Ian Goodfellow, Apple’s head of machine learning, recently departed the company over its return-to-office policy; it was the most high-profile exit to come out of the fight for remote work. Three thousand miles away, in the Big Apple’s bustling tech hub, the pulse of WeWork’s flatlined business model is beating once more, its workspaces emptied by Covid-19 now ripe for the new remote zeitgeist. Corporate America has mostly spoken, in spite of some executives’ protests: Work from home is not just an option, but an expectation.
As remote mania sweeps the nation, threatening office leases and employee retention, employers must contend with a new problem in their digital workforce — isolation and exclusion. A lack of human connection has created burnout in employees that blur work-life boundaries, underpinning a 47 percent increase in productivity with the rise of remote work, according to a report by Prodoscore.
The good news is that tech companies are exploring ways to boost social interactions for those whose work and home occupy the same space. In-person coffee breaks are now virtual. Leadership town halls are cast across the country instead of confined to a campus auditorium. Work happy hours are trading the local bar for a diversity of local brews.
“It’s not a one-size-fits-all,” said Marcelle Foxcroft, Trustpilot’s global head of talent acquisition. According to the company, human connection is now built into every aspect of the job, from onboarding to team meetings with the leadership.
The question is no longer whether companies should offer remote work, but how to best address specific social needs of a siloed workforce. Built In Colorado sat down with companies that have answered the call to build a more authentic work environment for its long-distance teams — one dog photo and meme Slack channel at a time.
Granicus offers technological and digital services for governments.
What’s the key to creating real, human connection in the remote workplace?
I think it’s really important to create consistent opportunities for employees to connect with each other. This can be as simple as weekly team meetings that begin with an icebreaker, or teambuilding activity and one-on-one manager meetings with their direct reports. This can also be larger scale, company-wide events. In my experience, team trivia has been an awesome activity that brings people together and creates an atmosphere of fun camaraderie.
On a smaller scale, one successful initiative we have implemented is the Donut app through Slack. The Donut app connects you with a random colleague every other week, and you are asked to set up a meeting with that person. The meeting can last 10 minutes, or 30 minutes, whatever the two employees have time for. Donut even gives participants an icebreaker question to get the conversation started.
Lots of our employees have made lasting connections through this app, and it gives people a great opportunity to meet others outside of their direct teams and networks.
What’s the most successful strategy or initiative you’ve employed for actually facilitating those kinds of connections?
A large scale initiative that we have employed to create virtual human connection is our monthly “Coffee with Mark” sessions. Mark Hynes is our CEO, and once a month, he leads a company-wide conversation. There have been a wide range of topics for these conversations, from salary transparency to explaining the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
During Black History Month, he had a panel from our Black Excellence Employee Resource Group (ERG) talk about challenges they have faced as black employees in the workforce. Similarly, during Women’s History Month, he had some members from our Women @ Granicus ERG speak on their experiences as women at a tech company.
These sessions, paired with our quarterly town halls, create a lot of space for employees to interact with colleagues, as well as the leadership team. We even have a company-wide #bettertogether Slack channel, where employees can post questions and interact with each other during these sessions. The channel gets extremely lively, with people posting memes and cheering each other on.
The channel gets extremely lively, with people posting memes and cheering each other on.”
What impact has this initiative had on your workforce or culture?
Coffee with Mark has had a significant impact on our company culture. It gives our CEO a platform to have open discussions with employees about pressing and important topics. It gives our employees the chance to feel heard and ask questions directly to our leadership team.
Automox is a cloud-based solution for IT operations.
What’s the key to creating real, human connection in the remote workplace?
Create space for people to show up as they are. For many people, one of the big pulls for remote work is the flexibility — which includes interactions. Gone are the days where people who don’t want to attend the after-work happy hour feel pressured to attend because they’re watching everyone else in the office go! In remote workplaces, we can create tons of space for people to show up where and how they want, and give them the tools to facilitate connection within their comfort levels. Since we’re not requiring connection, through peer pressure or otherwise, people are much more likely to show up authentically instead of “checking a box.”
What’s the most successful strategy or initiative you’ve employed for actually facilitating those kinds of connections?
Through the mindset of “small groups in open spaces,” we’ve been able to create a few events that have a big connection impact in the organization. First, our random coffee initiative allows people to join and leave a Slack channel at their leisure to be randomly connected with someone else in the organization how and when they wish. If they’re local they can grab an in-person coffee, or have virtual lunch from thousands of miles away! If their bandwidth is limited, they might use the nudge to simply check-in on someone personally via Slack that week. Our monthly happy hour is structured around small group connections. Utilizing randomly generated breakout rooms in Slack, we give people the chance to break the ice with more than one person at a time across all levels and functions of the organization.
No matter which event they’re participating in, the structure is kept loose for a reason — if you tell people what to talk about, they’re not likely to show up authentically. But by giving people open spaces to continue practicing human connection remotely, they’re able to adapt that space to be what they need at that moment.
Gone are the days where people who don’t want to attend the after-work happy hour feel pressured.”
What kind of response have you heard from your team?
Our initiatives tend to leave people pleasantly surprised. They go in expecting the same, often humdrum, Zoom social interactions they’ve had at other organizations and leave feeling like they actually made a few friends!
A few months back, an employee who had started a week or so before joined our happy hour. We started with some points-based trivia and then the group split into breakout rooms of five people so they could get to know each other more personally. Between breakout sessions, as people filtered back into the main room, that new employee immediately exclaimed, “I just made so many new friends!”
Xero is an accounting software company.
What’s the key to creating real, human connection in the remote workplace?
Cultivating a work environment where employees feel psychologically safe to speak up — whether that is to challenge an idea or way of working, or to share how they are doing and ask for the support they need.
Cultivating a work environment where employees feel psychologically safe to speak up [is key].”
What’s the most successful strategy or initiative you’ve employed for actually facilitating those kinds of connections?
One of the more simple tools our company has introduced is a wellbeing continuum, which is essentially a continuum that provides employees with a shared language to articulate how they are feeling from a wellbeing perspective. The continuum defines a spectrum of wellbeing from “burnout” at one end to “thriving” at the other end.
What impact has this initiative had on your workforce or culture?
The wellbeing continuum, and broader conversations that focus on wellbeing, have created an environment where employees are supported in having deeper conversations around how they are doing. For example, rather than asking an employee “how are you?”, and getting a standard response of “good” or “doing ok,” leaders can ask their employees where they feel like they are showing up from a wellbeing continuum perspective — burnout, overwhelmed, surviving, adapting, thriving — which helps to facilitate a deeper conversation around how they are really feeling, what they are doing well or what support they might need.
Trustpilot is a business review platform.
What’s the key to creating real, human connection in the remote workplace?
As a global company, Trustpilot has created a hybrid model of how we work to embrace flexibility in today’s changing world. This could range from 100 percent in the office for very limited roles, part office and part home, or 100 percent work from home. This is very much dependent on what each person needs to be great at their roles. And we’ve worked really hard to make this successful. Whether it’s the virtual recruitment process up front, the onboarding experience or the development experience, every tool, system or process we use is set up to be really successful in a fully hybrid model.
What’s the most successful strategy or initiative you’ve employed for actually facilitating those kinds of connections?
We have a monthly all-hands meeting where everyone has the opportunity to hear directly from the leadership team on how well we are doing as a company and to share success stories and future strategies.
We’ve created virtual collaboration areas for people with common, outside work interests. I personally am part of the Trustpilot pet channel where we all share photos of our furry friends on a regular basis — who doesn’t love a puppy or kitten pic?
We’ve recently implemented Blinkist — a learning app featuring text and audio book summaries — that can be used for self development in an “anywhere, anytime, any way” format. We have regular meets-up with our employee resource groups, where we explore various diversity, equality and inclusion topics that are important to us. We use Headspace, an app for mindfulness and meditation, that helps our staff live an inspired and supported life.
The list goes on, but all of these are the toolkits that help our staff be the best version of themselves in person or virtually.
Who doesn’t love a puppy or kitten pic?”
What impact has this initiative had on your workforce or culture?
By constantly evolving our ways of working and the tools that we use across the board, Trustpilot staff can be their best at work, as well as their best away from work. All the examples listed above give credit to the fact that Trustpilot is passionate about creating an environment that everyone can thrive in, by allowing people to work in a way that suits them and the business.
Adtaxi is a digital marketing platform.
What’s the key to creating real, human connection in the remote workplace?
Holding brief daily video calls to start each day. This allows time for personal connection as well as work related topics. It helps to build a team environment and replicates the daily “water cooler” chats that organically take place in an office environment.
Outside of daily team-specific calls, we host several biweekly and monthly meetings, integrating different teams in order to have a larger connection with people outside of that person’s immediate team. By doing so, people have a broader view of what takes place within the organization as a whole, pulls in different perspectives and ideas as well as connects people across the country and company.
Additionally, it has been said individually by several team members that our team truly feels like family.”
What’s the most successful strategy or initiative you’ve employed for actually facilitating those kinds of connections?
Leading daily calls with a purpose. The purpose can vary by day but isn’t always all business. Some days the purpose is just to check in, see if anyone has anything they need to discuss or would like to share. Keeping the meetings on the lighter side, and with the intention to truly see how everyone is doing that day, helps to breed a strong team culture and safe environment for the team members.
Sometimes we play a game together, which builds camaraderie and bonds within the team. Other days, there is an important initiative or topic that needs to be addressed and focused on within the team. The topic is discussed and questions or concerns are vetted by the group. By building a strong bond, there tends to be fewer barriers for people to open up, ask questions and participate. Additionally, we celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and other special events. On holidays we also host a team happy hour.
What kind of response have you heard from your team?
Meeting with the team on a regular basis has built strong bonds within the group. Additionally, it has been said individually by several team members that our team truly feels like family. By ensuring that the team works together to build each other up, care about each other professionally and personally and work together to solve issues or address a problem a team member is having, it helps to build trust, bonds and safety. These are all things that people need to thrive in any environment.
