A Parent Who's Reshaping the Workplace With Families in Mind

BY Angelica Frey | September 02, 2021

Matt Artz, who leads the workplace-evolution process at Salesforce, recently noticed that he had been bringing a slightly eccentric touch to his Zoom calls with colleagues. He was taking a personal interest in the houseplants they were tending in the background. But he doesn’t overanalyze the gesture. “In many ways, this is the equivalent of the first five minutes of a meeting, when you talk about what you did during the weekend,” he said. “I think there are some humanizing elements [to Zoom].”

Earlier this year, Artz’s company announced a new policy called “Work from Anywhere,” in which the company’s more than 50,000 employees would have three choices in how they can structure their work life: a flex schedule (working in the office one to three days a week), fully remote, and office-based. Artz, the VP in charge of this transformative project, spoke about the impact of hybrid work on families in a one-on-one conversation with Fast Company staff editor Lydia Dishman at From Day One’s August virtual conference, “Learning From a Crisis About What Working Parents Need.”

At the beginning of a new school year, the outlook for working parents is as uncertain as ever, thanks to the arrival of the Delta variant as a new chapter in the pandemic. As a leader, one of the things Artz has had to do is determine how things are really going for employees with diverse family lives. People with younger children can’t just plop their children in front of the virtual-classroom interface and entrust them with placidly following along with the teacher's lessons. Single people, living alone, shoulder a completely different, albeit not less significant burden by dealing with forced isolation.

Yet, when it came to dealing with mental-health issues, disclosing the challenges became hard: not everyone wants to tell their boss that they're not on the job from 3 pm to 5 pm every day because they have to be the primary caregiver. A method that Artz found effective was sending surveys and questionnaires at a company level. One of the questions was “have you had a mental-health challenge in the last year?” Thirty percent of the global workforce said yes, which led Salesforce to pursue a more robust investment in wellness education.

Speaking on families and the workplace, from left: moderator Lydia Dishman of Fast Company and Matt Artz of Salesforce (Image by From Day One)

The surveys had workplace implications as well: 13% of the global workforce reported seeing the office as a “refuge,” meaning that it was the place where they took shelter from their home environment for a host of reasons, from the lack of air conditioning in many European homes to a hostile home environment. As a result, many Salesforce offices around the world are now operational.

As the father of two teenagers, Artz has personal experience with the sudden merger of work life and home life. “Step one was finding a place in my home where I could actually work with minimal distraction,” he said. Artz settled on his and his wife's bedroom. “There's a lot of cons in having your workplace and the place where you sleep within feet from each other. Resisting that temptation was a challenge.” What's more, Artz’s wife had been working from home since before the pandemic, so she had managed to fashion a semblance of balance between work and family life. But the dynamic changed once the whole household was confined in the same place all day. “Kids had no concept of what my schedule looks like and what meetings can get interrupted,” he said. “And if I am taking a meeting with the doors closed, I don't get the sense how often they're interrupting my wife vs. me,” he added.

As Salesforce puts its offices back into operation, the policy of flexibility will have at least two aspects, he said, revolving around both around time and location. In terms of schedules, “There's going to be a more asynchronous work approach,” he said, in which employees do their work at the time of day that fits their needs. In terms of where they do their work, the approach has generally evolved into an “as-needed flexible behavior,” focused on specific projects that require employees to be in the office, for example sprints or end-of-quarter projects.

Given that both time and location will be partly discretionary, leaders will be the ones to set the example. If a leader comes into the office every day, their direct reports will tend to do so as well. “Our [chief HR officer] moved to Orange County and won't come back unless it's needed. So that's a good signal. How the leaders behave is going to affect people.” Salesforce is based in San Francisco, and Artz lives in the Seattle area.

Regardless of the back-to-the-office strategies, though, Artz sees teleconference software as a transformative technology. He observed that, in the span of a year, software like Zoom improved drastically: better audio quality, less strain on the laptop CPU, and the possibility to have the digital background cover up a less-than-tidy room. Unless everybody is going to be in the office, Artz said, it's going to be one face for one screen–a kind of digital equity. Gone are the days of one camera taking in a whole conference room.

Even so, Artz is cautious about equating performative, digital trust with the value of a face-to-face, body-language connection. In fact, while an “as-needed flexible” policy might require people being in the office rarely, completely getting rid of corporate real estate is not going to happen for most companies. People still want a connection to the office, Artz said with confidence.

Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Milan and Brooklyn.


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Investing in Employees: A Key to Resilience in Challenging Times

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They’ve struggled to find enough workers in smaller communities, so they took a different approach.Panelist Renee Rice, senior director of communications and culture at Marvin, says to address the problem, they implemented the Path North program. They work with staffing agencies to bring in employees from Puerto Rico and different areas of Florida. “It definitely has been a successful program for us,” Rice said. “We've hired over 150 employees at a couple of our major northern plants. Some of them have come on their own. A lot of them have come with their families, and they’re truly becoming a part of the community so that they want to stay with Marvin for the long term.”Marvin also worked with local schools to help them prepare for an influx of students, and with with local grocery stores to make sure there is a variety of foods depending on the population coming in. By fostering a sense of belonging, Marvin ensures these employees are more likely to stay with the company long-term.Their key to success comes down to providing stability, a sense of security, and community, says Rice. Companies can’t think of culture as separate from business, she says. Culture is in the service of the business. Not only that, but it’s not static. Organizations should expect culture to shift, especially as business and people change. She suggested that companies ask themselves the following: “Where is the business headed? But then also how might our culture need to evolve to best enable and. best support that business strategy and that business direction?” It takes a lot of research but it’s important to keep your eye on it to truly understand your company culture. Employee EngagementDocuSign recently underwent a rebranding effort, evolving from a company known primarily for electronic signatures to an intelligent agreement management firm. But it wasn’t only about what the company offered customers—it also involved an internal cultural alignment. Panelist Iesha Berry, VP, chief talent and diversity officer at DocuSign, says that they engaged with employees so they could be an important part of the rebranding journey. To support this cultural shift, DocuSign has implemented several initiatives focused on employee engagement. One key effort is the creation of a talent brand video that offers a day in the life perspective at the company, including insights from leadership and employees worldwide.The panelists spoke on the topic, "People First: The Crucial Role of Investing in Employees in Challenging Times," during the virtual conference (photo by From Day One)“We created a video that highlights DocuSign with a global view, including a message from our CEO and our president of growth, but also including employees from around the world talking about their roles [day-to-day],” Berry said. 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Carrie Snider | October 29, 2024

Building a Culture of Well-Being in the Workplace

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They even stood in for consumer focus groups.“We wanted to re-anchor them around the promise that every associate in our company should be able to feel an authentic sense of belonging and be celebrated for the uniqueness they bring to the organization,” she said. Brand leaders are now assigned ro consumer engagement and brand feedback strategies, the company’s DEI team is in charge of getting employee feedback and converting those ideas into policies, and ERGs have a new name: belonging communities. “Let’s call them what they are,” Guthrie said. “They sit at the intersection of associate experience and well-being through the lens of belonging.”Very often, balancing employee well-being against business goals takes a good deal of commitment from HR, but considerably more from business leaders who answer to the P&L. “You don’t max out productivity and preserve well-being at the same time,” said Arntz. As the CEO of a venture-backed company, Artnz says he’s guilty of trying to achieve both peak output and peak well-being. “We have investors, we’ve raised money, and we need to provide a return on that investment.” To stave off burnout, don’t aim for the maximum, aim for the optimum, he said. Something closer to 70% is a better goal than 100%. “Let’s keep space for connection, for collaboration, for innovation, for well-being, and for breathing.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | October 09, 2024

Why Being “Fiercely Authentic” Is Part of a Company’s New Set of Values

Marta Pateiro, head of organizational development, diversity, inclusion and culture at Pernod Ricard, cites her immigrant background as being instrumental in her approach to corporate culture. Her mother arrived in the U.S. from Spain with an infant Marta, just $200 in her pocket, and little understanding of the English language.“That cultural perspective and growing up with a family that struggled early on but did everything they could to live that American dream is what shaped me and how I think about culture – always appreciating people’s perspectives, where they come from, understanding who they are, how they were raised, and what’s important to them,” Pateiro said.Now, Pernod Ricard, a long-established company, is rolling out a new set of values to define its culture, based on employee feedback and its corporate evolution. During a fireside chat at From Day One’s September virtual conference, Pateiro spoke about how inclusion, connection, and a passion for challenge are being woven into the fabric of the organization.Seizing the Current Cultural MomentPateiro has always been drawn to companies that encourage authenticity. “I always think about aligning myself to organizations that give you that opportunity to show up as who you are, and that celebrate differences,” Pateiro said. But pre-pandemic, that was harder to achieve, she says. “We were living in a time where it was a very different mindset,” Pateiro said. 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And so, in order to be successful, what does that look like?’” Pateiro said.After data collection and intense brainstorming and analytics, the company came up with four core values:Grounded in the real. “We are a business that has soul,” Pateiro said. The phrase also cleverly refers to how the liquor company literally makes its products, with plants that come from the ground. Fiercely authentic. “Everyone was proactive in sharing how important it was to feel like they could bring their whole selves to work. That was a key theme that came up in almost every video,” Pateiro said.Connected beyond borders. Employee videos came in from 770 locations around the world. “We are global, and that's important. We need to make sure that we are open to the world and open to understanding the different diversities and perspectives that come with that,” Pateiro said.Passion for challenge. “It is a different time coming out of Covid,” Pateiro said. “There are different socioeconomic changes that impact how we are doing business today.”Becoming “Fiercely Authentic”“What does it mean to be ‘fiercely authentic’ on the job?” asked moderator Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, neighborhoods reporter for The Denver Post. It doesn’t mean workers can just boldly say whatever they are thinking without consequence. Instead,  “it just gives them the permission to feel psychologically safe,” said Pateiro. “We still have our integrity around respect for one another, understanding that we are still colleagues, and we still need to be professional, but making sure that they feel empowered.”The word choice for the values was carefully aligned to the language used by employees in the videos, reflecting the intention and emotion behind their feedback.Measuring the ImpactPateiro said Pernod Ricard is scheduling pulse checks over the next few years to monitor the success of the new value system. After launching the values at a town hall, a survey was immediately sent out to see if employees understood what was happening. “In the coming quarters [we’ll ask], ‘Is this living up to what you were expecting?’ How are you receiving it?’” Then a new category regarding culture will be added to the annual employee survey.Defining, launching, and monitoring values is not a communications department task, Pateiro says, but instead falls into the category of change management. “It’s [about] how you change mindsets and how you change your customers’ perspectives,” she said. “It’s living it through the products, the solutions, the things that you’re offering, as well as how you’re showing up in the marketplace.”Ultimately, Pateiro emphasizes, the values should be driven by the employees – whether you are working with a long-established corporation or a startup. “It’s your workforce that makes your culture,” she said. “The organizations that do the best are the ones that tie that cultural framework to every part of the ecosystem.”Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

Katie Chambers | October 02, 2024