069: ImageSoft HR: Putting the ‘Human’ in Human Resources

Crystal Iverson:  

Welcome to today’s podcast. I’m so glad to be here. My name is Crystal Iverson and I’m the President here at ImageSoft. Joining me today are two very wonderful ladies who I’ve had the pleasure to work with for several years now. We have Lee Ann Eastman, who is our HR Manager. And Christy Kolis who has the longest title that we’ve ever heard of, she is our recruiter and Employee Engagement Specialist. 

 So, I’m so glad to have you both here today on the podcast. And today we’re gonna be talking about human resources and, and moe importantly, human resources at, at ImageSoft, talking about what makes ImageSoft, special and unique. And. What kind of people we look for to round out our team. So, without further ado, I’d love to jump into our first question that I have for you guys. 

ImageSoft has five core values, and our first core value is people first. I’m curious what it means to you to be people first and how does HR help to support that? So, if Leanne, you wouldn’t mind starting us off and telling us a little bit about your thoughts here. 

Leanne Eastman: 

Yeah. Well, I guess as Crystal mentioned, we have five core values. They are integrity, dependability, driven to excellent, and customer focus and people first. But specifically, though, for people first it’s really just one identity marker for the type of individual we know will be very successful here within our culture. To me it means a culture where we strive to make others successful. 

We seek to listen, we empathize we understand others, and we treat others with respect and dignity. Above all. Also, we also seek to understand the person first and then the process or tool. When a team member has these values, we know that they are the right person for our culture, our ImageSoft culture. 

 They embody this value in their day-to-day interactions, whether it be with their team members, their coworkers, customers, or anyone they encounter as a representative of ImageSoft. Outside like the obvious that we do seek in our recruiting process people first candidates. But a different example of how HR supports this value is in our day-to-day interactions with our workforce. 

And our workforce is our HR customer. You know, so that’s who we represent. We service them we provide that service to them in helping them navigate their questions at payroll, benefits. Or really any issues or concerns that they may have. So, no matter how many times I answer the same question, I always seek to listen. 

 I empathize, I understand their issue and provide an answer that has respect and dignity. Sometimes that’s more challenging. But in the end, I represent ImageSoft and our values. So, but as a side note, I will just say that this value also just really has benefit when HR is sometimes called to provide support on a tricky people situation, which can be very challenging and stressful because of the high emotions. 

 But I find of when you pull back the layers of these situations and refocus the energy, back to what people first means that value. And you’re more able to find a very fair path to a resolution to that situation, which really everyone can agree on because they see how maybe they have strayed from that value. So, it just helps bring everybody, everybody back into focus. So that’s kind of how we do it here at ImageSoft. 

Crystal Iverson: 

Thanks, Leanne. I love that. And I love that you mentioned right, right seat and right person. Something that we probably won’t get to on this podcast, but just that we do at ImageSoft is follow the EOS model by Gino Wickman and one of his principles is taken from the Jim Collins Good to Great, where it talks about having the right people on the bus and the right person in the right seat. 

So that’s definitely something that we really focus here on, especially when we’re looking for people First. Christy, do you have anything that you wanna add? 

Christy Kolis:  

I think Leanne really covered everything very eloquently. But I, I like to your point, you know, that’s one of the things that I think is so special about ImageSoft is that we do care that we have the right people in the right seat. 

And when we see somebody struggling and we, you know, we feel that they’re not in the right seat, we’ll do what it takes to make sure that we find them that right seat if we know that they’re the right person. And we also help support our employees in their goals. Like if, you know, for instance, if somebody in finance wants to, you know, dive into the IT world and, you know, take a, you know, take her career in a different trajectory. We have supported that before in the past. 

Crystal Iverson: 

And that makes me think of actually several examples throughout the company, right? I can think of several of our team members who maybe started in professional services and moved into customer care and moved into internal support. You mentioned people who started in finance, moved into IT, moved into professional services. So, we have you know, professional services in the cloud, services and technical support. All, all kinds of an interweb of, of folks because again, like you said, we focus on having the right people here and then look for how their career moves forward’s. A great example. Thank you. 

So, Christy, with the role of employee engagement specialist along with your recruiting capacity, I would look to you to see how important is it that, that you believe employee engagement is for a successful business? 

Christy Kolis:  

Employee engagement is extremely critical to any organization that values their employees. Having an effective strategy in place helps to create a better work culture, reduce employee turnover, increase productivity, and helps build a better work and customer relationship. Right now, remote organizations have to find creative ways to keep it fun and inclusive for everybody. We’re always looking for ways to connect our employees. 

The world of remote work is dependent on creating a culture that people can buy into and get involved in no matter where they’re located. We have two very successful programs 

here at ImageSoft. Our CARES and Wellness committees, I think our topnotch we try our best to connect with our employees no matter where they are. 

Help them interact with different departments different team members. We like to do happy hours. We have wellness activities happy hours, anything that we can to try to keep people engaged. 

Leanne Eastman:  

Yeah, I think I can kind of follow up with Christy on that is feedback from our employee survey. You know, even if they didn’t participate maybe in the CARES or wellness activities, they valued just the fact that the company was providing this to everybody and being inclusive no matter where you were. 

It’s really a testament that we’ve been recognized and won elite awards on engagement through the 101 best and brightest program. So, all the little unique things that the CARES and wellness team do really kind of just ties it all together and helps us keep engaged with everybody cuz you know we are all across the United States. 

Crystal Iverson:  

I know when I look at exit interviews, when we do have the unfortunate of experience of losing an employee. One thing that’s always consistent regardless of, of where they’re going is that I have, I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody who hasn’t commented about our culture and, and how wonderful it is, and most of the time I see we love ImageSoft, you know, but X, Y, Z and it’s so wonderful to, to know that that really is the culture that we build across the state lines across the internet now that we’re all working remotely and working from home. So, kudos to you all for all the work that you do to make sure that you’re creating that employee engagement 

Christy Kolis:  

Mm-hmm.  

Leanne Eastman: 

Welcome. 

Crystal Iverson:  

Okay, so Leanne. I am really curious about this particular question. I have been in a number of interviews because I’ve been in multiple positions throughout the organization before becoming president, and I have a question that many prospects ask me or somebody else during the recruiting process, which is what do you love about ImageSoft? 

And I know what the answer is pretty much consistently across the board, but I’m really curious to hear what you all think about why people love working here. So, Leanne, why don’t you start us off? 

Leanne Eastman: 

Sure. As I mentioned, we obviously do try to hire those people that meet our core values, which fosters a terrific work environment a positive work environment, inclusive work environment. 

Over the years, we’ve had some affirmation that our efforts have been rewarded by winning elite industry awards for work life balance. We’ve won that twice. Employee enrichment, engagement and retention, we’ve won twice. And also, an employee education and development. These awards were granted by an outside panel of industry experts for our company size by reviewing our company survey and that include analytics and narratives describing our culture and our operations. More importantly, the best data use in these awards come from the third party administered employee survey results. So, the feedback that we, for the most part provide an inclusive environment, which allows our employees to be their best is something that they value the most about ImageSoft. 

We also, I think, in a different vein is more of, we have a robust internship program. I, it’s what I love about Image Soft and working here because it’s an excellent program to gain real life work experience through mentorship. Interns work in small, closely working pods where they have the opportunity to learn from experts in their field on a daily basis. 

That is priceless. That’s priceless experience. A testament to our program is that there are several former interns. Who are now in leadership positions with ImageSoft. So, we foster that growth in their careers and it’s, the sky’s the limit. If you have the will and the drive to do it, we’re gonna give you the opportunity to, to prove that. 

Christy Kolis:  

Absolutely. I think those are some great points. One of the other things that since now you know, we have as a company decided to, you know pivot to a hundred percent remote company, I think that helps. That has really opened up the parameters for our employees and as well as our candidate pool. 

It gives us a lot more flexibility to find candidates. But one of the things that, I get this question all the time when I’m interviewing. You know, folks on the phone and they ask me, “So what do you like working about Image Soft?” And you know, I always say, you know, it’s the people first cuz it’s, we truly live, breathe, you know that philosophy all the time. 

We always have, right? But one of the things that I think makes ImageSoft so special is, and, and it’s a huge compliment, is, you know, we have a lot of employee referrals. We get a lot of our new employees by employee referral and who’s gonna say, Come work with me. I don’t really like it here, but come work come work here. You know, I mean if somebody’s tapping somebody on the shoulder and saying, “Hey, come work where I work”, they obviously really like working where they are. So, [00:12:00] and you know, that’s one of the biggest compliments I think a company can get. And we have a lot of employee referral. 

Crystal Iverson: 

Yeah, I totally agree. And to answer the question that I said earlier as far as what my answer is and what pretty consistently across the board people say when they get the question of, you know, what do you love most about ImageSoft? I’ve never heard anyone say it’s their mouse. Or their keyboard or their, the, the quality of the teams’ calls. Although teams is great. Consistently it’s the people that they work with, that they have high achieving people who have their same values, and they just really love the, the folks here. And conversely, when I get a chance to meet with our new employees, which I do on a monthly basis, I hear nothing, but I feel like I’ve been here for so long. I feel welcomed. Everyone is kind. That I feel like I’ve known these people for so long, and that is because of the quality and due diligence that I think that especially you two and our interviewers do to make sure that we have these right people in the right seats.  

So, Christy, the other part of your long title is recruiter. So, I’m, I’m curious on the recruiter 

side of things. What is some advice you could give to somebody who might be actively looking for a job? 

Christy Kolis:  

Well, I do, do this every day. So, and it is a very tough market out there right now and I know, you know, one of the biggest pet peeves that I have is ghosting. Don’t ghost the organization or the recruiter that you’re working with it’s not professional and generally considered a common courtesy. 

Those that do this obviously wouldn’t be a good fit for our culture. It is remembered and noted in your files. So, you know, that’s my biggest pet peeve as a recruiter is yeah, just don’t ghost somebody. It’s obviously a people first issue, and if you do that, I’m glad I know it in the beginning. So that’s my biggest pet peeve. 

Leanne Eastman: 

Yeah, I think I can just recommend that you should be prepared for your interviews. Make sure you understand it’s, you know, if it’s just a phone interview, you know that you have a quiet space around you, or if it’s a virtual interview and you’re gonna be on camera. You wanna make sure that you’re prepared Is your lighting, okay? You know, all those little things that you kind of go through, you know, that would make you be presented in the best light. Come to the interview with questions for your interviewers. What do you like working about, you know, asking, what do you like working about at ImageSoft? 

Is it, you know, it’s just a time for you to learn about the company. As well. And you know, this is, could be a place, a future place of you working, so you wanna know everything about it. You know, be curious about what goes on in the inner workings of the place that you’re interviewing. 

Crystal Iverson:  

Thank you, Leanne. You brought up one thing that I think is really important for video interviews. Now that we are a fully remote company, just go through the extra two minutes to test that your video and audio is gonna work ahead of time. Just do it even if you feel confident, even if you use Zoom 18,000 times in your life. 

That’s sort of the, the worst part is when you’re interviewing for technology company. Can’t get your video to work we would really encourage you to go through that quick test. And like you said, this is essentially platonic speed dating, right? We are looking to see if you’re a good fit for us and you’re looking to see if we’re a good fit for you, right? 

We wanna have, make sure that we have a good cultural match that we get on well. That you get to know your manager a bit because you spend a lot of time with your counterparts. And so, making sure that that there’s, there’s good synergy between the parties is really important. So, I love that you said come with questions and, and, you know, make sure that you feel like you’re a good fit for us as well. 

Okay, last question. ImageSoft has some openings at the moment, and so I’m curious, Christy, for anyone that’s sort of on the fence about applying, what would you say sets us apart in terms of our workplace environment here at ImageSoft? 

Christy Kolis: 

Well, again our people we recruit based off of our core values.You know, being a kind and caring teammate being willing to pitch in and help even if their schedule is stacked you know, working together for the greater good. We’ve seen this on our teams. We have a collaboration station. And so, on the teams channel, people are willing to, you know, hop on a conversation at, you know, four 30 on a Friday to help somebody through an issue or, you know, willing to help, you know, follow up over the weekend. 

You know, if they need, you know, assistance with an upgrade or something. So, you know, that’s the type of people who work here, and that’s the type of people we want to continue to bring into the team. 

Leanne Eastman:  

For sure, for sure. And I think we mentioned it earlier, but our employee referral program is really robust. We have at least 27% of our new hires come from referrals. If that doesn’t tell you something about the organization then I can’t, you know, I can’t say anything more because again, we get referrals all the time. We do provide a referral bonus. So, you know, there is some incentive, but I think also, It’s really just the environment. 

You know, like Christy said, you’re not gonna refer someone like tap somebody on their shoulder like, “Hey, come work for us.” You know, cuz this is such a bad place, you know, it’s just not gonna happen. So, you know, I think that’s just really why people love working here as well, you know, that we’re bringing in cuz we like those employee referrals. We liked having that personal perspective that somebody’s worked with somebody previously. And they can really make that recommendation. 

Crystal Iverson:  

So, we talked about our core values and people first and recruiting, and what makes ImageSoft special. So now I wanna break down the really juicy stuff. I wanna talk about HR. So, HR can kind of get a bad rap sometimes, though I will be totally honest in saying that it’s not the experience I’ve ever had with you two women. 

You are a joy to work with. But I am curious, So Leanne, maybe you can start us off and, and try to demystify the, a little bit of HR. So, what should people know about human resources and what you guys do? 

Leanne Eastman:  

Sure, yeah. I know HR sometimes does have that, you know, grim, reap. Type of, you know, when we walk into a room, you know, everybody’s gotta be on their best behavior.But you know, but what you should know when you pull back the curtain is that we really care about our employees. We really care. We have your best interest at heart. May not feel like that sometimes, but we do. You know, HR has to be in the middle because we have to represent ImageSoft, the company, and we have to navigate this tight rope. Cuz we need to administer rules fairly while also making sure that our employee is fairly represented and supported as well. You’re our customer, so you know, we have to support you and we service you. Behind the scenes, you know, we’re working really, really hard on their behalf. You know, if we don’t get back with them instantaneously, it’s not because we’re trying to ignore them, it just means we’re maybe experiencing some complications and there’s more to, to provide a proper answer that’s accurate. 

And we need to work through those issues. So sometimes there’s a little bit of a delay, but it’s, we’re not ignoring, you just have. We try to communicate really well. But you know, sometimes, you know, we fail too. So, but we really have their best interest at hearts. 

Crystal Iverson:   

And Christie, what about you? What are you dying to share about HR or what you do?  

Christy Kolis: 

Well, we truly don’t like being the police the police and, and nagging to return forms or, you know, get that signature, you know, get the signature that we need from you. You know, it is a thankless job, but we have to do it. And, and at the end of the day, both Leanne and I love what we do. 

We enjoy supporting ImageSoft and the employees that work for ImageSoft and you know, we hope that shows. 

Crystal Iverson: 

Well, it may be a thankless job, but I want to say thank you to both of you, not just for being on the podcast today, but truly for being the advocates of the employees, being the advocates of the candidates. 

Making sure that you are doing everything that you can to have a successful team and company and, and balance the line right between company and, and person. And it’s a, it’s a tough position that you’re in. And so truly, thank you. And for everybody out there, HR is not scary, just so you know. So again, thank you Leanne and Christy for your time. 

If you are interested in learning more about ImageSoft about our company, you can visit us on our website. It’s image soft inc.com. That’s image soft in c.com and as we mentioned, we are looking for a few special people and so if you’re interested in learning more about any of the careers, we have available hit, hit up our careers page, so image soft inc.com/careers or you could just click on the button on the top corner. 

So hopefully you’ll get a chance to talk with Christy soon, and I really appreciate the time today.