# Remote-first culture and HubSpot's post-COVID policy

- **Episode:** [23](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/23.md) (2023-01-25)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** remote-work, hubspot, covid-policy
- **Time:** 20:21–30:16 (start 1221s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/23?t=1221](https://truthliesandwork.com/23?t=1221)

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[20:21] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, I think there can be a misconception that that innovation— there can be no boundaries or rules to innovation. I think actually, you know, narrowing that field down a little bit can actually empower us to come up with the ideas that are going to work and be actionable. You know, what's that saying? An idea is only as valuable as the quality of its execution
[20:45] Al Elliott: Oh, I like that. I've never heard that before
[20:47] Leanne Elliott: Oh, I've probably butchered that and it's something completely different. But the point is, ideas are useless It's all about execution and solving the actual problem. Speaking of solving problems in terms of the current world of work, HubSpot is famous for having a remote-first culture, which in terms of employer brand, I mean, it is gonna be up there in terms of attracting the best of the best talent from across the world
[21:09] Al Elliott: Just in case people haven't heard of remote-first, what does it specifically mean?
[21:13] Leanne Elliott: You're busy, you're remote-first, you're, you're in terms of kind of where you work, remote is the first priority or option. For you. And they have some, they have some variances within what that looks like, but their priority is, or they're saying, is we're remote first, we support remote work first. And that within culture can have a really interesting impact. And I think what we've learned from our research into hybrid work or fully remote work and how that is working in practice for organizations, those organizations that have a really strong strong culture appear to be having much more success when it comes to remote work. Um, and with that, by success I mean the collaboration, the camaraderie remaining intact, the performance, um, of the business, and of course as well the well-being of, of people. I mean, very quickly, in terms of those, uh, kind of 6 areas that we'd recommend you look at first within, within your culture to assess, you know, whether— I guess with the, the thing being, if there's a challenge with one of these 6 things, that might be why remote or work is currently challenging for you. So to go through them quickly, they are reason. So does my team have a clear vision, clear values? And as Kyle explained so beautifully, are those values being translated into everyday working life? Second, we have role, and that might seem a bit, a bit of a boring one, but do we have clear job descriptions? Do people know what exactly it is they're meant to do at work? It's surprising how many, how many people actually don't. fully understand what their role is, but importantly, how their role contributes and connects to the overall mission and purpose of the business. The third is recognition, and there's a few different areas in this, but particularly in terms of employer brand, it's going to be looking at things like your compensation and benefits. So, as we've mentioned here, remote-first is a huge benefit that you can offer to employees, and that's going to go hand in hand with things like health insurance, employee support programmes, wellbeing, gym membership, there's a whole host, and we'll actually talk about that a bit more on next week's episode. The 4th is relationships, and this looks at relationships both between peers and of course between employees and managers. I say it all the time, if there's one thing to get right, it's having great managers in your business. They have such a huge impact on employee performance and employee wellbeing. The 5th is resources. So, this is about providing an environment in which people have the tools and, and systems that they need to do their job. It's also about making sure they have the skills and knowledge to do their job? How successful was your onboarding in terms of that? And finally, in terms of workloads, people, you know, need, need time. Kyle mentioned there in his example of setting boundaries, having a clear timeline and actual time to be able to engage in that type of activity is really important. If people have too high workloads, then giving them any kind of task, whether it be an exciting innovation and creative task, could potentially breed resentment. So yes, that is resources. And then finally, we have resilience, and this is where we talk about the various things we're doing within the business to support people physically and emotionally recover from work. So if you've got those 6 things working well within your business, chances are remote or hybrid work is gonna work really, really well for you. So we asked Kyle, how does remote-first culture work in HubSpot?
[24:30] Al Elliott: Yeah, so within HubSpot, we rolled out a policy after, uh, the, the COVID challenges that we faced, which was we want our employees to be able to choose how they want to work. And so employees can work in office in many of our locations. Folks can choose to be what we call flex, which is they want to be in the office 2 to 3 days a week but work from home the remainder of the week. And we have folks who are fully remote, but at the beginning of the year, you get to choose How you'd like to work. And I think it's extremely helpful because it allows people to pick the best working style for them. If you're someone who needs structure and wants to get up early and do the commute and go to the office, and you know you'll be productive when you're there, you have that option. If you're someone who is able to focus in a flexible work environment and work from home, you have that option. So I think I think that was one thing I was really impressed with, with HubSpot that they rolled out, not only for helping people identify their working style, it helps with retention, right? It's like, I am excited about the job I'm doing and the way I'm able to do it. The other way it's helpful is in the recruitment phase. And so we're no longer limited. to a certain talent pool. So if there is a job that needs to be done, we want to find the best person for that job. And previously, you used to have to recruit people in your region or your state or your city. You no longer have to do that. You're able to find people all over the country, all over the world. We have some cross-functional teams between Dublin and Boston and Bogotá. And There's incredible talent everywhere. And so you're able to then find new people, bring them in, and then you're picking the best person for the job. And I can say, since we've gone this route of allowing people to choose the way they'd like to work and opening up our jobs remotely in multiple locations, we've been able to hire quickly and we've been able to find better talent
[27:15] Leanne Elliott: the HubSpot HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals
[27:57] Al Elliott: It can
[28:01] Al Elliott: I am. Go and listen to Lunch Break wherever you get your podcasts
[28:05] Leanne Elliott: But come back
[28:06] Al Elliott: Yeah, come Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back
[28:09] Leanne Elliott: I'll cut that out
[28:12] Al Elliott: Keep that in. Now, this all sounds great. And I think you might be thinking the same as listening to this. Yes, of course, that sounds fantastic. But is it easy to implement? Well, one of the things I love about Kyle is just how honest he is. So I asked him the question, you know, what are the challenges with, with this remote-first type of culture? The culture piece is hard. HubSpot has a fantastic culture. It's— the company's been— I think it's been founded 15 years ago. I may have that, may have that wrong, but culture was baked in. It was something the founders really believed in and communicated and constantly revisited and brought forward to the employee base as the company grew. But now that you're fully remote, I have team members all over the country. I have folks in Wisconsin and Los Angeles and Boston and Austin, Texas and New York. It is incredibly hard to be able to build camaraderie within a team, especially someone who came from athletics. I'm used to being with my team and you know working together towards a common goal, and we've had to change the way we operate and communicate with our teams in regards to how do we make sure everyone knows what their goals are and objectives? How do we make sure that we create alignment across these teams while they're all remote? There's no more. Coffee chats, there's no more work lunches, there's no more after-work dinner and drinks to be able to obviously create the trust and relationships. So I would say I don't think we've cracked it. We've tried many, many different tactics, whether that be remote events, remote birthday lunches, get-togethers at the end of the day just to catch up on how life's going, whether it's a vacation or a birthday party. But it's hard. I would say that one thing we're starting to think about is how do we bring the team together at least a few times a year to make sure we have that, that touchpoint in person if we can