In the tech industry, offices are often described as a “reflection” of company culture, but the pandemic has proved they’re much more than that.
Since going remote, companies across the industry have learned just how important in-person office interactions are to maintaining and facilitating their cultures. The loss of the proverbial water cooler has made it harder to bring people from different teams together organically, while the inability to meet in communal spaces and conference rooms has made celebrating success as a company and collaboration between teams more challenging.
As a result, companies have had to evolve their cultures rather quickly, especially at three NYC companies.
At Common, Jeffrey Koppin, director of talent, said the company worked to keep the spirit of the water cooler chat alive by encouraging employees from different teams to take a break from work.
Laura Gonzalez, managing director of customer success at PitchBook, said going remote has actually brought the company’s teams in Seattle, New York and London closer together and fostered collaboration.
And according to Nikki Salenetri, VP of human resources at Gympass, going remote has made her company’s culture more adaptable, which has trickled down to a team level.
Koppin, Gonzalez and Salenetri explained more about how their company cultures have changed — along with what’s stayed the same — since going remote, along with their advice for building and maintaining culture while remote.
In many tech companies, news of a win travels fast, with “woos” and claps echoing through the office. Spontaneous celebrations of success are more difficult when everyone is remote, which is why PitchBook has made use of an app, Recognize, that makes it easy for employees to thank and congratulate one another. Laura Gonzalez, managing director of customer success, shared how this tool has helped fortify the company’s culture.
What’s the most notable change you’ve seen in your company culture since transitioning to remote work?
One major change has been the breaking down of regional office barriers and a true coming together across all teams and departments globally. During pre-Covid times, staying in our respective office bubbles was all we knew and Zoom meetings were a novelty. Once we adjusted to being virtual, we realized that our physical locations didn’t matter as much as we thought and that this was an opportunity for us to come together in new ways. Collaboration is at the core of our culture, and we’ve embraced our new environment to accelerate collaboration wherever possible.
For the New York team — especially being smack in the middle of our Seattle and London offices — this has been a fun and enriching experience. Interactions that may have otherwise never happened have helped us forge stronger relationships across teams and segments and learn from one another. The overall sense of community is incredible. I’m proud of how PitchBook and the New York team have made the best of a challenging year, and we’ll come out the other side feeling more connected as a global organization because of it.
Since going remote, the emphasis on recognition is even more important and has also become more intentional.”
When it comes to culture-building rituals, what’s one old ritual that you’ve kept or adapted and what’s one new ritual you’ve started since going remote? How do these rituals help support your culture?
One adapted ritual that comes to mind is how we give recognition. At PitchBook, we put an emphasis on recognizing great people, teams and results, and when we’re in the office it’s easy to do this casually. Since going remote, the emphasis on recognition is even more important and has also become more intentional. In the remote setting, things can often feel like they happen in a vacuum, plus we’re not next to each other to organically celebrate wins or give high-fives. We integrated a recognition tool through our intranet last year called Recognize that lets us give cheers based on our company values and share them with the entire company.
It’s so fun to see the recognition that people give each other — even a simple “thank you” — and I think this is so important for morale, motivation and continued engagement. For me, it’s rewarding to see how appreciation is expressed across the company, and it also helps call out wins I may have missed from my own team. PitchBook is a tight-knit group and rituals like giving recognition help fortify the fibers of our unique culture and values.
What’s the most important piece of advice you’d share with other companies that are looking for new ways to build and maintain culture right now, and why?
Stay authentic and don’t be afraid to try new things, even if they don’t work out. Culture is meant to evolve, and I think our collective experience of working remotely has given us more perspective about what that means. The rituals we valued before working from home will assuredly look different when we all return to the office, and appreciation for the old times will help us embrace new traditions.
Another thing I’d suggest is give people the chance to step up, like presenting on a topic they’re passionate about in the daily team sync or running a team meeting. Beyond that, it’s critical to seek input from the broader team to make sure new ideas and voices are being heard. We’ve been fortunate to hire some phenomenal people during this very difficult year, and they all bring different experiences and backgrounds that add to our culture and help it evolve.
When it comes to adapting a company’s culture to remote work, Nikki Salenetri, VP of human resources at Gympass, recommends taking an intentional approach. Instead of simply trying to shift all events and activities online, her advice to companies is to examine their culture and prioritize the aspects that are most critical to the success of the business.
What’s the most notable change you’ve seen in your company culture since transitioning to remote work?
Adaptability has been extremely important to our success in the transition to remote work. This has taken on a number of forms, from adapting our product offerings to include mental health, personal training and live digital classes, to our employees’ adaptability in ways of working and taking on new roles. Like most organizations, we’ve needed to change what we do and how we do it, including shifting people resources. Our employees have embraced this as an opportunity to learn new skills and develop their careers. What has been really key to this is that we are all motivated by our mission to make well-being universal and can adapt in any way necessary to achieve that.
We are all motivated by our mission to make well-being universal and can adapt in any way necessary to achieve that.”
When it comes to culture-building rituals, what’s one old ritual that you’ve kept or adapted and what’s one new ritual you’ve started since going remote? How do these rituals help support your culture?
Helping our employees prioritize their health was a large part of our culture before going remote that has remained since. We’ve continued to ensure people are active by organizing contests and campaigns to incentivize employees to be active. What has changed is that we have more of a focus on mental health in addition to our consistent focus on physical health. We think it’s really critical given the challenges that our employees are facing both in and outside of work during this time. We want to ensure that we help our employees and the entire Gympass community feel happy and healthy in both body and mind.
What’s the most important piece of advice you’d share with other companies that are looking for new ways to build and maintain culture right now, and why?
I would recommend taking the time to understand what parts of your culture are most critical to your organization’s success and be vocal about prioritizing them. Think about what activities you’ve done to support those aspects and find ways to adapt them for a remote environment so employees can see they are still critical and valuable. Be transparent and communicative about why your values and culture are important to continue to focus on and ask your employees to join you in creating the workplace they want to experience.
Prior to going remote, the CEO of co-living company Common hosted a biweekly team lunch with the entire company. While the pandemic has made it impossible to gather everyone together for lunch in one place, Jeffrey Koppin, director of talent, said the company has kept this ritual alive as part of a bigger push to ensure employees still have access to top-level leaders while working remotely.
What’s the most notable change you’ve seen in your company culture since transitioning to remote work?
About half our workforce is essential workers, like property management, maintenance and leasing staff, and we have this backbone of remote hiring, learning and training that gave us a leg up when the full transition to remote work in March began. When the rest of Common’s team went remote — think architects, sales staff and marketing — over-communication was our most notable change. In fact, it has been a key theme in Common’s transition to a fully remote workplace.
Teams pivoted to multiple daily check-ins, whether on Slack or Hangouts, to make up for lost in-person interactions. We even took it a step further and made over-communication fun. Through a fall and winter raffle, we’ve incentivized colleagues to have a quick chat with someone they may not work with and share their learnings about the person with the company, with winners receiving fun prizes like custom sneakers or AirPods. It’s been great to see people across different teams coming together, maybe even more than they would if we were back at the office!
Be sure to give employees access to high-level executives during these times of uncertainty so everyone across the company feels connected.”
When it comes to culture-building rituals, what’s one old ritual that you’ve kept or adapted and what’s one new ritual you’ve started since going remote? How do these rituals help support your culture?
Recognizing the wins has always been essential to Common’s company culture. While in-person, we were able to quickly give each other immediate praise in a meeting or even celebrate major wins with a team outing at a restaurant or show. Remotely, it’s definitely been harder to congratulate one another and give people the recognition they deserve. To make sure the fun is still there and to underline the importance of wins, we’ve integrated a high-fives Slack channel that allows us to call out great work to the whole company.
These rituals help us all feel connected and signal that the entire company still feels close while far apart. We kept some of the existing Slack channels from the in-office days like “random,” a forum to share cool news stories that aren’t Common-related and “behind the scenes,” where the team shares pictures of our in-progress buildings.
What’s the most important piece of advice you’d share with other companies that are looking for new ways to build and maintain culture right now, and why?
Since Common’s inception, our CEO Brad Hargreaves has hosted a team lunch every other week that brings the entire company together in one place. Doing them remotely gives the meeting even bigger weight. The lunches have been utilized to highlight different teams and give insight into a workstream that other employees may not know as much about. On the off weeks, Brad hosts an AMA (ask me anything) where anyone at the company can ask him questions. They could be about his career history, his vision for the company or even what his kids ate for lunch. So, the advice we’d share is to be sure to give employees access to high-level executives during these times of uncertainty so everyone across the company feels connected.
Having strong leadership reminds employees of what the company is trying to achieve and that we’re all working together toward a common goal. At Common, culture is top-down. We want to uplift our remote workers across the country, and we make sure that executives are leading the way.
