Dealing with Disruption using the Align tools
At this time of unprecedented disruption, it is more critical than ever to get into a consistent communication rhythm with your teams, create accountability and focus with achievable milestones, and even create a short “disruption” period in Align. See below for some of the ways you can use your Align account during this difficult time.
As a current Align customer, you have access to the full Align Academy for additional handouts, presentations, and resources on the full suite of Align tools. We also have a blog, webinars, and downloads on our Align site to help with your disruption management plus growth management, strategic planning, and more!
Increase daily communication with full team Huddles
Right now, most businesses are changing their standard processes, shifting their work environments, and dealing with out of the ordinary circumstances.
Now is the time to roll out Daily Huddles. Daily huddles ensure consistent communication flows through the organization that allows your team to function efficiently and effectively.
Many people are switching to remote work which is a hard transition. It is easy for messaging to get lost over virtual communication or an unreliable home internet connection. Huddles help calm that chaos.
Quick Tip: In your daily huddles, write down every sentence you would normally say out loud so that your team can read along as you talk over your video call. Add the video conferencing link plus any probing questions into the “general information” section of your huddle.
Step 1: Create your Daily Huddle
Account Admins can create a new huddle. If you see the “Administration” menu in the top right, you are an admin!
Huddle Name (alphabetical when you have more than 1)
General Info – Add your video conferencing link, agenda, and tips for the team.
Step 2: Add Users to Huddles
Once they’ve accepted the invitation, add Users to Huddles
You may need to invite more users if your whole team is not already in Align, here’s how!
Click “Invite Users” in the left side navigation.
Once users accept their invite, invite them to
Step 4: Add more accountability and focus.
As you get into the rhythm of doing a daily huddle, start exploring the other sections.
Tasks:
Quick Tip:
Use Weekly Huddles for 1:1’s too! Doing your employee 1:1 meetings in Align helps each participant prep for an efficient and effective meeting PLUS, you can look back on previous weeks!
Manage the disruption outside of your “normal” quarter by creating a short period
Sometimes, going through a disruptive time means we must put everything else on hold momentarily. Create a new period for just this month to focus on priorities in the now, and then get back to everything else once this storm passes.
Step 1. Create a new time period
Step 2. Define and create priorities for this time.
Remember, less is more. Pick 1-3 items that you must do right now to keep the business moving forward.
Step 3.
Create a task force with Tags and a Weekly or Daily Huddle
Create a 30-60-90 Plan for Q2
Find a balance between your short term needs, and your long term growth goals. When planning for the new Quarter 2, create a mixture of long and short goals, divided by a timeline of 30 days to complete, 60 days to complete and 90 days to complete.
- 30 day goals will track short term needs to ensure your team members are held accountable to emergency needs.
- 60 day goals are somewhere in between, a larger objective that is only attainable when “emergency” needs calm down, however would not have been a goal before Covid-19.
- 90 day goals are your normal quarterly growth goals, a few of these are important to keep in mind to ensure that your team is still focused and going through the same motions that they would if we were not in a time of crisis.
Get a pulse on how everyone is doing with eNPS and Surveys.
Use the Align eNPS tool to send out a single consistent question each month to get a pulse on how your team is doing. You can always use the survey tools to do deeper, more in depth surveys.
New User FAQ
What credentials are needed for login?
To login, you need your work email and personalized password. On the login page, you can click “reset password” if you’ve forgotten!
How do I get access?
Ask your company admin to invite you to the account.
I have so many questions, how do I get answers?
In your Align account there is a FAQ section (click the ? in the top right when you’re logged in) and the Align YouTube channel. The FAQs and YouTube focus on “how” to perform different actions in the software.
The Align Academy is a great resource to answer a lot of your “Why am i doing this?” questions.
We have an awesome team of Align Advisors to answer your more specific questions – email advisor@aligntoday.com to submit a ticket or call 888.315.4049 to talk to an Advisor.
How do I get access to your integrations?
If you are an Admin, you can connect company-wide integrations in the “Align Settings” menu under Administration.
To connect personal integrations – Office 365 tasks, Google tasks, and Slack – Go to the personal profile in the top right corner of your screen and click “integrations”.