Hi all! Does your company contract Sole Traders who employ their own staff, and if so, how do you go about checks given that there are no records similar to Companies House? We're about to hire a VA but I've just realised that the company we're going through is not registered as an Ltd -- they're a Sole Trader. So I'm cautious about getting into a IR35-like situation where a VA could essentially be classed as working directly for us 🤔 and we'd be liable for PAYE and NI. Am I overthinking this? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Hi all! 👋 Do you have experience in optimising customer-service for scale? I’m looking to pick some brains, and potentially host a roundtable, on this topic! Keen to chat what metrics you tracked, what initiatives you tried, learnings, and so on. Particularly interested in how to fulfil considerable growth without simply adding more heads - so initiatives like moving toward chat and more efficient channels, enabling customer self-serve, and how to maintain a great customer experience whilst scaling. Let me know if you’re interested, or know someone that would have lots of useful thoughts to add! 🙏

Hi all, wasn't sure what channel this should go to. Does anyone have any recommendations for agencies specialising in offsite planning or freelance event coordinators? I'm in the process of planning my first ever team offsite abroad in Istanbul (for about 45 people coming from 6 countries) and would like to get some external help. Would really appreciate any recommendations as well as advice for me as a first time planner 🙏 Many thanks

Hi all 👋 - does anyone here head up Ops in a SAAS business? We're creating an Ops function and I would to pick your brains as to how it works. Do departmental Ops functions report to you, what are you responsible for etc etc.

Hey all 👋🏻 We are hoping to extend our company out to Australia by the end of this year and are therefore now on the hunt for new business leads and connections. 🇦🇺 Are there any Aussie companies here on Ops Stories? or anyone that could help me make some connections? We are a UX Design Company with some big names like BBC, ITV and M&S in our client base. Mostly focusing on broadcasting and media but looking to broaden this as we grow. If you know anyone or could shove me in the right direction it would be hugely appreciated 🙂 feel free to google us https://www.100shapes.com/

Hey hey, we're currently using capterra to capture customer reviews but not sure it's the best user experience... wondering what other B2B SaaS companies think is the best strategy is by way of public customers reviews - hosting own, or on a platform. And if platform, which ones(s)?

Hello Everyone! We're looking to move our employee handbook out of the dreary PPT we've been using for years, somewhere a bit more exciting. I've looked at notion, guru etc but I think we would not be taking advantage enough of everything those platforms offer to warrant paying the price. Any recommendations on something that's a bit more basic but still smart-looking and user friendly. Thanks a bunch!

We're looking to shake up our All Hands. At the minute we're just using it to demo features shipped/projects delivered in the last week. It's good, but it feels a bit samey and can lead to certain people/teams dominating the discourse. Interested to hear how other people use the time & any tips for keeping it inclusive and fun ✨

Hi All Does anyone have any experience of setting up 3PLs or arranging deliveries in the US? We are currently trying to set up our own deliveries there and would love some advice if anyone is willing to share it. Happy to provide more detail and any advice would be payable in coffee/beer/wine/food of your choosing!

Hi all - I’m currently drafting the comp plan for our sales and customer success teams. Does anyone have any good resources they’ve used for informing the structure of a comp plan and determining OTE levels/benchmarking?

Hey everyone! We are looking for a lawyer to helps us with contracts for royalty agreements for physical products, does anyone have a recommendation they can share?

Any experience or guidance on providing screens, keyboard, mouses etc for staff at an early-stage? We're mostly remote, but also have a hub office and it feels a duplication to provide equipment for both office and home-working. In general we'd want something cost-effective whilst still good quality

And a separate question sorry! On insurance: Is Directors & Officers (D&O) insurance different from keyperson? The blurbs read similarly but D&O is £200 / year for £500k of coverage and keyperson is ~£1,500 for £500k of coverage. (So I am obviously expecting these are different). So the question is: do we need both?

Interesting story in the Hustle about how to beat roulette tables (back in the day). Apparently current day tables are now controlled by algorithms so playing them is silly

@strong-coat-62770 has a polly for you!

Hey all! I'm looking to kick off my former company's liquidation process. Does anyone have recommendations for a good liquidator? I've heard some horror stories before and would like to avoid them at any cost 😉 Also never done this before, so if you have any tips / have 10 mins for a call in March/April, I'd be really thankful 🙏

Good evening everyone - is there any e-commerce business in this community? 👀 If so, I would be curious to know if you’ve been outsourcing fulfilment/logistics? Anyone ever used Zendbox?

Hey Team 🙂 Has anyone had to implement / update AML compliance procedures in a company before? Or perhaps point me in the direction of an expert? Would be great to get insight on things like: AML training, policy statement, nominated persons and staying compliant. I know there are tech solutions like Onfido and Yoti but that's down the road. Thanks 🙂

Hey, A friend is trying to convince her company (~ 100 people) that they need an Ops Manager to help the company improve internal processes, align teams against OKRs and all the other things we know awesome Ops Managers do. She has been asked to write a job spec for the role to pitch it and I was wondering if anyone would have a spare half hour for a chat to feedback on it and give insight to what it is like in Ops?

Hey All! Has anyone used an OKRs facilitator for company offsite/ meeting to talk on how OKRs can be used within an organisation. We are looking for a relatable presenter with a hands on experience rather than someone too theoretical, or industry grandee with limited hands-on experience. Any recommendations are really welcome! Thanks a lot .🙌

Hi Everyone, Day 2 here, so hope Im posting in the right place, but I wanted to pick a few brains on Laptops, MDM and Security if possible.. Some context... We've grown quickly from 2 to 50 in 18 months. We moved last year from buying laptops outright to a leasing company who have been good on the equipment front. But thats mostly it so far in terms of what we've really thought about as a business. However we're at a size now where we need to think about security more- 50 people remote across the UK etc. We can get Antivirus / Cybersecurity sorted easily enough via our leasing company (think they've suggested Sophos- not sure if anyone has alternatives they would rave about?!) Specifically though we need a strong MDM option that will work for us. They have suggested an MDM option called InTune, which I think is by Microsoft potentially- so fits in very nicely to the MS suite etc. However as a business we're not MS heavy. We work on GSuite- Gmail, Hangouts, GDocs mostly. I can see Google has their own MDM option as part of Google Workspace which I think would be FOC for us too. Question, without rambling on longer.. Anyone have any suggestions on what would be best to look at / think about here? And has anyone used Googles MDM option effectively for their own business?

Hi Ops Stories Family I am sad that I am sending this post, with Russia invading Ukraine, to ask for your collective experience and suggestions. Background We have an outsourced team of Ukrainian engineers (PHP and React Native) - they have been part of the Lumio family for 3 years. We also have team members located in Belarus and Russia. They are also essential to the success of Lumio (as we are gearing up to deliver a full Lumio 2.0 re-launch ahead of our fundraise). We are implementing contingency plans: • relocating the team from Kyiv to Lviv (further West, close to the Polish border) - best estimate at the moment is that they will be operational again in 10 hours (taking into account increased traffic leaving Kyiv) • continuing to explore short-term cover, in case Ukrainian team is offline, from other dev agencies, further away from Eastern Europe but nearshore in terms of timezones (eg South Africa) The principle concerns are: • health, safety and wellbeing of our team members (bearing in mind they will also be facing emotional challenges with their friends and family) • sanctions that will come about from working with our Russian and Belarussian team members, including whether it will remain possible to pay them • the teams inability to work and evolving our contingency plans in a very dynamic environment • trying to reduce our dependency on Eastern Europe for the foreseeable future We have a Visa Sponsorship Licence, but sponsoring does come with additional time and cost. Unsure whether our team (including Russian / Belarussian team members) could apply for the Tech Nation Visa, asylum (only Ukrainians I’d expect and unsure whether there would be a restriction on work in the UK). We are considering using Remote.com to employ the Ukrainian team members through it’s Polish entity (or entity in another NATO jurisdiction for greater safety from Russian advances) for between $299 - $599/employee / month. Though think that will depend on whether Ukrainians can easily get a right to work permit in a particular jurisdiction. Request for your collective experience and suggestions I expect other Ops Stories companies may be facing similar problems - eg with engineering teams in Eastern Europe? Would you be able to: • share your contingency plans • provide introductions to near-shore dev agencies (PHP and React Native) • provide experience of visa sponsorship (good / bad practice), Tech Nation Visas, Asylum or any other avenue you think would be helpful I’d be very grateful for any help. Sending positive thoughts to anyone affected by this. Adrian

Hey everyone, we're looking to invest more into our marketing efforts and I was wondering if anyone here could recommend an SEO consultant/agency. We're a UX design agency so we're looking for someone who has B2B experience. 🙏

Asking for a People Ops friend at another company

Pretty general query methinks given current context but let me know if I should post elsewhere

I have a team of 12 in Ukraine. We have been contingency planning for a full scale invasion for around a month. 10 of the team have managed to make it to the west, and a few are in Poland. But I have 2 of my team stuck in Kyiv. Is there anyone here who is dealing with this situation, who may know how they can get out?

Secondly, we are trying to wire money to them. But Western Union + Transfer wise has stopped working in Ukraine. PayPal too. If anyone knows of other ways we can wire money, please DM me.

Thank you. Appreciate the sensitivity of this post. But I am quite desperate for help ❤️

👋 With the world having changed a lot in the last 4 days and now idea what is yet to come, what are you thinking of face to face offsites planned for 1-3 months time? Will you go ahead or are inclined to postpone just in case? I’m leaning on postponing for now.

Hello, does anyone have team members in Russia they’re trying to pay? Would appreciate any info on how you’re navigating it. Thanks!

Hello team, random one. We use Whatsapp for our internal comms and recently our new starters have been targeted by scammers. They pretend to be the CEO/CFO and will ask for giftcards. Apart from education/not giving out phone numbers, is there another way around this?

Hello all, does anyone outsource to an IT company for laptop repairs etc that they would recommend?

Not sure if pancake day is celebrated around the world but here's my attempt at bringing a little joy to the world

Hi All - bit of a random one. Does anyone know of anywhere in the UK/Europe we can purchase Starlink modems+antennas to try and get to our team in Ukraine? Thanks in advance