A campaign is a business that is set up to go out of business. But before it does, your campaign needs to have the logistics down pat—everything from campaign insurance, to hiring processes, to payroll, to how to respond to HR issues. In this episode, Joe and Martín discuss how to set up the logistics of your campaign and Claire Stein-Ross joins to talk all things campaign HR.
A campaign, like any business, needs to have streamlined and coordinated HR practices. Everything from onboarding to writing an employee handbook is essential, but can take time away from the campaign trail if you don’t do it right. This week Joe and Martín discuss the unique HR details of campaigns like having volunteers and full-time employees, union and non-union employees, and why campaign insurance is so important. Martín speaks with Claire Stein-Ross of CSR Operations, an HR professional with particular expertise in HR for campaigns. If you want to learn how to make sure your campaign operations run smoothly, this is a must listen!
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Joe Fuld
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Instagram: @joefuld
Martín Diego Garcia
Twitter: @gmartindiego
Instagram: @gmartindiego
Presented by The Campaign Workshop
(Intro Music)
Martín Diego Garcia (00:04):
Hey friends, you're listening to how to win a campaign where you'll get an insider's perspective that teaches you not only how to run, but how to win. My name is Martín Diego Garcia
Joe Fuld (00:13):
And I'm Joe Fuld and you can find us @CMPWRKSHP on Twitter or on Instagram@thecampaignworkshop. Welcome and thanks for listening to episode four of how to win a campaign. On the last episode, we learned how to craft a good campaign theme and a message and to help break through the noise with pollster Margie Omero. She really helped us understand how to use polling to do that. We also talked about other tips and tricks if you don't have the money for polling. So if you haven't listened to that episode, please go back and check it out. It's really great. But Martín, tell us what we're talking about today.
Martín Diego Garcia (00:58):
Yeah, so today's episode is sort of something that a lot of candidates don't think about when they jump into building a campaign, which is really setting up your campaign from hiring to setting up your own sort of HR practices internally for your campaign. As we often tell candidates, right, you are building a business that is supposed to go out of business on election day, but you are actually hiring staff and bringing in folks to manage and running an actual business. And that comes with a lot of different pieces that you need to set up in terms of HR practices. So we have a great interview later on in the episode with Claire Stein Ross who does this day in and day out, and so she has a lot of great tips and tricks. But Joe, as candidates are thinking about setting up their campaigns, what are the things they should be considering in terms of setup?
Joe Fuld (01:43):
Yeah, I mean, first I want to give you a quick story about what they shouldn't, right? The first campaign that I was managing was a city council race in Baltimore. The candidate was great, but he decided on the location of the headquarters to be across the street from a fire station. Three stories up with no air conditioning. And it was really a hazard. So the sirens were going on. It was really hot. We, it was a small room. We had all these things crammed in there and he had picked out this location because it was a good sign location, not because anyone could ever spend time in the office. And so your point of candidates not thinking about work environment, not thinking about set up HR is really true. And to me it starts with that idea of know the rules, right? You really need to understand the election law. You really need to have someone with you that understands the election law. It varies from place to place. So you want to make sure you have someone that understands the election law for that race and really is an expert in that that you can get information from. You want to make sure you file the proper paperwork to run every year. People mess up their paperwork and get kicked off the ballot. It happens all the time. So knowing those rules are important. And then those HR practices that Claire really talked about to me are something that are important. You want to live your values and you want the campaign you're running to treat people the way that you want to be treated. I mean, you know, in the past I would say campaigns have not always been the best work environment and I think we can raise that to a higher standard in the world of progressive political campaigns. And we want to do that. Again, thinking about legal, thinking about all of that is just so important.
Martín Diego Garcia (03:40):
Yeah, I mean campaigns are such a pressure cooker right, they're in a small quick turnaround timeline with high stakes and high emotions and you're burning the candle at both ends. And so you want to sort of take the time at the beginning of your campaign to really think through what are some simple structures and ways in which people can give a complaint or give a grievance, right? How do they, how are you setting up health care? How are they getting paid? All of these different pieces that you don't want to be spending time when there's not a time, a lot of time left in your campaign or when you're at the peak of your campaign, when you really should be talking to voters and raising money. And one of the pieces that we often advise candidates to do is to really think about your kitchen cabinet. You don't have to be an expert on these pieces of how to be able to campaign, but as you're thinking about building your kitchen cabinet, which is a group of advisors or confidants that you want to keep around you throughout your campaign, who can advise you on how to run a good campaign and advise you on your message and other pieces. Think about bringing somebody in who's maybe worked on a campaign before and understands how to set up some of these practices as well. There are also a bunch of trainings that are out there that are given by usually your local board of elections, particularly for your treasurer to get trained on how do they file paperwork? When are the financial filing deadlines to make sure that your campaign isn't missing anything and you out of lieu get fined for something you didn't even know you were supposed to file for and that's hard money you raised from supporters that now you have to spend on a fine versus spending on direct voter contact.
Joe Fuld (05:04):
Yeah, for sure. I mean and and I think the more you can proactively think about this, the more you can be asking questions before you run, making sure you're writing things down. I mean, and it's like simple and more complex things. I think it is like as simple as making sure that your campaign actually has insurance, right? Some campaigns don't, but making sure that you do I think is really important. If someone slips and falls in your campaign headquarters, you want to make sure that you're covered, but like having basic liability insurance to me is really important. Something folks don't do. The other thing that we're seeing more and more happening on political campaigns because of some of the problems in campaigns in the past is we're seeing some campaigns being organized by unions to actually like make sure that the workers are treated better. And I think regardless of whether your campaign is unionized or not, you want to set a standard. You want to really think about what you're paying folks. You want to think about the diversity of the staff that you're hiring. You really want to make sure that you're setting up Martín as, you'd said earlier a process that if there is a problem that how does a grievance get filed, if there is some kind of HR issue that you want to be able to handle it. And this is not just for employees because you also have volunteers that are coming in and out of campaigns and you want to make sure that they're treated well and so all of those things are so important and having a process and a written plan to do it is critical. And the last thing that I'll say is contracts, right? Making sure you have some kind of agreement for staff that you have a written staff agreement of when they're paid, how they're paid, what their benefits are, and those things are in writing to me is just so critical.
Martín Diego Garcia (06:47):
Yeah, I mean what Claire really talks about, and we'll, we'll jump into that after the break, is just to keep it simple, right? Have a process but make sure that it works for you and keeping it simple. I think very often candidates get hung up on balancing their values with campaign structure, right? There's a limited amount of time. There's a limited amount of resources and you really have to determine, right, if, if fight for 15 or or fighting for a living wage is part of one of your issues, right? You don't want to be paying your campaign staff under what that, what you're fighting for, right? Or if healthcare is one of your major issues and you're not offering healthcare to your staff, right? That could be a news story. So you really want to be thinking about these pieces of the issues that you're running on, the issues that are important to your community and make sure that you're not perpetuating the inequities that you are trying to fix by running for office. And you need that time at the beginning of your campaign to think about those things, iron them out and figure out what a campaign structure and an HR structure looks like for your campaign.
Joe Fuld (07:43):
Yeah. Well we're excited to hear from Claire Stein, Ross, who knows the ins and outs of setting up your campaign. She'll walk us through how to build a process around hiring, onboarding and HR and how to assemble a campaign team that sets you up for success. And we'll hear from her right after the break.
(Music)
Martín Diego Garcia (08:08):
Alright. And we're back and very excited to be joined now by Claire Stein-Ross, thank you so much for joining us.
Claire Stein-Ross (08:15):
Thank you for having me.
Martín Diego Garcia (08:16):
Of course. So Claire is the principal over at CSR Operations where she provides services to improve organizational and human resources, efficiencies for all of the clients that she works with. She has been the operations director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign committee's I.E. Program where she managed the budgeting and compliance of over 81 million. Oh my goodness. Have a paid and pulling expenditures that has a lot of numbers to crunch. She also has worked as a fundraiser and special projects manager for New Mexico junior Senator, uh Democrat Martin Heinrich. And prior to that she conducted a qualitative and quantitative opinion research at the Greenberg Quillin Rosner Research. Did I get all those names proper?
Claire Stein-Ross (08:56):
Yes.
Martín Diego Garcia (08:58):
Great, great. Great. So thanks for joining us. And my first question really is sort of how did you get into this line of work?
Claire Stein-Ross (09:05):
I've always loved politics. I was a little bit involved in high school and then very involved in college and I moved to DC right after I graduated, which I think is probably very common story, planned to be here for maybe a year and then now it's been a decade. I think. Very common story. And I've worked in a few different areas of politics and as you mentioned including polling and fundraising. But I really love operations, which I see broadly as just solving problems and helping teams do their best work. So finding kind of the ways to solve those puzzles and, and make sure everyone else is able to maximize their own resources and potential. And so I, that's why I started consulting is just like it kind of offer that problem solving on a very tailored basis to organizations who might not be able to invest in a full time person or they just need added capacity.
Martín Diego Garcia (09:52):
Yeah, definitely. Do you have a sort of favorite part of all of the different sort of puzzles and pieces you work with?
Claire Stein-Ross (09:57):
Yeah, I just liked that as a consultant, now I get to work with so many different teams and see all the different team challenges and team dynamics and you know, there's always something new to do and new to learn. So I've really enjoyed that piece of it.
Martín Diego Garcia (10:10):
That's awesome. So we have been talking a lot about in a couple of the episodes around hiring and particularly putting together a team, what you should be thinking about as a candidate or as a campaign manager who is going through the process. Why is hiring so important when it comes to building your campaign?
Claire Stein-Ross (10:26):
Well, your people are always your best asset. And they will make or break the success of your campaign. And so I think good, thoughtful hiring on the front end makes everything else work. And when it doesn't go well, it makes everything not work. And so it's really the root of all your success as a campaign is having good people on board and making sure they have the resources they need to succeed in whatever job you hired them for.
Martín Diego Garcia (10:48):
Yeah, definitely. And I'm sure you have seen sort of different types of process hiring processes in the various different sort of levels of campaign. Are there any sort of basics or sort of across the board good things to include in that process?
Claire Stein-Ross (11:03):
Yeah, I mean I think the main thing I always say about process is that there is no right way to do it. It just needs to be something you'll actually do. And so making it simple and making it fit your own specific workflow style and your management style is what will make it successful. So thinking about, you know, the tasks or the steps that you'll actually be able to complete every time I think is the most basic. I mean it sounds super simple, but keeping it that way is what will make it successful for you. So I think have a process of some kind and it doesn't necessarily matter what it is as long as it's something that will work. So again, not complicated, but some of the things that I would definitely do every time when you're hiring, write a clear job description you know, don't just send out an email of a couple of lines of, you know, I'm looking for a finance director, I'm looking for a field director or whatever it is. They have actual responsibilities associated with each role and it doesn't, you know, some of those things will be the same across different different roles. And in any campaign, one job turns into someone wearing five different hats and that's totally understandable and fine. But do you start with a job description and you should post it. I know that again, sounds really basic, but I think a lot of us, and this is often very good, rely on our personal networks to hire for campaigns. And while that can be really great and you get often very good candidates out of those kinds of searches, using your own networks is also a great way to make your campaign staff all seem exactly like you just cause people tend to have very similar social networks. And so you know, as a way to build both a diversity of experience and a diversity of the actual backgrounds of people who are on your campaign, posting it on one of the million jobs sites that they're, you know, that you can post to for free, different job lists, campaign listservs. And then of course, you know, do send it out to people that, you know. But I think it's important to not just rely on, you know, telling two friends that you're looking for someone for a campaign. The second piece that I think is sort of universal is make sure you have someone designated who's actually reviewing resumes as they're coming in. You know, I've definitely been in situations where you sort of have an email set up to collect resumes or you have a a job board that you're using and no one's sure who's actually in charge of checking it. So making sure that person knows what they need to be doing and that there's some kind of universally agreed upon screening criteria. So, you know, we only want people who already have campaign experience. We only want people who have a certain set of skills and just making sure everyone sort of knows what that is on the front end and then you know, keeping track of those people as well. So, you know, again, keep it very simple. If you want, you could use a Google spreadsheet and just, you know, have name, email address. Have you interviewed the person yet? Next, I would say interview more than one candidate. Even if you think you have someone great. You know, I think a mistake that people often make is, you know, I posted the job I need to hire right away. Great. I found a wonderful person who seems to meet all of the criteria that I'm looking for and I like talking to them on the phone. I'll just hire them now and I think it is good to interview multiple people and just make sure that you are spending the time to ensure that you're getting great people on your team. The other thing I would say is check references. You know, again, people often come through personal networks or they worked for a friend of yours or whatever, but I think it's still always a good practice to ask for at least a couple of references and to check those. And it's not just because you might weed out someone who won't be a good fit, but it can help you also manage them once they're onboard.
Martín Diego Garcia (14:23):
Those are really great tips, right? And I think you're totally right, having rule number one, have a process and stick to it because you're right, it will streamline a lot of this for you. If you have sort of put that intentionality on the front end to hopefully give you as the candidate more time to raise money and talk to voters. Often, depending on the sort of size of the campaign that a person is running, they may do this one time for maybe just a campaign manager or they may have to have a process to hire multiple folks and sometimes they're often hiring either temporary or unpaid staff. What kinds of contracts or agreements should these campaigns have with these campaign staff or volunteers or unpaid staff or temporary staff?
Claire Stein-Ross (15:00):
Yeah, and again, this is going to sound like I'm just repeating myself a lot, but it doesn't, there's no one answer it just as long as you're being consistent and as long as it's clear. So I think whatever the agreement is, whether it's for someone paid, unpaid, full time, part time, you know, whatever the category is, just make it clear and make sure that both sides understand exactly what's laid out in that agreement. So you know, a clear start date if you haven't a clear end date, you know that can change a little bit towards the end of a campaign depending on who you're keeping on board to do wrap up. But you know, what's the salary, what are the benefits, is there any leave that's included? Just making sure that that's all right now so that both people know and that there's no confusion later on. Cause what you don't want to have is, you know it's six weeks before election day and all of a sudden there's some dispute because people didn't know what the agreed upon term of the position was or they didn't, didn't agree on the salary or something like that. One thing I'd also say is that there are, you know, different state and local requirements depending on where you are. So talk to a compliance firm or a lawyer or someone who you know is an expert in that just to make sure that you're not missing anything that might be specific to one place. And then I think the other thing that's coming into play a lot more now is campaign staff. That is unionizing and so if there is any kind of collective bargaining agreement for your staff, making sure that you're, that you are consulting a lawyer to come up with an agreement that works for all of those staffers as well. Making sure you're meeting all those requirements.
Martín Diego Garcia (16:26):
Definitely. In terms of, I mean campaigns often are utilizing volunteer time from friends, families, networks, right? Community members. Is there a sort of implication to having it for just your everyday sort of canvasser who comes into your campaign?
Claire Stein-Ross (16:41):
It's a good question. I think it's hard to come up with a set agreement in the same way with someone who's just volunteering. You never know how many times they'll come in or exactly what their role will be. But I think there is an opportunity, you know for some campaigns if you want to create sort of a, for lack of a better word, like a constitution of your campaign office of you know, all the kinds of expectations that people have when they're coming in. It might be, you know, a giant Post-It note that stuck to one of the walls. Just saying, you know, here are expectations of people who are coming in the office and we treat each other kindly. We, you know, clean up after ourselves. It might be as basic as that, but you know, it's kind of creating a sense of collegiality and creating a sense of team even for people who might only come in once or twice. So I think, you know, it doesn't have to be a formalized agreement the way I would recommend for anyone who's on staff. But I think that's a nice way to just kind of create, again that sense of community and build. You know, I think if I were coming in as a volunteer and I saw something like that, it would make me more likely to want to come back and volunteer again cause it just kind of shows what, what the feeling of the office is. And what the the vibe of the campaign is.
Martín Diego Garcia (17:47):
Are there any other sort of mistakes or things that you would advise candidates to avoid or look out for during the hiring process?
Claire Stein-Ross (17:54):
Yeah, I mean I think, you know, I mentioned this before, kind of trying to just check the box and get someone on board as quickly as possible without really thinking about what the matches between the person's skills and the role's. And then I think the other thing is hiring someone and then providing no real expectations or guidance. And so you're really not setting them up for success on the campaign, even if you have hired an amazing person. So I think making sure that, you know, you don't have to have the same kinds of processes that you might have in a long-term corporate environment or a nonprofit that's like really building people for years and years of work. But making sure that there is a sense of, you know, here's your job, here's how I expect you to do it. Here's what you need to check with me about, here's what you can do on your own. Um and, and having a sort of open door policy in whatever form that takes to make sure that people can, that that's a two way street and they can relate concerns to you about things that they're either not getting or that they need. The other thing that I think whether it's candidate or campaign manager or whomever that this is a mistake I've seen is treating campaign hiring as different because it's a short time-frame and it's a unique environment. You know, it is a short time-frame and you know when the last day essentially is going to be, but it's still hiring and you're still managing people. And so you still need to take it seriously. And, and think about, you know, how to build a team that's set up for success and that has the resources they need.
Martín Diego Garcia (19:12):
Definitely as candidates are thinking about, our campaigns are hiring paid positions, particularly in big and larger campaigns and they're trying to determine sort of staff compensation or, or benefits right in there. They're thinking, am I doing this salary? Am I doing this hourly? Are there some sort of guiding or standards that you often advise campaigns to do or to not do when thinking about compensation?
Claire Stein-Ross (19:35):
Yeah. This one is also really hard just because it varies so much depending on what the job is and what the location is. So I think talking to other people who have managed campaigns in the same area, just as kind of get a sense of the going rate for, for campaigns that can trip you up a little bit cause you'll have outliers on both ends. I think that might skew that average, but just, you know, look at other job listings even and see, you know, what's a competitive salary for that area and that type of job. But then also, you know, some of it is just depending on what your budget is going to be and kind of what you expect and making sure that you were setting your budget up to hire people and pay them a fair wage. I think, you know, no one gets into campaigns because it's such a lucrative way to earn a living, but both on principle and because you don't want the news story of this, like you don't want to have a progressive campaign whose staff all qualifies for Medicaid because you either hired too many people and you couldn't pay them enough, or you didn't calculate out from the beginning, here's what health care will cost and here's what payroll taxes will cost and here's what workers' comp will cost. And we're making sure that just you're building out a budget that accounts for all of those costs, which doesn't totally answer your question about what to pay people, but I think that's just so dependent on, on what the job is and where you are. That I would say my advice is make sure you're thinking about all the associated costs and when you're building out a budget, have those all built in so you can say from the beginning, I'm sure that we can afford to pay, you know, four people at this salary. And then if you raise more money and you can hire more people, that's great, but don't kind of, don't come up with your list of how many staff you want and then come up with, you know, sort of do it backwards and say like, well I've, I hired seven people so now I need to pay them X number of dollars that I promised them.
Martín Diego Garcia (21:13):
And so there are all of these things in terms of taxes and benefits and healthcare that are going to come up are, are there places or platforms that you suggest candidates turn to or begin to look to answer some of these questions of whether or not they need it like ADP or some sort of platform to do payroll and other things?
Claire Stein-Ross (21:30):
Yeah, I, I think, you know, using ADP or Paychex does make some degree of sense. You know, you're paying for the service, but you're also then not worrying about some of these pieces that you may not have time to really get in the weeds of. And it can be depending on where you are really complicated cause sometimes there's additional requirements in certain States about what kind of, you know there's a different kind of unemployment fender of paid family leave or there's all sorts of programs that you might need to be paying into that can be hard to calculate. So I generally would say that's an easy place to kind of pay, pay a company to do it for you or at least have, you know, a compliance person who is more familiar with some of those rules and requirements. And I think that's actually a great position to hire for if you have a big enough campaign as someone who really is paying attention to payroll and compliance and checking all those boxes and making sure that the campaign manager isn't on a day to day basis needing to worry about, you know, which fund everything is going into.
Martín Diego Garcia (22:23):
Good to know, we get that question very often in training spaces. And so yeah do your research and if you can't afford it, pay for it for a platform. In terms of tips or sort of advice when folks are setting up internal HR processes, whether it's onboarding human resources, where they should go to file a complaint or a grievance. How do you, particularly, what's such a quick sort of turnaround of a campaign this quick timeline of a campaign, plus the sort of most cases, limited staff, any advice for candidates as they're thinking through that?
Claire Stein-Ross (22:53):
Yeah, so again, don't make it complicated, make it something that you'll actually do, but a few things that I think are good rules of thumb for both onboarding and offboarding staff, you should have some kind of checklist just to make sure that everyone's getting the same information regardless of what job they have or when they're starting. Cause I think it's especially in, you know, in the midst of a campaign, if you're bringing people on, you know, in the summer you're not going to remember what you told people in January when you hired them. And so, you know, you're putting people at a disadvantage and you're doing yourself a disservice as a manager if you're not making sure they all have the same information. So come up with a very basic checklist. You can do it before you hire your first person and then just use that same checklist every other time. But that way you're just making sure everyone's kind of starting at the same place. You should include an NDA in that just to make sure that you're kind of covering all your bases with making sure people sign that before they get started. And yet you have some kind of clear policy about, you know, who can talk to the press, what people are allowed to post on their social media. Just like making that all really clear so that you don't get caught later with someone saying, Oh, I just assumed this was fine because no one ever told me. And even if it's, some of it is total common sense, like if no one ever told them, then it's hard to hold people accountable for that. And then I think also some kind of employee handbook that can cover things like a social media policy as well as some of these other expectations. I think people hear employee handbook and they get really freaked out that they need a very long detailed document. And I don't think that's true. I actually think an employee handbook that is, you know, some bullet points with a little bit of explanation is probably more useful to staff than something that's 50 pages that they're not probably gonna read. So laying out all those, you know, expectations leave policies, reimbursement policies, all those things that can come up over the course of a campaign. And if people aren't starting with the same information, you know, A, it's confusing. And B, you run into the problem of the only people who benefit from some of the things that you might want to provide to people are the ones who ask. And I think, you know, we all know that not everyone has the same comfort level asking for things, especially, you know, a more junior staff or someone who maybe hasn't worked on a campaign before and all of a sudden, you know, they're eating the cost of hundreds of dollars gas or cell phone or whatever, that you're totally willing to pay, but they just didn't know. And so putting that all into a document, again, even if it's bullet points, I think is a really good way to kind of get people off on the right foot and make sure that everyone has the same information. And then I think in terms of other processes, I mentioned this with you know, candidates getting involved in hiring, but just having a really clear chain of command and maybe you make a flow chart for each type of thing that you'll be doing during the campaign, but who approves press releases, who approves reimbursements, who approves who gets to take days off, who approves? You know, if you have to change around someone's schedule for the week because you need them to be doing some field in addition to their normal job, like who's signing off on all that and, and what, what is the candidate signing off on? What does the campaign manager signing off on, you know, department heads. And so, you know, I think having that be really clear, kind of really cuts down on mistakes, really cuts down on, you know, the wrong ad got shipped or the wrong press release went out because the wrong person was approving it and no one knew. And it's often totally honest mistakes, it's just, it's really hard in the throes of a campaign to remember all of these different things. So put it in writing, make it really easy to read. And I think a big part of running campaigns is to do no harm. And so the more you can think through these processes on the front end, the less chances that you're going to just make a mistake when you're tired and you've been up for 20 hours for weeks and weeks on end and there's so many things happening. So I think ways that simplify your life are all worth thinking about on the front end even if it seems like you can just figure it out later.
Martín Diego Garcia (26:41):
And so just by chance, and hopefully they don't, right? But if an HR concern comes up on a campaign, how should a candidate or the campaign sort of deal with things like that?
Claire Stein-Ross (26:49):
You should ideally have three points of contact that someone could report a concern to. So one of them is probably the campaign manager, but you want to have someone else in the campaign. So in case there is a concern about the manager, there's someone for them to go to. And then you also ideally want someone outside of the campaign who's a trusted person, maybe the treasurer of the campaign or the compliance consultant or someone else who you know, knows the people that isn't inside the building. And that way you just always make sure there's someone for complaints to be directed to and no one feels uncomfortable that they have to report their complaint to the person they have the complaint about. And then you should make sure that that process that you've laid out in the handbook is getting followed. So if you don't feel like you as the manager or whoever's facing this can be objective and can follow that process, you should bring in someone else to do it. So you should know when to either call your campaign lawyer or call your consultant or an external HR firm or someone who can help manage this. So if you don't have the bandwidth to take it on for whatever reason, either because you don't have the time or you don't feel like you can be objective about it, definitely tap someone in. And I think, you know, this just goes back to being thoughtful about your human resources to begin with and trying to create a culture where your hope, hopefully none of this is happening, but even if it does that people feel like there is a real process to deal with it and that they're being respected and their concerns are being heard. I think as soon as something gets handled poorly, it reflects, you know, the rest of the campaign, no other staff is going to feel like their concerns will be taken seriously and that there's a way for them to deal with it. So while we hope none of it happens anyway, you know, really following through on whatever process you've laid out I think is important to maintaining that sense of trust and camaraderie throughout the campaign.
Martín Diego Garcia (28:30):
Yeah, we could not agree more so. Right. Make sure one, have a process, keep it clear. Have a chain of command and do your research. Google is your friend. So thank you so much Claire, for all of these insights. We get these questions all the time. And so I'm sure our listeners are really gonna appreciate sort of the time and thought that you put into the answers that you gave.
Claire Stein-Ross (28:52):
Thank you so much for having me.
Martín Diego Garcia (28:53):
Of course. So if you want to learn more about hiring processes or HR processes as you're building your campaign and we didn't cover it in this episode, feel free to reach out to us. We'll also put some helpful links in the show description, so thanks again to Claire and we will be right back.
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Joe Fuld (29:12):
And we're back. Thanks again to Claire Stein Ross for all her insights on campaign systems, making sure you've got them in place for hiring, onboarding and building a culture your whole team can be proud of. As Claire said, your people are your best asset. You got to treat your staff well and set them up for success in their roles. Even in the short term environment of a campaign, you need to approach hiring and HR seriously. You got to put it in writing. Have clear job descriptions or responsibilities, checklist for onboarding and offboarding, policies on sick days, reimbursements, mileage, you name it. You want to create a culture that everyone benefits from including someone who's on the campaign for a year or someone who just shows up once to volunteer. You want to make sure that everyone feels a part of the team, a real team, not a dysfunctional family like mine. You want to make sure that you are really getting everyone together and helping work hard to win that race.
Martín Diego Garcia (30:19):
Yeah. I think what, what really came across in the conversation with Claire was keep it simple, right? But abs--but absolutely have some type of HR process and it's really important to be intentional on the front end as you're building through these processes so that your campaign really runs smoothly. It's really going to save you time and headaches later on. If you take the day to sort of really write out what are they going to be, the systems in which we need to put in process that are gonna make your campaign run smoothly and remembering right? Like there was no sort of one size fits all approach. Figure out what makes sense for you and your campaign in terms of what is needed. There's no need for some big fancy app, but you just have to really commit to what your processes are on a day to day basis with your team. Um and answer questions like, how will you all be communicating? Are you doing signal or Slack or just email or phone calls, right? What is the methods of communication that you all agree to use? How you're going to be sharing information. Is it going to be on a Google drive or Dropbox or something more secure? And as Joe said, right, how are you handling reimbursement, sick days all of those processes and most importantly like who is in charge of those things? Is that the campaign manager? Do you have an HR person on board to make sure that all of these things are, are running and working and the team members feel that, that everyone is valued there?
Joe Fuld (31:35):
Yeah, and again, what if things break down with the person who is in charge? Who do people go to? Right. Sometimes we like to think that campaign managers are great, but sometimes they're not. Sometimes the candidate or an advisor needs to have a role as an escape valve. If there is a problem that there is someone who plays that HR function that they can go to. One of my favorite books, which is not a campaign book at all, but it's a business book, is this book called The Ideal Team Player that in our business we really hire for traits versus skills and we're really focused around people having this idea of being hungry, humble and smart in an intersecting sort of Venn diagram, three circles, we can put it in the show notes, but the point of that is, is that you want people to be hungry, humble and smart, not just hungry, right? If they're hungry, they're going to run over everyone. If they're smart, they're going to figure out how to get other people to do work for them. And if they're just humble, they're going to be in their cubicle hunker down all day long. Right? You want someone that embodies all three. It doesn't have to be that, but you have to figure out what are the traits that you're looking for in your campaign.
Martín Diego Garcia (32:52):
Absolutely. And make sure those are included, right? As you're thinking through writing those job descriptions and sort of casting that wide net to your personal networks and beyond to, to figure out what are those must have things that you need from the people that are going to be on your team and what are some nice to haves that can potentially you could send them to a training or get them to learn that in some other way through on the job training.
Joe Fuld (33:14):
Yeah, so I mean it, and in terms of hiring, right? You want to make sure you get buy in on what a good hire is going to bring to the table. Again, as Martín said, right. What are the must haves? What are the nice to haves? What are the skills and experiences you're looking for? What skills are a nice bonus if someone has them but are teachable, right? I mean, we would love to think that we're able to get an experienced fundraiser on the ground, but it might be that someone has done nonprofit fundraising, not political campaign fundraising or somebody has worked in sales and you could get your national fundraiser to teach them how to do local fundraising. Just an example. But you want to make sure your whole team is clear on what is required for the job that they're taking on or the bigger job of winning the campaign.
Martín Diego Garcia (34:05):
Yeah. And as you're looking for staff, right, it's also important to think sort of outside your own personal networks sometimes and really have a sort of equity and inclusion lens brought into that conversation, right? So we often encourage folks to build or write down in their campaign planning process, sort of what are the core values of your campaign and how do you sort of integrate those core values throughout the, the process, the totality of the campaign, the hiring process, your HR programs as you're wanting to be more equitable to your staff and more inclusive of the, of the districts that you're running in. So really be looking for a diversity of experience and background, right? Making sure that you are bringing people who bring different perspectives and are able to make your campaign stronger as you continue to build your team. There are a ton of job sites and listservs out there such as Jobs That Are Left and Democratic Gain. Inclusive is one of my favorite ones, which is really geared towards engaging communities of color in the electoral process. So really be intentional on the front end about what are the core values that you want to embody in your campaign and how do you live those throughout the entirety of your campaign.
Joe Fuld (35:09):
Yeah, and again, you want to think traits first. There are things, again, this idea of must haves versus might be nice. Everyone working on a political campaign does not need to have a college degree and so the idea of opening up your pool to people who have real life experience. Maybe they managed a fast food restaurant, maybe they have done sales at a car dealership. All of those things might be better experience than just looking at people, must a college degree, open it up a little bit more. You might be really surprised at getting a better pool of people. So I think, think about these considerations and you're not going to regret putting the time into building a process.
Martín Diego Garcia (35:51):
Absolutely. So hopefully this was helpful in getting you ready to set some HR processes and build a fantastic campaign team. Coming up on our next episode, we're going to jump into the lovely world of digital with Lizzie Kendrick, who's gonna walk us through the things to consider when setting up a strong digital presence for your campaign. So until next time, this is Martín Diego Garcia.
Joe Fuld (36:10):
And Joe Fuld breaking down how to win a campaign.
Martín Diego Garcia (36:13):
How to Win a Campaign is Joe Fuld, Martín Diego Garcia, Hope Rohrbach, Daniel Lam, Heidi Job and Elena Veatch. Music by Mike Pinto. Sound editing by Junto Media. Special thanks to the team at The Campaign Workshop. Please review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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