I work at Medium. My role has evolved from a Sr. Office Manager to a People Experience Manager position as our teams became fully remote in 2020. This was a role I was more than happy to evolve into as the most intriguing parts of the job included finding ways to bring people together to bond during uncertain times.

My goal in anything I work on is to bridge people together, whether that is through events, initiatives, onboarding and special projects. Every month has been uniquely different as we navigated Covid-19. I am sure you can relate!

How big is it?‍

Medium is 165~ employees. I am on the People Team which consists of 14 people. Ranging from (3) Recruiting, 1 L&D, 5 HR and 4 IT and 1 People Experience.

Where are your teammates located?

Our company has a remote workforce that spans from Hawaii to Europe! We have lots of time zones to accommodate, that is for sure!

What does your team do? What are you responsible for?

Our People Ops team (HR, IT and myself) is really here to ensure that all of our internal operations are running smoothly - that employees are happy, that benefits are working and that new hires feel the love upon entering their first day at Medium.

We have spent the majority of our remote time streamlining our vendors and our processes so that actions can be completed in fewer steps. And taking time to hear the concerns of our employees and do what we can to make remote work comfortable and engaging.

I think the most important aspect to a strong culture is communication. Communication style, avenues for communication, manager 1:1 communication. It all comes down to being transparent at all times and not forgetting to fill people in on the details.

When employees are in the know, or when employees feel heard, I believe this leaves room for a strong working environment. And that has been a tough thing for many companies to navigate going from in person to virtual. It’s all a work in progress for many places.

I think a really great way to build team engagement is to rally around a common cause. If there is a launch that is coming up or an initiative that is near and dear to the team, and bringing people together for it.

Also, giving people shoutouts in an open forum, making sure people feel seen for their hard work.

I think one of the biggest challenges is getting a large group together virtually for a non-mandatory event.

What we are seeing is that smaller groups get more participation and people feel more comfortable speaking and being fully themselves within a specific team than if a whole company came together.‍

Building cross team connection in a remote first environment is definitely a focus area. People only want to be online for so long.

You name it, we have probably done it! From happy hours, to meditations, spirit weeks, wellness weeks, cocktail/mocktail classes, wine tasting events, bingo, guest speakers and launch parties etc!. Because of Covid we haven’t sanctioned any in person retreats, but I look forward to when we can do those again!

Retreats will be all the rage again as we see more and more companies turning to hybrid and remote first work cultures. In-person is still an essential piece to team bonding and I can’t wait to see how those evolve in the workplace.

I am currently working on a book and digital course series called "Meetings With Cake" to teach others how to host events in the physical and virtual office! Can’t wait to share that with you all before the end of the year - check it out here!

Most commonly we start our meetings with check-ins - how people are doing personally before we then move into an agenda for the meeting.

I know a bunch of teams at our company have been trying out Gather.town, which is a virtual office you can configure and allows you to meet up with people in a more visual way.

I really like following and attending Life Labs Learning, which is a company my coworker introduced me to. They have such valuable information about culture during virtual times.

Also love following webinars put on by Robin, which is a hotel desking software.