The content below was originally posted on the Google Cloud Google Workspace blog. The original post can be found here. This post is by Gordon Thomas, IT Architect for Mynd Property Management, based in Oakland, California and operating in 16 U.S. markets. Mynd uses Google Workspace Enterprise to manage acquisitions and keep its staff of 400 workers productive.
In the past six months, Mynd Property Management has doubled in size—in part by hiring, but also through acquisitions that help build our business. It’s an exciting time to be at Mynd—every week brings new people who need to be set up with email and network access, which can also be a bit hectic. To speed onboarding, we use Google Workspace Enterprise to get our new people working as soon as they walk through the door.
Streamlined onboarding
We started using Google Workspace when we launched the business because it fit our overall approach to technology—that is, deploying cloud tools that are flexible for our employees and easy for IT to manage. Good thing we picked Google Workspace, because given the pace of our acquisitions—13 at last count—we have our hands full with combining business systems and keeping people productive. Onboarding is literally 80 percent of our daily work!
Some people on our team don’t have technical backgrounds, so we are careful to only introduce new software tools once people are prepared to use them. With Google Workspace, people need very little ramp-up time because it is an intuitive, integrated solution. In one of our in-person training sessions, we showed an accountant how to open up a Microsoft Excel file in Google Sheets, and he started working on it right away, without much help.
We’re a remote-first company, so working in the cloud is second nature to us. About 75 percent of our total workforce are remote full-timers. Google Workspace tools are optimized for mobile, so they’re especially useful for the 50 full-time property managers who work solely on mobile devices in the field.
Better meetings, easier file storage
In Mynd’s early days, we used Google Workspace Basic, but upgraded to Google Workspace Enterprise after Google Cloud Premier Partner Suitebriar showed us the benefits of using tools like Hangouts Meet and shared drives in Google Drive. They’ve really helped us scale the business, so we can stay productive even in the midst of acquisitions—and of course, onboard people more quickly.
Many Google Workspace tools have become things we can’t live without. Our executives got first crack at using Hangouts Meet Hardware, and loved it so much—especially the recording feature—that now all of our conference rooms have it.
Google Drive got the same love from everyone. It’s all we need for file sharing and storage, which means we don’t have to pay for another storage solution. Drive also helps with onboarding; as soon we assign an employee a Google Account, she or he automatically gets access to the shared drives (in Drive) that they need to do their jobs.
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"Suitebriar has really helped us scale the business. We can stay productive even in the midst of acquisitions and of course, onboard people more quickly." Gordon Thomas, IT Architect |
Customizing the tech stack
As much as we love Google Workspace, we still like to use some non-Google Workspace tools. It helps that we can tailor Google Workspace to fit in our technology stack any way we want. We’d never get that control and customization from other vendors in the productivity space.
For example, we love using Slack for internal chat and messaging, so we turned off Hangouts Chat. We like that we can control these channels, and that Google Workspace is not an all-or-nothing product. That means we’re not afraid to try out new Google Workspace features, since we can roll them back if they’re not right for us.
The result of our day-to-day Google Workspace use is that we don’t suffer much down time even during acquisitions. We can pull relevant data from users’ old systems and easily automate user creation from start to finish. When we merge with companies that already use Google Workspace, we can move their data over to the business in less than a week.
When we recently moved over 80 new employees and 50 different web domains to Google Workspace, it was much less challenging than we expected. Since we don’t plan to slow down on acquisitions, we breathe easier knowing that Google Workspace keeps everyone working in the middle of so much change.
