TecHRseries Interview with Daniel Sines, CEO and Founder at Traitify

The Covid-19 pandemic and its effects are going to stay with the global workforce until at least the end of the year, while teams adjust during this trying time, it is important to seek to understand the individual nuance of the personality of your team members advises Daniel Sines, CEO and Co-founder at Traitify as he discusses a few thoughts on the evolving workplace trends the ongoing pandemic has resulted in while also sharing his thoughts on what it’s like being a tech entrepreneur.

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Tell us a little about yourself Dan, how did the idea of Traitify come about – what is your biggest vision and plan for the platform?

Traitify was started by myself and my co-founder Josh Spears back in 2011. Josh and I have been lifelong friends after meeting in middle school while both wearing Star Wars shirts. Josh had just moved back to Baltimore after attending college in California and was getting reintegrated into the social scene and went on a blind date. The date went terribly wrong and he came back to me saying he wished he would’ve known the woman better so he could’ve planned a date that would’ve matched their personalities. So the first iteration of Traitify was actually an app to match people on dates based on their personality.

We needed a method that was fun enough for that consumer setting. My background is in design and Josh in multimedia production so we said “I wonder if you could take that phrase ‘a picture’s worth a thousand words’ and actually measure the thousand words.” This was the genesis of our assessment. We ended up going out to college campuses to try and get students to use our dating app, but the administrators started coming to us and saying, instead of telling our kids what dates to go on could you tell them what career path to pursue. We pivoted at that point and it has led us on our journey to being a candidate driven personality assessment for high-volume hiring.

Our vision at Traitify is to create happiness in the workplace. This goes beyond finding the right people for the role or optimizing the performance of a workforce and really drills into how we can enhance and personalize the experience for a candidate, a hiring manager, and an employee.

Read More: Ten Ways AI Changed (And Is Changing) The Global Workplace!

As a tech start-up entrepreneur, what are some of the biggest leadership learnings you’d like to share with us today?

The list is endless. We have had so many opportunities to learn along the way, but I think one of the key things when building a startup is to embrace the mistakes, learn from them, and don’t make the same mistake twice. There is a saying, “the block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping stone in the pathway of the strong.” I believe this is incredibly sound advice in a startup, you have to turn every obstacle and challenge into a stepping stone to achieving your goal and vision.

With the ongoing pandemic and its effects on businesses and the need to work from home, what are some top tips you would like to share when it comes to tracking remote teams and a distributed workforce?

Seek to understand the individual nuance of the personality of your team members. The better you can understand their personality the more you can understand how they are coping with such a scary and trying time, and how this is affecting them at work and with the more limited interaction with their coworkers.

Also, what are some of the top tips you would like to share with us when it comes to implementing a sound virtual hiring and virtual interview screening process at a time such as the present?

As a company involved in the hiring process, this may sound a bit self-serving but embrace technology. We are fortunate that we are able to stay so connected at a time when we are forced to be a part. Allowing the technology to enhance what you are doing and fill that gap is the key to making a virtual hiring process successful and seamless.

How according to you will the global workforce and work cultures shape up given the changing work environments due to Covid-19 and otherwise? What are some of the biggest changes that will stay long-term?

I think the need for space and sanitization will be something that sticks with consumer behavior for a long time into the future, and because of that, the workforce will need to continue to adapt and change to this perception by their customer base. I would imagine in the high volume/hourly world we will be seeing companies increasing staff on the back of house side of their businesses while decreasing the staff that are front of house and customer interacting.

Read More: COVID-19 Has Had Companies Acting Swiftly To Ensure Business Continuity

In the tech marketplace, work from home is not a new concept, at a time such as the present, it is all about more teams and businesses getting used to the concept. What remote work tips would you share with professionals who by now must be finding it challenging to be isolated and working from home through the world crisis?

At Traitify, we have been working on setting aside specific time to just “hang out” virtually with the team. I think businesses have to look at how they can add the socializing element to their daily work routine. People underestimate the value of the “water cooler” in building trust amongst a team, so you now have to plan and create time to build that trust.

What industries / roles do you feel need to proactively start inculcating more employee friendly work from home policies today?

Any industry that can, should. The ability to work from home gives your workforce such a greater degree of freedom which allows you to find some of the best talent for the positions. However, if I was to pick an industry, I believe the call center space is ripe for disruption of their current work from home policies. We have been hearing from a number of them that they do not intend to ever return to the office, as the overhead of that decreases I believe we will see these businesses reinvesting in the wellness of their remote workforce and I would imagine we would see a decrease in turnover in an industry that traditionally sees very high turnover metrics.

What other collaboration tools would you advise teams to use, to boost productivity especially during these uncertain times due to the global pandemic and as work from home starts becoming the new normal for several people and industries.

I think less is more here. Define a simple stack of tools you use to better communicate and manage projects with your workforce and stick to them. Consistency and simplicity will help to normalize a very abnormal state of the world.

Tag (mention/write about) the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read!

Glen Cathey

A few last moment tips for businesses worldwide dealing with the current world pandemic

Focus on your people, they need your support now in order to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The more you support your workforce and reinvest in attracting, selecting and engaging the right talent the better they will be able to serve your customers.