Reimagining Work in the New Digital-First Workplace

A I'm Evelyn Lee.

B And I'm Janine Chastain. We're collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry is changing.

A Together, we'll find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects.

B Welcome to Practice disrupted.

A How Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine. Hey, Evelyn. Hey, listeners. So I realized last week was our 1st show how of season 2. And thank you for everyone who tuned in to listen to Janine and my conversation. But now we are in how Full swing, and this is we're bringing guests back on. And this particular individual has a bit of a different background from those that we've brought on previously.

B So we're gonna start with a guest outside of the industry to give our audience access to ideas we can learn from and potentially bring back into our

A history. Yes. So Helen is a fellow coworker of mine at Slack. But surprise, we are not going to talk specifically about Slack as the work tool. Rather, she has some interesting findings to share around the future of work from the Future Forum. And what the Future Forum is is They are bringing together original research, thought leadership from a variety of different perspective, and the hands on contents, and delivering them to leaders to talk about how to build better teams.

B Helen Cupp is the director of product strategy for the future forum, where she leads membership program development and strategic partnerships. She previously led the strategy and analytics team at Slack, where she drove various cross functional initiatives such as international launch and strategy, building Slack's professional services offering and fundraising and direct listing efforts. Prior to a career in technology, Helen was a consultant with Bain and Company, which is a global management company for those who don't know, and she has an MBA from Harvard Business School. And she's very passionate about advocating for and creating better support for working moms.

A Great. Let's cut to the interview.

C Yeah. So, my name is Helen Kupp, and I currently am the head of product strategy for Future Forum, a new initiative, within Slack. And being head of product strategy means a couple things. I'm, how Responsible for, you know, shaping and building out the Future Forum membership program as well as, pulling together our founding partnership, how A consortium of companies that go much deeper into the research, and research collaboration with us on Future Forum. And I've I've been with Slack for four how and a half years now and actually started my role in strategy and analytics before transitioning over to product and then leading product strategy for future forum and across those experiences as well as in prior companies and roles. I've done a lot of work on a lot of different projects, that look like, you know, building initiatives from 0 to 1, Sort of forming new functions, spinning up new projects, and all of that. So Future Forum really fit nicely into that. So what is what is Future Forum for Slack? So Future Forum is this sort of mix between a think how Tank type of organization, where we are thinking a lot about the research and the data behind understanding the change in how people are working, especially with the shift to virtual and remote work this year, and we are pairing a lot of those data and insights with, an event stream.

C So, wanna take sort of data and move that into conversations with how executives at Fortune 500 companies to turn that into the actual practices and policies how that are required to actually implement, you know, those sort of insights and changes within organizations. So we didn't want this to be how Just kind of theoretical, we do see that, a big thing about future of work is, you know, we're all experimenting, we're all trying this out. We we are learning as we how, and that conversation is equally as important. So She Should Forum is sort of this umbrella for for both sides of that work, the the research agenda and how and, the data that we're pulling together to inform how we're approaching all of this, as well as the the conversations, the companies, the executives that we are Working closely with, to continue iterating and learning about what practices work in the field.

A Yeah. And I was excited to bring how Helen on from Slack. You're the 1st fellow Slack coworker for me to bring on, but I was really interested in having you because of the work that you're doing with Future Forum, and I think there's a lot of findings that are coming out Of what you're doing that architects cannot only bring to bear in their own practice, but just acknowledge that how This is what their clients are going through as well. One of my biggest concerns, for instance, is how that similar to Slack, a lot of architecture firms were not fully remote or, you know, did not have the setups to go remote, how Like pre pandemic, and a lot of them created a ton of Band Aids, right, in this move to a fully remote workforce. And In going back, and a a lot of firms are talking about reentry and what does that look like. I'm worried, as architects tend to do, how

C that they will take

A all of these Band Aids they've created and just roll them out like it's everyday operations and really not how Holistically look at the changes that they should be making to everything from operations, policy, people, process, how Leadership management that really makes a move to a more hybrid practice or a more flexible workplace really how productive and possible. Anyways, could you tell us a little bit about the first kind of deep study coming out of Future Forum related to the remote experience index?

C Yeah. We we kicked off, you know, Future Forum and all of this work how with a fairly large study, that you referenced, the remote employee experience index, and that's a survey of over 9,000 knowledge workers, all around the world. We kicked that off back in July, and it's a study that we plan on, releasing every quarter so that we start to how Monitor what is changing in terms of sentiment and experience and where we are settling out in, you know, how people are feeling and grappling with the how remote work and the shift to remote work And that's been really interesting for us So, You know, when we kicked out the survey, we asked a lot of questions around, like, what are the benefits of, you know, going virtual? What are the challenges that you're experiencing. And post pandemic, what do you want to return to? Those are kind of big questions that we we asked. And on the on the benefits and challenges side, we found things that I I think are not surprising to all of us who've been, you know, living this life how For the last 9 months, benefits were things like no commuting, work life balance, increased productivity for a lot of us, and the challenges were things like how Maintaining relationships, staying focused, and, for some of us, unstable Wi Fi as we try to do everything over Zoom. But despite the challenges and the Zoom fatigue that some of us are feeling, the thing that we kept finding in the data was that how This change that, you know, all of us have undergone to shift to more, you know, virtual work, and more distributed work how really opened everyone's eyes to this new potential for rebalancing work and home and rethinking where work gets done. How So our sort of 9,000 plus knowledge workers, when asked where they wanted to work coming out of the pandemic, 72% wanted some sort of hybrid model, a mix between office and, you know, work remote. How Very few people wanted, you know, 5 full days in the office, and similarly, very few people wanted the, you know, 5 full days from home or remote.

C How And that, I think, is really interesting because we've been hearing about some of the the challenges around, connecting, maintaining relationships, all of that that, how has been much harder in the pandemic, but it's clear that we are the world is shifting towards, you know, how some some model hybrid. And, Evelyn, you mentioned this at the beginning, like, it's a bit more of a blank slate for us. Right? This is an opportunity for us to rethink how we are working together. We we aren't held back by all the Notions that we had before about we what we couldn't do, what was limited by the 4 walls of the office, we blew through all of those, like, myths at the beginning of this year. Companies you know, many companies pivoted within 1 to 2 weeks, Which is incredible. You think about how long companies go through, like, change efforts. It's usually in the order of at least, like, 6 to 9 months. Right? And so the data shows that there's this real desire to move towards hybrid.

C And I think one of the biggest things that we're trying to unpack with companies and through the data is how to best do that. Right? And I think hybrid is is harder, But the the how part is is worth digging into more.

B So for a lot of architecture firms, they how really resisted this idea of remote work, and so everything was built around going into the office 5 days a week. And in speculating about what tech culture's like, which is radically different than architecture or studio culture. I think, you know, the the narrative is that you guys had more flexibility in general about being able to work from home sometimes. So I'm curious if you guys can talk about, from your viewpoint. How how did it impact people who worked at Slack who might have had some flexibility already built into their work week?

C Yeah. So I will say that at Slack, we definitely had more flexibility even even pre COVID. We had, You know, already been using Slack as kind of our primary tool where we were sharing information and, you know, making sure everyone was updated on the latest decisions and and all of that. So we had a bit of a leg up there. But I I think even despite that, I think, you know, Evelyn actually and her team pulled this data together about Slack when we looked at, You know, how many people were actually coming into the office, we found that the average was, you know, 3 days a week, not five. And so there was already some flexibility about working from home and working remotely that was built into how we operated. But even so, the shift to fully remote this year has been really eye opening. It's been, it's required us how To to think about new ways to work together.

C It's forced us to think about, you know, like our meeting norms is a great example. How Right. When we moved to fully remote, it it felt actually like we increased our meeting load, like everyone was deciding that we needed to how to jump on Zoom to have conversations. And we had a real conversation internally about, you know, this is not sustainable. Like, You can't really have flexible work if you're still in back to back meetings from 9 to 5. Right? That's not flexible. You're scheduled in. How And the only way to build more flexibility for our employees is to think about opportunities to sort of basically kill some of those meetings.

C Right? What how What actually didn't need to get done. Like, status checks are a really great example of you can do that asynchronously. How You can do that in a channel. You can do that in an email thread. You can, you know, you can just sort of send it and let people read it on their own time. How And that's actually an interesting thing that we found in our research. So the the beautiful thing about the remote employee experience index is by creating an index, how We can compare that score across different practices that knowledge workers and companies were were utilizing. And we saw that with people and companies, that were still doing live status checks, Their scores were lower from a productivity standpoint, from a sense of belonging standpoint than people who had moved status checks how to, you know, something more asynchronous, and using modern tools for that sense of belonging was actually, you know, positive rather than being negative.

C And we hypothesized that that's because they're using live time for more productive, meaningful conversations of how Team building or actually discussing meaty topics rather than talking about the quick, you know, status update on their work.

A Yeah. I wanted to circle back, and we've we've kinda hit on this already. But you, you know, you mentioned, Helen, that hybrid is harder, and I I just wanna make sure that our listeners understand kind of why hybrid is harder. And, You know, the fact that if if you expect everyone to be in the office 5 days a week, because then team meetings become very easy, everyone's always there. How Same thing if you run an entirely remote experience. But if you try to mix the 2, how that at any given time, if you're offering true full flexibility, you're never going to have how a full team of even 4 people necessarily in the same place at the same time, unless it's done with a certain intentionality around it. So, you know, we've already mentioned this a few times that this is really an opportunity to rethink things how From the ground up, anything about meetings or or just, like, how you do things asynchronously. Is there anything else That you maybe came out of the remote experience that, you know, you kinda wanna to highlight as specific areas that how really need to change or really need, like, a more thorough look at as we move to the hybrid this hybrid kind of market experience.

A Yeah.

C I think you, you really sort of anchored on the the key point there, which is just how intentionality that we have to bring to all of the the norms and the rituals that we had as a how as an organization working together. We touched on the the meeting piece, but but it's exactly that. With with the office, right, how You had this system that made sure that everyone was in the same place roughly around the same time doing work. And how With a hybrid model, you just you don't have that anymore. Right? You don't. You have some people who might be in the office. You might have some people who are remote. One of the biggest risks with the hybrid model that we find, not not in our data, but sort of in conversation with a how the companies that we work with is the risk of creating a remote second class.

C And that's because if you think about it, We've actually seen a lot of value from moving fully remote this year, where our teams at Slack, we had teams in Denver and Pune how who were often working with teams in San Francisco, and they felt left out. Right? They were kind of the the lone voice on Zoom when 10 people were in the conference room kind of ideating on something or discussing something important And with everyone going fully on Zoom, they sort of felt like they had a a seat at the table, right, they had a a tile on the screen. And now in the shift to hybrid, you might have sort of 5050, but it's also if you're not intentional about it, if you're not thoughtful about, You know, if all of you, your leaders, for example, still go into the San Francisco office 9 to 5, 5 days a week, Even if you're not explicit about that needing to happen, very naturally, people are gonna gravitate to coming back into the office because that is where the leaders are. That is where opportunity is. And you're going to revert back to, you know, kind of a default model of going into the office 5 days a week, and the people who can't do that, who live in different locations, are just gonna be left out. They're gonna feel kind of, in a career cul de sac is what, is what people used to refer to, you know, the non headquartered offices. And I think to combat that, I wish there was, like, another, you know, 2 or 3 things that I could say you could focus on to be intentional about, but it is actually intentionality end to end. Right? So it's thinking about everything from, you know, how you, like, think about onboarding, and bringing people in.

C It's thinking about mentoring and the sort of, like, day to day ways that people learn from each other, make decisions together, how Brainstorm on ideas. How do you make sure voice all the voices, whether you're in the office or remote, are being incorporated into that decision And sort of everything in between. What I've seen teams do really well, when they navigated this is just taking a step back and saying, okay, There's 2 things we wanna do. 1 is let's just look at how we, like, how we all work and what do we need as a team. Right? So What are the hours that we are online together? How do we wanna set some explicit norms about when we respond? What type of things can we do asynchronously, how do we build focus time for all of us to to do work, right, instead of being bogged down by meetings. So, like, let's let's just, as a team, as a department, as an organization, revisit just how we work together and just set some things explicitly down. The 2nd big piece of that is recognizing that you are going to iterate. Right? You won't be able to design the perfect solution from the start.

C We are all figuring out how this works for different teams, for different personalities. I'm super introverted, and I work very different than My boss who's like, let me just jump in with this idea and let me just, like, sync live with you. Every team, every person how need something a little bit different. Their situations are different, and also it's changing. So building a process in a way for for your organization and for your teams to how actually get feedback, iterate, experiment, and be open to sort of like trying and trying and trying again. That's how Arguably more important in building out that intentional design that makes hybrid successful than the original, you know, norms and policies that you set. So how It's kind of the the balance

B of the 2. In the context of architecture and architects architects I've spoken with that they often are mentioning that they're worried about the equity issues around this virtual practice and, like, excluding people. I'm glad you brought up the idea about introverts and and, you know, where did they show up in the conversation around, virtual conversations. How sometimes voices you know, it's not equitable in a virtual setting sometimes for all voices to come forward. So That's one idea. And I also would love for you guys to just pause and elaborate on this idea of what asynchronous work is because I don't know that our audience will understand what that is.

C Yeah. It's a great callout. I definitely say asynchronous first a lot. So let me use an actual, like, a situation because it makes it a lot more real for me and and for the audience. We've been hearing a lot from executives that, you know, they are worried about creativity and innovation and actually generating high quality ideas that they can execute on as a company when we are working remotely how or when we are more distributed even in the future. There's this belief that you need to be together in a room, in an off-site, how Brainstorming on the whiteboard, putting Post Its on the walls, and and moving things around like a very tactile everyone has that, like, you know, imagery in their mind about how design thinking happens.

A This is very true, by the way. Like, I would say how 95% of all design principles would be like, absolutely. That's the only way that you can

B innovate. And if I can't see hacking you're not working.

A Yeah.

C Yeah. And there's there's something, like, beautifully tactile about it. Right? Like, you're gonna, like, draw out ideas. You, like, put it. You move it. There's how There is value to that. I'm not discounting that. Like, I I facilitate a lot of workshops, and I love I have rainbow post its at home.

C Trust me. It's all on my walls already. It's really, I'm a nerd. But the research shows, like, Not just our research, decades of of research into this topic of creativity and innovation shows that how Brainstorming live doesn't actually produce the best ideas or the most ideas. The best way to do this how is to kind of balance individual work and group work. So you kind of have, like, individuals come up with ideas how and then aggregate all of that before coming back as a group and discussing it. That's when you generate a more divergent set of ideas, Because if you're if you you know, I'm sure you've all been in that situation where, like, you have 10 people in a room, You're asking everyone for ideas. You go around in the circle.

C And by the time you hit, like, the 3rd or 4th person, the 10th person is, like, how no longer paying attention to anyone. They're trying to think of their, like, unique and innovative idea that they won't get judged on. And, you know, maybe the 7th person is like, oh, god. They took my idea, now I couldn't think of something else. It's a really high stress, like, judgy environment and it is not conducive to ideas, and it's actually much better, and it's it's also much better for introverts like myself. I hate brainstorming lives. Like, I just I can't. I'm, like, very self conscious about how what I'm saying and whether I'm saying something that's super smart in the room.

C It's much better for, you know, introverts and and for people generally to say, okay, I have some homework. Right. I'm gonna do things, quote unquote, asynchronously. So on my own time, offline, where I'm not live with other people, how have some time to actually, like, be thoughtful about the ideas that I'm generating, the way that I'm phrasing it, etcetera. Put that together, so that's kind of what I mean by asynchronous first. Do that individual work when you're not together first, then you find time to come back how together, and share out. And that's when I think there's interesting things can that can happen, like finding patterns in, like, how All 10 people have the same idea even though they work separately. Very cool.

C Or, wow, this is totally out of left field, this idea that we had never thought about. That's also really interesting. But breaking out a process like brainstorming into an asynchronous first how Step before coming back together is a really interesting way to balance out, you know, how to, one, make sure that you are bringing all the voices to the table how including everyone in that conversation and 2, you know, being asynchronous first, leveraging like, not spending 2 hours together trying to do this thing, but actually maybe, you know, giving everyone time to do this on their own and then only spending 30 minutes together live, having done all that pre work asynchronous, and then coming back to have a much meatier conversation That frees up your calendar, builds more flexibility, and makes those times when you're actually seeing other people and discussing things how much richer and much more productive.

B In our pursuit to diversify our profession, we're just how Trying to find ways to include people and be inclusive. I think I've heard there's a concern that how this virtual practice will put, you know, some designers in an advantage versus others who might not have an opportunity to how SHINE in this virtual setting. But hopefully, that there's there's more research coming forward on that and how how we how we can champion different voices in the in the workspace.

C I think that because we have this opportunity to to rethink norms and rituals for how we work together. We also have an opportunity to explore, like, different formats, right, different ways of how Pulling ideas together, like, you know, the pre work before, etcetera, that we can actually experiment more with ways to include more people how and create more equity, in different processes rather than just just taking it for granted. But it is it is something that I think we are how We're still figuring out across the board.

A Interesting and oddly enough, and it's always I'm just realizing, architects and like, when it comes to business, we always have a very pessimistic view of the future, and, I I I do contribute to that. You know, I I kind of, like, I'm hopeful how that we we come out of this very differently, but I'm also like, but, you know, knowing architects will probably snap back to as much of the normal as. How so I'm, you know, at fault to contributing to that, but, I mean, one of one of the best opportunities of how A hybrid work situation, which I feel that tech is going to definitely accommodate for, is how The option to hire a more diverse workforce away from areas where you how previously only geographically had a physical presence. This is really true for architects how In areas where they might suffer from brain drain or, you know, the local pool of bodies how that they can pull from is just inherently not diversity, and they're trying to bring more diversity to their practice. So I think, For me, that's kind of another way of looking at this as an opportunity. But, again, back to Helen's point, like, This we really need to be relooking at the norms coming out of this and how we approach everything. How Because if we snap back to business as usual, then it's it's gonna I feel it's gonna be worse than because We snapped back to business as usual, but we also decided to try to do flexible work.

C Yeah. I I cannot emphasize not enough. I do think that the opportunity is there, and lots of companies are actually thinking about how this real opportunity to hire from, you know, more diverse locations, and that will bring kind of diverse talent into the employee base. One of the things that we explored in the remote employee experience, right, is We we did look at how, the remote employee experience was impacting different groups. And how At an overall level, we found that sense of belonging was something that suffered with remote work. Right? It was the only dimension when we looked at work life balance, stress and anxiety, productivity, sense of belonging, etcetera. Sense of belonging was the only dimension that was negative when we looked at work remote compared to the office. But what was interesting is as we unpack this for different groups of employees and we looked at employees of color, so Black, Hispanic, and Asian employees for example.

C We actually found that their sense of belonging in this virtual experience was higher than their white colleagues, and that was that was really interesting for us because so we held an event, around diversity, equity, and belonging. An academic summit, with top researchers in this field, and Brian Lowery, who's a professor at Stanford, actually how called out that this is, this aligns with his own experience, where he talks about, you know, the way that I talk right now is different from the way that I talk at home. Like, I show up and I code switch, and that's a cost. It's a it's another reason why you don't see people advancing. It's really exhausting how when you show up every day and you find a way to fit in. And those are those are kind of the barriers that a lot of employees of color feel when they step into the office. And I think An interesting thing about virtual work is that you can be more yourself. Right? You are surrounded more by kind of your environment, your family.

C You can be more yourself. Health and so that is an environment that increases inclusion and belonging in the workplace, But at the same time, there's still risk. Like, we talked to, Billy Dexter who works at Heidrick and Struggles and is part of the Executive Leadership Council, and he said that he was coaching a lot of, you know, black leaders that he spoke to. And a lot of them actually really had a lot of hesitation in this virtual world of turning their video on. And how By deciding to turn their video off in a room full of other leaders, they're kind of they're not how quite showing up in the same way. They're actually holding their career back by not turning their video on because they're stressed out about, you know, how their house looks how or, you know, the people running around, etcetera, etcetera. And so it's a long winded way of saying, like, one of the things that we we do well at Slack, for example, is making it okay to be not camera ready and actually allowing for people to how feel comfortable, like, turning off their video and making that normal and not something, like, weird and one off. Like, you're the 1 person who's off video, and and then kind of quote unquote not seen right in the room.

C And so that's another way to think about, like, how do you be intentional about That sort of dynamic. It's really small, like, it's turning your video on or off on Zoom. But that really does impact, like, how people are, you know, how people are showing up as a group, how they feel like, you know, they are part of the conversation or not, they that they are able to, I feel comfortable doing that. And so big, big opportunity for more diverse hiring and and bringing people in. Also a really big area that I think we are not talking about enough or thinking about enough in terms of ensuring not just diversity, but how but actual equity and actual inclusion when we are thinking about, you know, how we are interacting with each other.

A So, Helen, you've been giving us some really great tidbits, about a variety of different things that I'm hoping our listeners, both firm leaders as well as kind of even the individual contributors can can make suggestions and ensure more intentionality, going forward. But you guys have also put out a number of playbooks that I think goes a little bit deeper, but how that begins to categorize kind of all of these things that you're talking about. I didn't know if you wanted to work your way through some of the ones that we have On the website right now or maybe just touch on 1 or 2 points out of each. Yeah.

C How Like you said, we we have published quite a lot of thoughts and playbooks on the Future Forum website around how to think about the future of work. Some of the points we've already touched on, that I've talked about, but A couple of my, my favorites. So I already talked about, you know, unlocking creativity and innovation for distributed teams. That playbook goes into until into that and then a little bit more depth and talks about things like brain writing instead of brainstorming as a example of what that looks like. The ones that I think are foundational to how we should rethink how we work together in the future. There's one around making flexible schedules work for your team. That goes much more deeply into, you know, how to think about asynchronous first. It talks about, you know, structuring how bursty team time versus more asynchronous focus time for individuals to kind of balance, You know, deep focus work to getting things done with the back and forth kind of live discussion and tackling and problem solving that, you know, you how you wanna do with your team.

C That also touches on something that I talked about earlier, which is how do you raise the bar for meetings? Right? How do you think about Reevaluating the meetings that you don't need and how to set up the meetings that you do have for the most success. And how And if you raise the bar, you naturally figure out where the cutoff is. Right? Like, these definitely don't need to be meetings, that we talk about things live. And then the final thing there on making flexible schedules work how is, is actually setting notifications off by default, something that's important. If you work in Slack, for example, how The whole premise of that playbook, all of those points that I touched on, is around creating space for focus work Because I think, especially with today's knowledge work, we've we've shifted to a world where most of our time is spent Searching for information, being in meetings, staying updated. It's not the actual doing the work how Part of the job and for many of us, like I'm a mom to an 11 month 11 month old baby, I do my work after he goes to bed. Right? That's how I categorize, like, my work work. And that is a really unfortunate a state of the world that we've gotten ourselves into.

C And so the whole premise of that playbook is, like, if you actually want flexible schedules to work. We need to figure out how to flip that equation to doing not doing the actual work at night. You're doing, how You know, the work during the day, and you're finding a way to, you know, structure the synchronous, the live team times, those discussions, how as the most effective things, most effective time that you can kind of pull together. And I think that is really critical to how not just happier workers and employees and more productive people, but you basically need that if you wanna be intentional about coordinating with people that are not in the same office, who are not side by side with each other. So I think that is really core to the future of work. I think the other is, there's this playbook around, like, how do you shift power a rate away from the traditional headquarters? And that's the flip side to this, which is, you know, we've been talking about how should you think about it for yourself and your immediate team, and I touched on this earlier. If your executives are still going into the office, Still kind of going into San Francisco or New York or wherever. It doesn't matter what your written policies are.

C Your unwritten policies are how telling people that actually nothing has changed. The best way to move up is to do the thing that your c suite is doing, which is what you were doing before. And so you have to be intentional not only about what you write down, but how your leaders how modeling that behavior, you know, across the organization. So that playbook really is, more geared towards, senior leadership and executives. And it talks about a couple of things. Right? It talks it's primarily around their behaviors and how they model behaviors, that'll help shift the future of work. But it's one is very simply, like, distribute your executives. You know, SLAC hired our chief people officer, Nadia Rollinson, out of Chicago with no intention of her coming to San Francisco how after the pandemic because it was a signal to the entire employee base that we mean what we say, that we how We do want you to be able to work from anywhere, and it is not required to be in San Francisco to move up.

C How So distribute your executives the same way that you're thinking about distributing your employee base.

A Yeah. I think it's really, really important that as we look at the creation of these norms that leadership models them. If I look at the majority of firm leadership right now, and we are in a situation where we have an aging population in our leadership and firms really struggling with what does that transition to the next generation look like. I see a lot of older principals that, like, are going to insist on coming into the office 5 days a week. And if you think about even back to your studio days, like, just the culture we always joke that, you know, the architecture how is the lighthouse, and we're spending every single waking hour in the studio. But you have to admit that some of the time that we spent in studio was just how because the rest of studio was was there. We weren't productive all of those hours, all the time. And I think that's the same type of culture we create how When we come back into the office, and I I do know I've had conversations where, like especially when I was, like, that early how Eager go getter.

A I was like, I'm going to show up before my principal gets on-site, and I'm going to make sure that I don't like, I stay as long as they do, and I don't go home until after how they go home. So I think that in particular is is a really good point. I also think we need to make sure that we're how Training managers to expect the same thing out of their employees. I definitely talked to people even at Slack pre pandemic, and I think this is true of any organization how of our size that the amount of flexibility that any individual contributor had was really based on how how their manager managed them. So some people had super flexible schedules, but if I got moved how to a different team, I might find myself in a situation where I feel pressured to show up every day, and that, like, changes how I feel about working at that company at that moment.

C A 100%. We we've been talking to a lot of our executives, not just about how they should model behavior, but exactly that. The the type of training that we need to put in place how to not just help our executives, but our our managers really think about how they should be how Setting the norms, role modeling thing, like how they should be working with their teams to ensure that everyone Feels like they have flexibility, knows how to kind of manage, you know, and navigate the new norms and all of that. But I think reskilling managers and training and, making sure that there is additional support as people are changing how they work together is is really, how Really important. I remember this pre pandemic. My husband is, an engineering leader how And he managed an org of over 40 people at his last, in his last company. And at the time, like, he, you know, He was working really hard. He would stay, you know, past 6 o'clock, and we had this conversation at home where I was like, you cannot how Do that.

C You're burning out your team. And he's like, no. My team knows that they can leave. And I'm like, no. Your team is going to arrive before you how and they will stay after you leave, and if you don't do that until after 6, they're just gonna stay later. How And so it made a big difference to his team and to their team scores when he put a hard line at, like, how stopping at 5 and leaving. He might work and try to be try to do his own kind of individual, you know, focus work when he's at home, but how The way that he communicates what was important through his actions with the team when they could see it was really important. How

B I really appreciate that you guys have brought up several of these issues, and it may be counterintuitive for, especially new managers, to think about flexibility being a management tool. But it's something that I've really picked up on working with Evelyn because I I know she's working at Slack, so she's exposed to this tech culture. But there's so much more flexibility in the way that she's how Engaging than what I see when I'm working with my architecture firms that I'm consulting with. There's a lot more rigidity, but I wanna make the point that I I love this idea of modeling, the behavior, but also that flexibility can be a management tool in support of management, and not just that you have to be very rigid in terms of being a leader and managing. And I also wanna come back to this idea because I like hearing both of you mention how that your mothers. And I know that in creating a flexible schedule that you all work in the evenings, which is what you need to do in order to juggle how both work in raising your family. I was speaking with someone who was telling me about a woman in her firm who how She was worried that this woman was going to lose some forward momentum on her career because she's a mother and she's trying to figure out this balancing act with her husband of managing the kids and getting to her meetings. And the person I was speaking to was basically saying that because this women couldn't hit the meeting times of when the project team had to meet, that she was worried it was gonna hold her back ultimately because of the culture of that firm.

B And I want to just emphasize that you all both are finding success in being able to have that flexibility to work when you need to. So I was hoping you could elaborate on any lessons that you've learned that you could pass forward to managers who are new to that concept.

A I don't know. Janine knows me as a workaholic. Like, I don't feel like I'm a good example of how I manage my time sometimes. But, you know, like,

B how you still take time to go have dinner.

A Yeah. You

B know? Like, you take time to have cuddle breaks. Like, there's things that have to happen bath time, for example, like

C Oh, cuddle breaks are the best.

A Yeah. Well, I think I think that's one of the best perks of working at home is the cuddle breaks. But I I think wow. I mean, to that person, I would say, can you move the team meeting? I mean, Is it is it that hard

C to do

A a team meeting? You you you usually schedule team meetings around when it's most beneficial for everyone on the meeting to meet anyways. How

B I know. But I think because she's not in a leadership position, she's at the mercy of, like, the team. And honestly, hearing the story, a little part of me died inside because I know this is affecting a lot of people in our industry. It just seems so unfair, and I just it gives me hope to hear both of your stories and that you guys are figuring that out with your teams, and there is a culture out there that models a behavior where how there's intentionality and understanding that mothers need flexibility and that you don't lose your job or get held back in your career.

A I mean, I think I would go back to how You know, everything Helen has said about intentionality and especially giving voice how to the introverts or those who, I guess, in this individual's career thinks that they're not in a position where they can speak up. How So the role of the manager then becomes, you know, if I'm requiring my team to meet, let's make sure that we are accommodating for everyone's schedule how and meeting at the best time that they are not only able to be present, but it can be productive for everyone. That's where the intentionality stems from. And then I think, you know, a lot of what I do at my work at Slack when it comes to to color breaks how Or even you know, non parents do this all the time too, just like the mental and wellness break of, like, saying that they're gonna go out and take a walk, how Or they're gonna take this Zoom call outside on a walk just because they need to get outside and just communicating that. And then alternatively, everybody is saying Not not only saying, like, thanks for letting us know, but also I feel like it's in our culture to be, like, good for you. You should go do that more often how And encourage it from that standpoint.

C Yeah. I wanna echo that one of the best parts of working from home is the cuddle breaks. Like, is wow. Is it great that I actually get to be around to see my baby grow up this 1st year and learn all of the things that learning right now. I'm a I'm a new mom. And so it's just it's like a miracle. Every month, he's become a completely different person. And I get to watch that.

C But I died a little inside too when when you said how inflexible that culture is. I don't know where I would be without the flexibility of my team. Like, I've been breastfeeding all year, and for anyone who's listening, who's a mom, who's breastfed, you know that, like, I cannot time my baby's schedule whatsoever. Right? Like, he wakes up when he feels like he wants to wake up, and then he wants to feed at whenever he feels like feeding. And it's been really important for my team to know where I'm at, so, like, what my situation is at home, why I need to sometimes turn my video off or sometimes I just need to say, like, hey, I can't make this meeting or I'm gonna be 15 minutes late. How Can you recap that meeting for me in channel? And that's the value of of asynchronous first thinking. It bleeds into even when you do have a meeting. How It's to say, documentation is important for anyone who can't make the meeting, for anyone who's, how not in the same time zone even.

C Let's not talk about just moms. You're not in the same time zone. You wanna know what's happening. You couldn't be part of the conversation. How The documentation piece of, you know, how we work together is is really important to make sure people are included, and that actually helps me how Navigate my day when I'm juggling, like, when am I breastfeeding? When am I jumping back into work? You know, when does it pop out because my baby is how Screening is head off and and nobody knows what to do. That's really helped me, you know, stay productive, stay connected to the team, Even if I cannot be present from the typical mind to find. That's a that's a big piece of it. You know, I think to the other piece, we talked about intentionality again, and I talked earlier about, you know, reskilling middle managers and actually thinking about the training.

C We have to recognize that the job of the manager is becoming more and more complex. Right. Before, it was really easy. You have a factory line. They had to check, like, people clocked in, people clocked out. They were, you know, doing the right specific task in the in the manufacturing line or whatever. There are, like, standards, that they could just sort of observe and and check the boxes. With knowledge work, with now, like, distributed work, with everything that's been happening this year, how We've heard multiple times now how important it is for managers to take into account different people's working styles, different people's situations.

C How You're a mom. You are caregiving for a parent. You got sick with COVID and, you know, have to figure out, how, you know, some time off, managers have to now be really thoughtful about Really understanding all of the nuances from person to person and making sure that they're being thoughtful about structuring, like how the how Teamwork together. When do we have these meetings? Like, I think the job has just gotten more complex because we've taken it out from this very cookie cutter, like, how Everyone's a professional and does the same thing at 9 to 5 in the same place. We've added these, like, additional layers of, degrees of freedom how that managers have to think about. And so in some ways, I I am, like, appalled by the inflexibility of that manager. But in other ways, I'm like, It's not their fault. We haven't trained everyone to think this way.

C We haven't helped people, make this own shift in their thinking about how do they support their teams, how do they how ask for that feedback from their employees that we need to, you know, we need to train managers to do more of that.

B How I think that's a really critical point that you're making because I do think it's inherited, and it comes from a very long culture of, especially coming out of the 19 fifties, like, this very inflexible management style, top down. And so, you know, I think we're in the revolution of creating a different era of work, and there is a learning curve. And just being able to stop and think about how do we train people to think differently and put time and invest money and energy into teaching people how to actually manage in a flexible way is so valuable.

C And hard. I think that we We have to recognize that this is you're not going to get it overnight. Right? And it is okay to make mistakes along the way as long as you, Like, are open to feedback or open to learning, but it is not easy by any means.

B Why do you guys think that Slack has taken such a proactive approach towards being involved in research and development towards these workplace ideas.

C You know, if you think about what we are doing with the product. Right? Thinking about Slack the product, creating a more, you know, connected sort of digital headquarters. How A lot of the beliefs around the future of work, where we're moving towards more flexibility, more transparency, sort of how More human work. All of those themes are things that we are putting into the product itself. Right? Like it manifests in the thing that we are building. And so Stewart and Slack has always been interested in how continuing to shape this future of work that is more flexible, more transparent, more human. And so the investment in the research and the data and these conversations isn't surprising at all. Right? I think, like, It's been super important to how we think about the product.

C Continuing these discussions and moving this this how Broader shift in the market to more flexible work is important to us as a product, but also as leaders, as a company. And It is really interesting to us to hear kind of how other companies, like Fortune 500 companies, are how Thinking about, you know, newer ways of working together, what are they experiencing, and closing that feedback loop. Right? Like, we are doing things at Slack. We know that we are We have a little bit more, of a head start. We're clearly in the product all the time, but it's important for us to understand, you know, where other companies are at, how they are thinking about it, and how that sort of closes the feedback loop and and gets back into how should we think about the product, how should we think about that as infrastructure to support the future of work and how people are are changing the way they work together.

B Okay. So since working at Slack, I want you to share with our audience a productivity tool that you've learned about using Slack that you didn't know until you worked there that really has helped your workflow or improved your use of Slack. I know, Evelyn, you've taught me a couple that I thought were really neat. I know that some of our designers would be really interested since they are on Slack often.

A The power of The emoji and the Riachi, which in any thread, right, or anything you post how On to Slack, you can react with an emoji. And I think there those little darn emojis are, like, a lot more powerful than you think when it comes to, like, kind of how you represent yourself, how you congratulate other people, how you let people know that you've seen something. How I mean, we actually develop whole workflow processes around, like, this has been seen, we followed up with it, problem resolved. How You can create polls, like, have a bulleted list, and corresponding emojis, and then you vote how underneath by hitting the correct emoji for for the poll, which is then what we call a Riachi. And It's an unlimited library. And we have so many people that have uploaded great emojis. I really struggle when I'm not in the Slack work how space, and I'm, like, looking for an emoji that doesn't exist in, like, an AIA Slack channel or a workspace. I'm like, No.

A That's that's we only have it in Slack.

C I love custom emojis. I struggle with the same thing. I'm like, where is that Mind blown emoji that I really want. Why can't I search for that? My my favorite similar small, productivity hack is the remind function. So in Slack, we do slash remind and set up, like, any kind of reminder, but the ways that we use it are are really helpful is, I set up a reminder in our team channel every Monday morning just to prompt like, hey, what are your top 3 priorities this week? So every Monday morning, it, like, posts in our team channel, and then everybody sends their status update, sort of like, here are my top three things this week. And that's just that's just the workflow that now happens, automatically. You can do it in a couple different you can use it in a couple different ways. You can do that.

C We have 1 at the end of the week that says, like, hey, how did this week go? Like, what should we stop, start, continue? And my how Favorite use of the remind function. You know, we talked about sense of belonging and how, it's been hard to stay connected with people, how to, like, inject Some personal pieces of work back into work when we're all virtual. And so there's a channel for all moms at Slack called Motherboard, the private channel And there is, there is a reminder every Thursday how That goes out to the entire channel that says, you know, this too shall pass. It's a 2020 kind of, prompt. This too shall pass. But in the meantime, jokingly, research has showed that expressing your feelings in GIPHY form helps you feel better. So tell us how you feel this week. And it's this beautiful, like, a giphy how thread of the funniest responses from moms every week ranging from, like, Exhausted and, like, funny visuals of that to, like, you know, I'm crushing it.

C Like, I think I had, like, I posted a Giphy once of, like, little piggy miss piggy escaping jail. And I got this, like, great comment back there, like, This is so 2020. Right? Like, miss Piggy always looks fab, and that's great because that's, like, you're, like, a strong mom. But you're escaping jail because, like, what the hell, 2020? Like, and then we and so it's just it's a really how fun, read for anyone to engage in and, and that, like, it's just a simple remind function and, the slash commands are often very hidden in Slack, but how so many different ways to use that that range from, like, very functional to just very random and fun.

B I wanna I'm glad you brought someone in from Slack because I know a lot of people are very interested in the work that you're doing. And just listening to the conversation between you and Helen gave me a lot of great insight, and I'm sure For our audience, it did also about the way that your company operates and some of the priorities that you guys have established in terms of what you're working on.

A Yeah. And I, you know, I would like to think that just because I'm in tech, That it doesn't get discounted when we talk about how that can translate to the architecture industry. I feel like what Helen how is doing and the research she is doing. There isn't an industry out there right now that aren't asking these type of questions. I think how Architects will always put themselves in a special little bubble when it comes to, we need to be in person to do our creative thinking or similar thoughts, but, you know, there are innovation arms of large organizations that are battling with those Those ideas as well. And and what does it mean to create a work environment that is both flexible, but allows you to be as productive as you can be.

B And it was nice to hear that even you guys have struggled with this transition that just happened last year in terms of sending people home. So it's not just that our industry is facing these issues. Like, I think it's a pretty universal challenge for companies right now.

A How Right. If you look, I mean, so I'm heavy and deep in the data of our employees. Right? That's how part of what my job is. So when we left, only 3% of our how Workforce was designated as remote, even though we have a product that allows you to work remote as a team better. So the transition, I would say, was probably easier for us because we had the technology in place. But As Helen alluded to, we had to do a lot of thinking around what does that mean for all of our in person meetings that are now being on Zoom, and what does that mean for the mental capacity and everything else that people were dealing with, not only in 2020, but how In 2021, just in the 1st few weeks this year. And, you know, how do we manage that and be productive and Do all of that outside of the office. We were really rethinking things from the ground up, and I hope I really hope that architects how Kinda take heed and understand that it's something all organizations need to do if they're to be successful in this new hybrid model.

B Right. And I remember coming how to tour your office in San Francisco with you. You gave me a tour. So Slack definitely had a built out space, and, and I guess through this research, part of the conversation that you guys have been having is around this idea of the hybrid model because, you you know, You have desk space. You have an office building, and now all of your workers are at home. So where where are you hearing, this concept of hybrid practice in context to tech and then in context to architecture.

A Well, I think you even I mean, Thankfully, I think it's being adopted into architecture more. Like, you even mentioned that you had a conversation with Karen Timberlake recently with where they were talking about the hybrid practice. Right. So this notion of the hybrid practice, I think, came about because so many well, all of the workforce went remote, especially for knowledge based industries like tech and architecture. And for the most part, productivity is always a hard thing to how to measure, but, you know, we've managed. And because we've managed in what was previously thought as an unmanageable way of doing things. I think there's gonna be more demand from the employees to continue to how to manage and allow for the flexibility that remote work gives them, whether that is the ability how to work asynchronously, which Helen talked about, whether that means that I don't have to bear my commute every day of the week. How You know, I I can take time out of the day.

A Like, I my walk in talks used to be around downtown San Francisco. Now my walk how talks are around, like, the the local trails in my neighborhood over over the phone. But, you know, I think that how The employees are going to demand that more just for their own health and well-being, and and employers are going to have to respond. So ultimately, when Slack went and kind of declared, as a few large companies have, that they are now a remote first company, That means that when you compare apples to apples in a job offering, if, you know, all all benefits aside, except how the ability to, have greater flexibility with my schedule. You would think that that an employee, how a prospective employee is going to go with the company with more flexibility. So we wanted to make sure that we are ensuring our competitiveness how by doing

C that. Mhmm.

B And I know you've mentioned the hybrid model is harder, and some of the factors that we heard, There's risk around excluding people in a virtual environment if some people are in the office, and then there's communication challenges that you have to kind of think about in terms of establishing how people are working together and what the expectations are.

A Yeah. I think Helen, how You know, covered a lot of it, but just to recap some of that, like, we you know, there is, like, that the 2nd class of kind of how The the virtual participant or the remote participant. And this was true for us even for our one, how engineer or 1 engineer that was in New York, where the rest of their team was in San Francisco. So even though they weren't quote unquote remote because everyone who was in the office, how that person in New York, that person in in Denver, that person in Pune felt like a second class citizen because I I'm sure we've all experienced that. You know, if you are the 1 person that's looking into a conference camera and you're seeing the 4 people around the table on the other side, It's really hard to interject into that conversation, and to feel an equal at the table in that instance. So there's that. I think what I'm most concerned about in architecture firms is well, actually, I have a lot of concerns, obviously. But, you know, in the how The adoption of these more flexible behaviors that will inevitably have the older generation of firm leaders who are showing up to the office the same way they have every single day.

A And inevitably, their behavior is going to set the standard. It doesn't matter what you've put in your values and your mission, and how you intend to work together. If if that's how they're showing up every day And they've hired good people. They you know, people tend to model what they see from their leaders. So so you're not actually going how to even though you say that you offer the flexibility, you know, there's kind of this unwritten rule that isn't it's not as flexible as you anticipated it.

B No. That's a definite. And and I've seen that firsthand, people being too they want to how meet the expectations of the partners, and so they're not going to take risks if they perceive it as a risk, you know, that the partner would how see it as not ideal. You also mentioned measuring things, which I think is kind of an interesting idea, and I I think a lot of companies would probably wanna know, like, how do you measure things that are this fluid and abstract and then create standards and make revisions later. This is kind of a hard thing to keep a eye on at times.

A Yeah. I don't know if we're measuring I mean, we're I I think we're measuring where we're spending our time. So productivity is a really hard thing to measure, and different people are going to be do like, how have a different varying productivity level based on the tasks that they're doing and their expertise towards their tasks. So how I think, you know, in terms of how we're managing as a team, I think it's really more about, like, how Looking at where we're spending the time and how we're making the most of the time together. So There's these great playbooks, and and we go a little bit into this into the the hybrid practice, playbook that we're building out on the practice of architecture. But it's, you know, it's even down to the meetings. How do you create greater intentionality at the meetings so that how People aren't showing up to listen to a talking head for half an hour before you even start discussing things. How So if you were to dump that into an asynchronous work model where you're trying to limit the Zoom time, for instance, how That talking head would be prerecorded.

A People would have time, on their own to gather their thoughts, how And you could even prepopulate a whiteboard before you show up to the meeting to have a really engaging conversation and jump in immediately, how in the same 30 minute window you would have had scheduled for the hour meeting anyways. So I think it's really looking at, how We we looked at our Zoom use, and it was off the charts and then asking ourselves, like, is this healthy? Is this where we want our team members to be spending their time? And then how Kind of dialing back. Okay. What are the parameters that we have to set around how you set meetings? And then, how you know, begin to block off that time. We've also there's also been some departments that have blocked off time either for working together. That's not necessarily I I know there are some firms that have been sitting on Zoom all day, and I feel for those people. Like, I don't imagine what that's like just working quietly next to your coworkers on Zoom all day. But, it's kind of like that, but we have Slack the tool.

A So it's it's just that no. Like, every day between 1 and 2 know that if you need to get a hold of the team member that you're going to, like Like, that is the time to get all of your questions in out there because you'll be able to get really quick responses because, you know, they'll be in front of their computer, not necessarily on Zoom. And then conversely, we've also set, like there's some departments that set no meeting time. So they say, like, Friday is no meeting. How I would actually love that. But, like yeah. So, like, no meetings on Friday. So then that, like, conversely allows people to Have the freedom to schedule Friday.

A And then we also measure that against an employee engagement survey, which I feel like there are so few firms out how that really do a good employee engagement survey and take that information and adapt it and say, here's here's where we could change how and operations and process to really pick up engagement in that place. So that's kind of another place that we tend to

B measure things. Mhmm. It comes back how to, a couple of the other ideas that you've mentioned, which include, being able to go remote and hire a more diverse, workforce, you know, reaching outside of the limits of your local community. You know, now that we're virtual, you can hire people across the country, and it's an opportunity for training those middle managers better. You know, that is something I think that's been lacking in our field, and we are inviting someone on the show in a couple weeks after this airs that's gonna be able to talk to that in more depth, but specifically targeting training inside the firm at different levels and especially for those middle managers who need to learn those skills to help lead teams through project work.

A So there's a few things there to unpack. Right? It's also it's teaching people who are used to managing teams in how to manage them remotely, but it's also helping them understand consistently what is the expectations how of all the employees of the firm, and then how are you able to deliver against those as a manager. So And I alluded to it in Helen's discussion. I'd talked to engineers at Slack that were really worried about, like, having their manager change because that means that how Their quality of life as an employee is really dependent upon their manager, and that's true of a lot of organizations. So how do you create a standard quality of life While still allowing managers to kinda manage in their own way, but meet employee expectations.

C Mhmm.

B Well, on that note, I think That's a good place to end it for now knowing that we're gonna continue this conversation in future episodes.

A Yeah. So I think this is a new beginning for us, and I hope how that the architecture profession really views it as a new beginning. I also wanna acknowledge that it's probably going to get harder how before it gets easier, that making these transitions is a challenge for any organization, any profession out there, but I hope that we can get through it together. And on that note, thank you for listening, and tune in next week. Thanks for joining us on Practice Disrupted, a podcast by practice of architecture. Visit us at practice of architecture.com to find out more about future episodes and the changing nature of practice. How

B We have several ways you can get involved with our growing community. Find us on social media at practice of HAARP. You can also become a member of the POA lab or join us on Patreon.

A And if you wanna take your career or practice to the next level, Janine and I also consult, provide workshops, and speak regularly on this research, and we would love an opportunity to collaborate with you.

B This show is part of Gable Media. You can learn more her about other podcasts and video channels in our community by visiting gablmedia.com.

A We are also looking for sponsors who want to partner with us in 2021 and beyond. If that's you, please contact me directly at evelyn

B at practice of architecture.com. If you like the research we're doing here, please help us out by leaving a rating or review on Apple. We appreciate you subscribing on our favorite podcast app.

A Don't forget to share with your friends, and feel free to let us know what other topics or speakers you are interested in hearing from. How Thanks for listening, and see you next week.