Musings on: the New Employee Experience

This is a continuation of a series, which last covered Unbundling Meetings for a Remote World

Five months into remote work, what do people miss most about the physical office? Anecdotally, it feels like it’s those human moments — a catchup coffee with a colleague, informal chats about weekend plans, a spontaneous conversation that leads to a new idea. Those moments add up to real relationships, which keep employees engaged and aligned. Those informal interactions hold even more weight for newly onboarded employees, looking to quickly gain their footing professionally and personally. As the office is unbundled, this gap around informal settings for relationship building may prove to be the most urgent team challenge companies face.

Why now?

An organization is really a network of relationships: manager:direct, teammates, cohorts / peers, friendships, mentors, etc. These relationships look different in a remote world, where it’s harder to casually run into or meet someone outside your inner circle. Early research suggests through the pandemic, colleagues spend more time communicating with their strongest ties, with “weak tie” interactions down 30%. Weak ties, colleagues who you speak to <15 minutes/week, are key for outside-the-box, ad hoc collaboration.

For those who onboard remotely, it’s even harder to form those critical first connections. Months in, that already accounts for large parts of some organizations (e.g. 12% of Slack’s employees have onboarded since the pandemic began). How do new remote employees meet people beyond their team, and discover shared interests and experiences? As these relationships become harder to forge, how do companies invest in and retain their employees? Currently, our best answer seems to be dozens of people in a Zoom happy hour or structured randomized coffees facilitated by apps like Donut. As I’ve written about previously, scheduled meetings feel heavy and inherently formal.

This is particularly important as we think about D&I across companies. That is: how do we recruit, develop and retain diverse talent? Mentorship has historically been a huge part of professional development, and often the deepest relationships are formed and maintained informally. Moreover, the most in-demand mentors will often struggle to find 30 minutes for a structured coffee. Instead, the solution should feel flexible, informal and fun.

What if? How might we?

Given the changes above, this section is meant to explore opportunity areas. “What If” extrapolates scenarios that are on the table in some form today. “How might” translates those into potential technological solutions and areas for startups to consider.

What if companies shift some of their large T&E budgets to digital shared experiences, as they worry about burnout and retention? How might those experiences be facilitated, leveraging the fact that talent can now effectively teleport and thus have more time and range? Imagine Cameo for work, and the joy that could create.

What if organizations get increasingly siloed as physical offices stay closed and “weak ties” atrophy? How might virtual bonding get reshaped outside continued “Zoom fatigue”? While a single solution will lose the sheen of novelty over time, perhaps opportunities to socialize informally through gaming-like experiences may emerge.

What if companies transition to larger cohorts of employee onboarding with rolling cycles, to create a new sense of community for each group? How might a repeatable and interactive playbook for new hires look, with social elements integrated? It could feel more like starting as a “freshman class” rather than a disparate group of new hires.

More thoughts to come — feedback/comments welcomed. If you are tackling one of these opportunities, we’re eager to learn more! Please reach out to monica@kleinerperkins.com to get the conversation started.