States, counties, and cities are slowly “opening.” But that definition varies widely depending upon whether your company has locations on the beaches of Florida or in the center of Manhattan or Los Angeles. 

Executive teams are charged with figuring out how to invite employees back to the office (or continue supporting them remotely). This Circle|Call series is focused on peer-to-peer first-hand accounts and benchmarking data on what is and isn’t working in this herculean endeavor. 

We collectively convened on these topics around the Remote Work Series:

• Whether to return to work or continue working from home
• How to work with landlords to rightsize your workspace
• The health & safety protocols to implement into those spaces
• Deliver a new on-site experience via space planning and human factors design
• People-based policies, services, and communications for supporting employees in our new reality
• Driving desired attitudes and behaviors by leading through crises and downturns in a remote world

RIGHTSIZING YOUR REAL ESTATE

OFFICE HEALTH & SAFETY PROTOCOLS

As most companies are grappling with whether or not they will stay remote past the lift of sheltering in place restrictions, we had the opportunity to learn from Very Important Peers’ (all-remote veterans: Lori McLeese of Automattic, Paul Machle of GitLab, and Jeff Harper of HashiCorp) firsthand experiences as to why it can work, which myths to bust, and the nuances on being all remote.

The Circle conversed with a stellar cast of subject matter experts from CBRE,  Blitz, Corral and Colden in the areas of space planning, architectural/interior design, and workspace ergonomics. These subject matter experts discussed how to drive desired perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors through human-factors and ergonomics design once employees return on-site.

This installment of the series focused on people-based policies, services, and communications to help employees feel both supported and inspired to do their best work. Participating in the conversation were Punam Brahmbhatt (SVP of People + Programs), Jen Loo (CFO) @ Tala, Ian Charles (CFO) @ Scoop, and Eleanor French @ Brunswick who had been experimenting in this area and had real-time experiences to share.

In times of uncertainty, it’s more important than ever for leaders to be available, communicative, and vulnerable to drive desired attitudes and behaviors throughout the organization and across all stakeholders.

As such, The Circle conversed with Sid Sijbrandij, Founder & CEO of GitLab leader of the largest all-remote 1,200 people venture-backed company to better understand how to lead in an all-remote environment, in addition to many other topics. As well as Dave Dorman, prior CEO of AT&T + board member of CVS Health, Dell, PayPal, leader of a distributed 250K person multi-national company to better understand the intersections of finance and healthcare and the impact to a leader’s people.