially detrimental to the company. Even between developers, it is hard to maintain a common language as domains grow larger. This makes it tougher to model a problem which leads to further miscommunication.
Blind men and the elephant
For you and me, miscommunication sounds like an obvious problem. But what does it mean in a tech company for people who are not familiar with domains and modelling? To give us an idea of what he meant, Kiro told us about the 5 Blind Men and the Elephant. Each blind man gets a part of the elephant: like the leg, the trunk or the tail. Individually, the blind men know everything about their allotted parts. But when they regroup, one man calls his part a tree, the other man calls his part a snake, and so on.
Different perspectives colour reality and computer programmes cannot distinguish between the two. So what can you do to ensure that everyone is on the same page? The solution to the Blind Men and the Elephant problem is for each blind man to observe his part, regroup, model (or draw) what they observed, go back, make observations and repeat the process till they finally put it all together. You collect information and switch positions to ensure that everyone’s perspectives are clearly understood. The idea is to move from a state of –
Not knowing what you don’t know (or alternatively, knowing what you know)
to
Knowing what you don’t know
DDD is intended to take you back to the drawing board, where you design incrementally. The model must constantly evolve – from building a scenario that describes a model which is written into code that creates new scenarios, and the loop regenerates itself. Exploring models with creative collaboration while consciously focusing on the core domain is what DDD helps you do.
DDD in Practice: Modelling a Vending Machine
The concept of DDD can be vague unless you put it into action. Kiro chose to do just that by splitting us into teams and giving us a problem to model. The only instructions were to code for a vending machine.
Round 1: True to PayrollHero’s style, my team decided to code for a machine that vends beer. We got down to writing all components involved in the machine: beer, a tray to hold the beer, a coin collection box, refrigeration involved (liquid nitrogen, of course), landing tray, the works. We then wrote down all the actions involved, inserting the coin, choosing a brand, waiting for the beer. Then we wrote down all possible scenarios: what if too many coins were inserted, what if the power ran out, what if the machine go stuck while vending the beer, what if the beer wasn’t cold, what if… and we went on and on.
Till Kiro came up to us and said our time was up.
We got no coding done. We barely opened a laptop screen. There was no product, just a bunch of ideas. Round one was an epic failure. We had a brief discussion on what to do. Kiro told us we needed to start small. Create a scenario, build a model, implement it and then go back to the drawing board to create another scenario.
Round 2: We needed a fresh perspective. We started from scratch, this time making sure that the developer in the room coded while we built the model. The process seemed slow but was far more efficient. Every non-developer would review the code to make sure everyone understood what was going on. When time was up we had our minimum viable product. By making our core domain small, we had a flexible model that we could work around. It was evident that Domain Driven Design helped us create our MVP within 45 minutes.
Timeboxing: The Bomb
In theory, DDD now seems like a simple idea. Even when you are modelling a vending machine, applying DDD to one problem is easy. What if you are dealing with 20 different problems at a time? Kiro showed us how multi-tasking can wreak havoc on a team. We were made to stand in a circle and pass around a “bomb” in alphabetical order. We were just getting good at it, when Kiro threw in another bomb that we were supposed to pass around in height order. A few seconds later another bomb was introduced that was to work its way around the group in order of birthdays. As you would imagine, we took ages figuring out how to pass three bombs around simultaneously. It was inefficient, messy and absolutely hilarious.
The idea of multi-tasking is just not sustainable. It wastes time and does not capture anyone’s complete focus. Timeboxing is far more effective. Getting work done one at a time allows you to apply DDD, keep everyone involved on the same task and thereby get everyone to focus their energies on a single plan.
Day 1 ended on a high note. Kiro threw ideas on modelling different problems at us and the developers enthusiastically practiced on them. The team was exhausted but an idea was borne out of a full day’s worth of training. We had big plans for the future, with new features in the pipeline.
Day 2 picked off from the previous day’s final tip – timeboxing. When you do tasks one at a time, it’s important to prioritize which feature from your backlog should be worked on. At PayrollHero, developers choose a bunch of issues and then vote on them. After ranking the issues, Kiro suggested we vet through what the problem really is before we go deeper into solving it.
Fact vs Opinion
Once you have identified a problem, it’s worth evaluating whether the problem is relevant or even real. Differentiating fact from opinion is another one of those obvious steps but everyone often misses out on it when you are deep into the process of solving a problem. It’s worth hitting the brakes and breaking down the problem and solution.
| Problem | Solution | |
| Fact | The problem should be based on solid data, maybe customer feedback or some other data analytics | A solution that arises from analysing the facts of the problem. A quantifiable improvement is preferable |
| Opinion | What the developers believe the problem is | An opinion about the solution may be a source of new problems or ideas |
Moving from the problem to a solution is what Kiro calls a Hero’s Journey. Using the facts of the problem, developers need to use their imagination to model the solution. The next step is to design the model and then implement the solution. Often the implementation brings up new problems and the cycle begins again. (If you were wondering, the name comes from the Star Wars protagonist, Luke Skywalker, who was faced with the problem of saving the galaxy, then he met Yoda, and finally used the Force to save Princess Leia and bring freedom and peace to the galaxy. Kiro is quite the sci/fi fan).
This marked the end of the learning material that Kiro taught us. After this, we talked about models specific to PayrollHero and practised tackling them. An interesting exercise was to build a simple model, say a delivery system, and throw scenarios at it to see where the model breaks. The entire team enjoyed the brain teasers but more importantly, it helped us look at our product with fresh eyes and a different angle to approach our pipeline ideas.
The next few days are all about using DDD for some rigorous introspection and using the new learning as a foundation for future ideas. We also got the entire team to spend some time together with each other and our new interns. We went out for lunch, dinner and drinks. It was a great experience for both developers and non-technical members of the team. Overall, we learned that modeling can and should be used to make decisions, both for R&D and sales and marketing. It was not just about app development, it was a new way of thinking and building on ideas and executing them. While we are constantly improving our methods and changing our approach, we want the PayrollHero team to stay on their feet and continue being awesome consistently.
In our recent blog posts on millennials, we’ve talked about how to get the right young star talents into your company and how to stop them from leaving once you’ve got them working for you.
PayrollHero Team is expanding, and as we speak a new batch of interns are flying in to come work with us here at our Singapore office. And it just had me thinking- it is so important to have these young rock stars feel welcome into our working culture. Why? I can understand first hand how daunting it can be for a 20 something year old to travel thousands of miles be apart of something you don’t have a first clue about and figuring all of that out in a new country.
What most employers think when onboarding new employees, they typically check tasks off a to-do list which may include- a quick introduction, an office tour, getting to learn the company vision and other tasks. But what is most often left to last, (and usually ignored) is having a plan that is focused on making new employees feel welcome, appreciated and feel part of the company culture as soon as possible.
And these efforts will have it rewards– high employee retention and loyalty to the company will reflect favorably to the bottomline. Paying close attention to the company culture and adding to it is really important. I would like to quote Jonathan Mildenhall, CMO with Airbnb, where he says “the culture becomes an incubator for creativity
and innovation, and ultimately for business performance.”
Here’s a few things companies can do to welcome a new hire:
Have A Welcome Strategy Put In Place
Before the hiring process starts, have a meeting where everybody (from the management down) who will be involved in the new hire to brainstorm and come up with a detailed plan for bringing a new person to the team. It is important for the company to create a good first impression as well. One of the most important things a new hire at Airbnb goes through is a full week of cultural immersion, so the person will come out of that week feeling like he can be a true ambassador for the company and brand.
Have A Mentor/ Buddy System
It’s good to assign somebody or even better, the whole team to spend some time with the new employee to take him out for lunch or happy hour after work, show how stuff works and provide support when needed. Helping the new guy feel part of the team quickly would be good to help him get rolling on the job and assimilate easier.
Express Genuine Interest in the New Employee As A Person.
Getting to know your new hire as an individual is great for building rapport with the person. Knowing more information about him would come in handy, like for instance if you know he’s visual or auditory will tell you how he prefers to be appreciated. For an auditory person, being complimented verbally is better than receiving it in an email and the opposite is true for a visual person.
It is always good to keep in mind these little information which creates a more personalized welcome and heightens his experience with the company.
Stay tuned to find out who are our new interns and how they are doing with PayrollHero.
The PayrollHero Team is fast expanding and we’re on the look out for rock star talents to join us. Drop us an email and tell us more about you.
[Update] Here is the full recap from the event.
Next week is an eventful one for PayrollHero. All of our team is flying in from Whistler and Manila to learn more about Domain Driven Design (DDD). The workshop will be conducted by Agile expert Mr Kiro Harada.
What is DDD, you say? Well, let me have a go at it. DDD is an approach to software development where domain experts collaborate in order to place their primary focus on the core domain. Often, keeping up a unified, single model becomes progressively harder, leading to subtle differences between different groups of people. In simple terms: we’re trying to get everyone on the team to speak the same language.
If that sounds cryptic, that’s because I haven’t been to the workshop yet! (not for lack of trying to scour through Wikipedia pages to figure this out, I promise)
The workshop will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday (16th and 17th June). Mr. Harada will be flying in from Japan. After helping us Improving Scrum with Kaizen back in April, we decided to go a step further and do a 2 day workshop on DDD.
Stay tuned with our blog because we will be giving you a post-event breakdown soon!
Image by decor8blog.com
Success in your business would mean it’s time to expand, but this feat does not come without it’s own set of challenges.
After interviewing 3 different owners for our Retail/ Restaurant Executive Series, I’ve learnt that they all faced similar challenges in management, as soon as they’ve reached their 3rd store opening.
Here are some of the problems and solutions used by our retail/ restaurant executives when managing multiple store locations.
Managing multiple locations means using technology to cut down on travel expenses
Implementing a different management system is necessary when you have several stores to oversee. Although it is not impossible, but it takes a lot of effort for you to constantly schedule your travel time to supervise different stores at different locations. Travel costs will pile up even more if your stores are located at different countries.
Getting your hands on free, cheap or available SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions will be save your company a chunk of money. While some businesses have their own custom- built software platforms as collaborative platforms, some of the more commonly-used tools are available online and widely used by small business owners. Some of the best cost saving productivity tools are available online- free or at low monthly costs like Google Documents, Skype, PipelineDeals.com.
As mentioned by our retail executive Andrew Masigan, owner of The Advent Manila Hospitality Group in the Philippines, he advice that “the trick is to put the important systems in place… the efficiency your company’s chain-of-command largely determines
how well your stores operate”.
Managing multiple locations means having putting a system in place
“You must have systems in place to be able to standardize the quality of your communications, products and results,” says Bert Martinez, founder of Bert Martinez Communications. Ensuring a strong internal system of operations would mean that you can save costs on training and reduce time required for supervision. Each employee will have a clear understanding of their responsibilities and boundaries.
In our interview with Adrien Desbaillets, President at SaladStop, he says that “a strong infrastructure is required to support the operation. Overheads start to escalate and a strong focus on SOPs, training, technology is required.” The point here is then to make each employee’s responsibility crystal clear through an organised structure and combine that with a system that measures each person. That way, everyone is accountable for delivering their work regardless of which location they are based at.
Managing multiple locations means shifting from micro management to systematized macro management
Before, Eileen Grey– owner of The Picture Company in the Philippines, didn’t need to think about an entire infrastructure when she opened her first store. She recalls it being just “very personal and mom and pop” until her 3rd store opening. Now she has to consider personnel training, back office space, production, logistics and others.
Having systems and technology in place is good for the business, but it wouldn’t help much if there is no focus on communication. Establishing good communication practices within the whole business is key to collaborate with offices at different locations, co-workers and clients.
Good tips to foster good communication between offices at different locations can include using webcams during weekly team meetings or webinars so team members can see each other, establish a daily reporting system online and use a centralized task management software like Asana, Trello and others.
(Read on how PayrollHero stays in sync with our other offices across the globe)
PayrollHero can help you efficiently manage your multiple business locations and cut down on costs. Talk to us about our business or meet us at our next Meetup!
The energy at the event was amazing as business owners are enthusiastic to share their product stories with others in attendance.
PayrollHero made a presence and shared our story- how we believe we can help businesses function better with our nifty HR and payroll management software in the cloud.
We would like to say a big Thank You to Guy Belanger for letting us take part in this great opportunity.
Thank you Guy!
This year’s event also marks the 50th anniversary of bilateral ties between Singapore and Canada. In a speech by High Commissioner H.E Heather Grant, she expressed gratitude to be friends with Singapore and played a part during its formative years since 1965. (Read more about Singapore’s 50th anniversary of bilateral relationship with 13 other countries)
This event was a prelude to the main exhibition and networking events: CommunicAsia 2015 and BroadcastAsia 2015 held at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore between 2- 5 June 2015.
If you’ve missed the opportunity to speak with the companies present at last night’s event, you can be sure to speak to them at these events. The Canadian pavilion at MBS Basement 2 (BH3-07) has meeting spaces to be used at your convenience on a first-come first-served basis.
If you’re looking to meet with PayrollHero, we are having a casual meetup at our office on 10th June 2015.
