How the National Association of REALTORS® celebrates rising stars in the real estate industry

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How the National Association of REALTORS® uses the Reviewr Award Management Software to engage members through recognition awards.

In this webinar, Kyle sits down with Rob and Erica to discuss the National Association of REALTORS® 30 under 30 recognition awards and how the Reviewr award management software is used to power the process.

In this webinar we discuss:
  • Introduction to the 30 under 30 awards
  • Award nomination/application process
  • The administrative workflow
  • Review committee selection process

The award nomination and application workflow

  • Fall application period – typically a 3-month call for entry.
    • Because applicants often wait until the final days the application window will be narrowed to create a sense of urgency.
    • Hard stop submission deadline.
      • Utilizing Reviewrs built-in dates and deadlines, the system can prevent late entries.
  • Award application process self-submitted by the applicant themselves – does not require an external nomination.
  • The submission form captures the necessary data needed for both reporting needs as well as to conduct a comprehensive review.
  • The submission form is categorized into sections such as personal information, real estate transaction data, short answers/essay questions, letters of recommendation, photos, and videos.
    • Goal is to capture a wide variety of data for a holistic view of the award applicant.
    • Video is submitted via Reviewrs integration with Youtube where the video gets embedded directly in the platform if desired. Document embedding occurs for all file types, not just videos.
    • The Letter of Recommendation process leverages Reviewrs “guest attachment” feature or a direct upload from the applicant themselves.
      • Applicants enter the name and the email address of who will be writing the letter. Once the applicant submits, the writer receives an email notification with a link to upload their letter of recommendation. Once uploaded, the letter gets attached directly to the applicant profile without the applicant themselves ever physically touching the file or uploading on their own.

  • Applicants have the ability to save and logout to work at their own pace.
  • In progress entries are monitored and sent reminder emails as deadlines approach.
    • Within Reviewr, applicants can be targeted and sent personalized emails or utilize email templates. Specifically for reminders, the email template can target the in-progress status and send a reminder on a schedule until the entry is submitted.
  • Once submitted, applicants receive both a confirmation email as well a redirect to a confirmation page.

 

The award Management Workflow

  • Monitor data in real-time.
    • Applicants often wait until the last minute deadline.
    • Monitor submissions who are in progress.
    • Send automated reminder emails to “in progress”.
      • Reminder campaigns begin a month out from the entry deadline.
      • Integration allows sending of emails from personal address to avoid spam filters and increases open rates.
    • Creates insights into potential total volume and a leading indicator if additional review members are needed.
  • All-in-one award management software portal.

  • Multiphase review process
    • The first phase of review is an internal vetting process to verify qualifications and those that meet eligibility. Often times this also includes a quick “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” evaluation.
      • The initial vetting review process can be done as an admin using the approval workflows or can be sent to a vetting team to utilize the Reviewr evaluation portal.
      • Once the initial review is complete, the applications selected for phase two are “advanced” using Reviewrs groups feature.
  • For the more formal and comprehensive review, applications are assigned to review committees.
    • Committees are created with specific parameters to ensure “equilibrium” amongst the reviewers.
    • Review committees are segmented into groups, and then assigned applications.

  • Submissions can be shared with the review committee in bulk, manually, or via randomization.
  • For example, submissions can be assigned up to 15 review members but no less than 12 or vice versa, each review committee member could be assigned a random set number.

  • Alternativaly, submissions within a group can be manually assigned to specific review committee members.
    • A common workflow is to leverage automation to assign submissions and then customize to fine-tune. 
    • This includes use cases of conflicts of interests, judges unable to fulfill their obligations, and pairings based on expertise. 

  • Review committee members can be manually added to Reviewr or uploaded.
    • If review staff are uploaded, the upload file can also include things like credentials, group assignments, etc.
  • Once the review staff has been added to Reviewr they can be notified via an invite email to register or can be provided with temporary login credentials.
  • Review staff progress can be tracked such as login activity, progress, etc.
    • Review staff can be targeted for reminder emails or other desired communication.
  • Upon completion of the review period, the results can be generated based on the desired review selection process. From here, winners may be announced or advanced to another phase.

 

The Review and Selection of award Recipients

  • The Review committee is assigned to nominations as outlined earlier.
  • Review committee accesses their online evaluation portal.
  • Review team is presented with a menu of award nominees to evaluate.
    • Data provided can be blinded if desired, although this is not something done for the 30 under 30 awards.

  • Once an application is opened they are presented with a “split-screen”.
    • Half the page is the applicants’ profile.
      • Includes application form and embedded documents.
    • The other half of the page is the review/selection process

  • Review and selection process can include multiple types of workflows.
    • Scorecards
      • Auto tabulation, weighted scoring, etc.
    • Forced ranking tool.
    • Commenting/subjective review.
    • Can use a combination of review workflows together.
  • Online evaluation gets auto-tabulated for instant and accurate results reporting.
    • Tabulated results are often used to advance nominees from one phase of review to another.
    • Often times the top-ranked nominations advance to a deliberation phase before final selection.
    • The 30 under 30 utilizes a workflow where a “public vote” is conducted and then the review team deliberates the candidates to finalize the 30 recipients.
    • Public voting allows applicants to showcase their application with built-in social sharing.
      • Voting can be done by requiring users to log in to vote or allowing open voting. 
  • During the deliberation to be sensitive to time and create a fair and balanced process, the review staff makes award recipient recommendations based on the review. When a recommendation is made, that review committee member then needs to “drop” a name from their list.
      • This process will rinse and repeat until the 30 under 30 are selected.

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