At one point or another, many businesses reach a stage where they need to delegate some intensive processes to another provider.

This delegation, usually called Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), helps small businesses avoid hiring full-time teams to manage and measure the performance of different business processes. BPOs offer benefits from cost savings to a strong competitive edge, and they can help new and upcoming businesses grow more efficiently. 

Delegating one or more business processes doesn’t come without risks, though.

For every function or process that a business outsources to an external provider, the more organizational information they potentially jeopardize. The greatest threats to BPO, chief among them hidden costs that come with outsourcing, can severely damage a business’s customer push-back and satisfaction rates. 

To that end, let’s explore the main risks involved in BPO projects and how to mitigate them, as well as get a quick intro to BPO with specific examples and benefits. 

• BPO examples
• 3 common benefits of BPOs
• 3 BPO risks

I’ll be honest: I dread all 30 days of June. 

This year, I found myself looking at the Process Street LinkedIn page, now sporting a rainbow logo, and contemplating how I felt about that.

Is it rainbow-washing? What else does Process Street do to support the queer community? Why can’t I answer that question?

I don’t think it’s rainbow-washing, but I should definitely be aware of what the company I work for is doing for the queer community.

I have complicated feelings about Pride. On one hand, I do believe in the immense importance it has. Pride creates a platform for big-picture political actions as well as the more personal experience of just not being in the minority for once. 

As more companies paint rainbows on their marketing materials from June 1 to June 30, it’s equally become more about commodification than community. 

I see you sweating as you glance at all your packed-up Pride material in the corner. You just wanted to show your support. What does rainbow-washing even mean? 

How do startups and small businesses show their allyship is genuine and not just part of a marketing campaign? 

There are no simple answers to any of this, but there’s only so much room in a blog post, so I’ll give you some actionable things you can do throughout the year to keep up your support long after Pride month is over.

• What is rainbow-washing?
• Allyship 101: Taking pride in Pride
• Back to the beginning
• Further resources

HR tips come in all shapes and sizes. However, the best tips are usually given by experienced people managers.

A tip, and an unwritten rule, for working in a Japanese office is that you usually work in silence. When I worked in a Japanese company, my record was working eleven hours without saying a word to anyone. I practiced that task day after day. After sitting in silence for twelve months, I know myself well.

Learning the unwritten rules of any workplace can take time. All experienced HR managers know that. As well as concrete documented processes, you tend to pick up abstract rules during your career. As I progressed in a Japanese office, I discovered other unwritten rules, but for the moment, I’m going to share five unwritten rules we’ve collected from experienced HR experts in this Process Street article.

Here are 5 HR tips you need to know:

• Excellent communication comes from good relationships
• Be an active listener to employee feedback
• Make employee onboarding personal
• Simplify your process
• Let automation do the work for you

If you’re thinking of starting a new business, you’re not alone. Every year, millions of people worldwide take the plunge and become entrepreneurs.

In the United States alone, 356,000 new businesses were formed in Q3 of 2021.

But starting a business is no easy feat. From coming up with a brilliant idea to getting it off the ground, countless challenges need to be overcome. On average, about every fifth new business fails within the first year.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. The rewards of startup life can be great too. From making your own rules to seeing your idea take off, there are plenty of reasons to take the plunge.

In this article, I’ll explain the challenges and rewards of startup life and offer some tips on how to overcome the challenges. I’ll also demonstrate how you can enjoy the rewards by avoiding burnout.

• The challenges of starting a new business 
• The rewards of owning & growing a startup 
• How to overcome the challenges of startup life & maximize success
• The art of not burning out
• Embrace the challenges & watch yourself grow

So let’s get started.

Virtual reality in recruitment is a growing trend in the recruiting world, thanks to the many benefits it offers. This is especially relevant for employer branding because virtual reality offers an immersive experience that allows candidates to engage with your brand directly. 

Imagine candidates many miles away from you being able to put on a headset, and get an office tour! VR has many promising advantages for remote and hybrid hiring. 

Stick here to learn more about how you can use VR in recruitment and whether VR is really the future of recruiting.

We’ll be covering:

• What does virtual reality in recruitment look like?
• 8 ways VR can be used in recruitment 
• Benefits of using VR in recruitment
• Is VR the future of recruiting?

You must sometimes wonder if using onboarding email templates can be fruitful? Employees ignore 65% of emails; 96% of customers have unsubscribed from email lists.

The above statistics show that an email needs to be more effective than ever. With that said, email templates can be a gamble. You already know that if you’ve been searching Google. You’ve probably seen templates with more text than a phonebook and awful grammar.

However, email templates can save time, mainly when contacting new hires. At Process Street, we’ve created ten email templates to take HR managers through pre-boarding, onboarding, and right into a 90-day meeting. We’ve also edited the living daylights out of our templates. You’ll be getting friendly but succinct emails to make a great impression.

These are the email templates to use when onboarding new hires:

1. Pre-boarding email template
2. Employee onboarding process
3. Welcome email to a new employee from HR
4. Confirming the employee’s first day of work
5. Employee onboarding requirements
6. Virtual onboarding email template
7. Onboarding announcement email
8. Employee onboarding feedback email
9. Employee onboarding survey email
10. The 90-day email

We chat with Zapier CEO Wade Foster, who shares how one of the fastest-growing remote companies in the world onboards their employees, manages Slack, organizes communication, and more.

Check out Wade Foster’s segment on The Employee Onboarding Podcast:

Available now on Apple, Spotify, Google, Podchaser, Podcast Addict, Deezer, & all your favorite podcast platforms!

Or if you’d prefer, here’s the Employee Onboarding Secrets segment with Wade Foster in full:

• The early days of Zapier
• What changed the trajectory of Zapier?
• How does Zapier use Zapier itself?
• How to manage a Slack HQ with 500+ employees
• Successful strategies for going remote
• Zapier’s onboarding process
• Self-serve content vs. structured lessons

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Employees are the lifeblood of any business or any brand the whole world over.

It doesn’t matter if it’s two part-time staff metalworking from a family garage or 1,000 employees in a multinational virtual law firm, employee performance is your business’ performance.

As a result, when employees are unengaged and working sub-par, so is your business. 

Under-engaged employees will affect the overall success of your business and poor morale quickly spreads. It’s therefore a good idea to nip it in the bud as soon as possible.

To help you learn how, I’ll be walking you through:

• It’s your duty to help employees succeed
• How to know if my employees are struggling to be engaged
• 7 ways to motivate your disengaged employees

There’s a dark underbelly to process management that no one wants to talk about, but it’s time to speak out: 

There are bad process management systems out there. Not just bad – these are some really nasty characters who will destroy your carefully built business from the inside out. 

We have to keep this between you and me, though, because I’m not supposed to be saying any of it. Process management is a dangerous world, folks. You don’t even know. It seems all efficient and useful, increasing productivity and reducing errors – great stuff all around – but when was the last time you checked in on your innovation?

Been a while, right? Now you’re starting to put it together. 

Come here, quick. I’ll run through what I know:

• Process management: What it was meant to be
• The secret truths of process management systems
• BPM adoption: Fighting the good fight
• Rosemann’s 5 stages of process management adoption
• The Process Street process management playbook
• Source List

This never happened, okay? 

86% of companies believe a multigenerational workforce is the key to success.

This success is due to a diverse workforce giving organizations more problem solving, varied perspectives, and diverse skills. This Process Street article will help you optimize and engage employees of all ages. At the end of the post, I’ll tell you about a secret famous butler I met in a multigenerational workforce.

Here’s how to understand and engage a multigenerational workforce:

• What is a multigenerational workforce?
• The strengths and weaknesses of each generation
• Five tips for engaging a multigenerational workforce