Interview with Jamie Coakley, VP of People, Electric AI

"Happy Employees Equal Happy Customers"

“COVID-19 really changed the dynamic for me personally; I felt some days that I could go work for FEMA, maybe a crisis organization, or go into the medical field as a next step with how quickly things escalated. Some days I was an amateur nurse documenting employee symptoms, other days I was just a helpful ear. My job really pushed the boundaries of providing some level of physical and mental health care for employees,” says Jamie Coakley, VP of People, Electric AI, during an interaction with HR.com. Excerpts from the interview:

Jamie Coakley serves as VP of people at Electric AI. Jamie is a proven leader with nearly a decade of success at companies in New York and San Francisco. Prior to Electric, Jamie led the expansion of TwentyPine, focused exclusively on Salesforce and Sales Ops hiring. Prior to TwentyPine, she was East Coast managing director of a high-growth recruiting firm, where she scaled the company from 14 to 150 team members, with over $20M in annual revenue globally.

Q: How is COVID-19 changing the hiring patterns?

Jamie: For us, we were blessed and fortunate to not have to pause hiring or lay off employees due to COVID-19. We did however become very critical of all spend. 
 

• Is this role critical? 
• We have operated without it, how will we not continue to if we pause for 6 months? 

These were tough questions to discuss with executives who had already received the green light to hire, but it was helpful in identifying areas we could save and continue to operate and grow. We did  become more focused on making sure the hires we were pursuing were the best fit for the business in this current remote setup. We discussed how they felt about working remotely and what their concerns were and made sure to amplify our buddy system and onboarding processes. We wanted to set new hires up for success both short and long-term. 

We immediately added an additional step to the interview process during COVID: the opportunity to speak to one executive prior to joining. The goal of this call was to assess whether or not the employee had the skills and resources available to learn autonomously, create relationships, and set themselves up for success with limited resources. As a Series B startup, this has always been a reality, but in a now fully remote set up, it became more important. I am proud to say we have hired at every level of the company - entry level and very senior, and all have been off to a successful start.

Q: What are the main challenges that HR will face in the future?  How should HR deal with them?

Jamie: HR has always faced challenges; our role is to be directly responsible for all employees and employee related issues. We deal with unique people and as much as our world is rule and policy based, we live in a grey area trying to bridge the gap between what people need and what the company can do. In the past year, with the unprecedented amount of uncertainty and change we have faced, HR has yet again taken on, another big role in making sure people feel safe at work through uncharted territory.

It has always been our job to be equal parts coach, mentor, enforcer, therapist, manager, expert and sometimes, lawyer. COVID-19 really changed the dynamic for me personally; I felt some days that I could go work for FEMA, maybe a crisis organization, or go into the medical field as a next step with how quickly things escalated. Some days I was an amateur nurse documenting employee symptoms, other days I was just a helpful ear. My job really pushed the boundaries of providing some level of physical and mental health care for employees. 
 

I’m a firm believer that happy employees equal happy customers, and when people are able to bring their true self to work, the best work is performed. However, during this pandemic,  we have had to take on a bigger role in managing our employee’s psychological safety than ever before. 

In late February, when the media started to warn of an upcoming public health crisis, Americans were flooded with misinformation ultimately leading to panic and anxiety. While many companies, both small and large, chose not to address the issue out of fear of causing more chaos and reducing employee productivity, we chose to immediately notify the entire company that employee health and safety was the company’s number one priority. All decisions made would be guided by this principle. 

We have continued to do this throughout COVID with weekly updates, information on our plans, and check-ins to provide everything we can. This included: flexible hours due to child care, tools and items to better your work from home set up or just letting folks know what our discussions were about that week - you name it, we updated people.

This has not changed. We have continued to take the stance that if an issue in the outside world is affecting our employees, then it is an employee issue and we need to be a part of the solution.

I think in the coming years, we will continue to see HR in the most progressive organizations prioritize the personal health, mental health and general well being of their teams. This is key to the notion of psychological safety. We ask people to bring everything they have to work, and we have to care for everything they bring now. There will be increased awareness around mental health, therapy, child care and time off policies in months to come. And, for years to come, I believe we will see healthcare provided onsite (general, therapy) and access to medical care for all workers to prevent the spread of further viruses. Companies need to give permission to their employees, as best they can, to stay home when sick.

Q: What are the legal issues companies should consider while reopening?

Jamie: This is a big one -- I advise anyone reading this to seek legal counsel in your area or state (Jackson Lewis is by far my favorite employment lawyer in New York State - they are angels). We thought a lot around potentially taking temperatures or requiring employees to wear masks in the office at all times. The truth is, we push the boundary with these decisions when we start to access personal information - extending into something of a healthcare provider as we make determinations about whether or not an employee is able to come to work.. We ultimately decided to entrust our employees to make the decision.
  We are in the process of altering our PTO policy in order for people to be able to take more time off and not feel like they have a finite number of days, especially as we saw a number of vacations being canceled due to COVID travel restrictions. 

Our guiding principles from day one have  been to remain non-discriminatory and allow our employees to make the decisions they feel best for them and their ultimate safety. That means most likely until there is a vaccine, or complete safety within mass transit, we will remain optional work from home, but continue to provide our employees with the resources on site (protective equipment disinfectant, and social distanced seating) in order to feel safe when they come to work and choose to do so.

Q: How should employees respond to returning employees from furlough, calling back laid off employees, and reduction-in-force?

Jamie: I think employees should always take into consideration the experience their coworker had temporarily losing their job or subsequent pay for their work. I would encourage all HR and leadership to re-onboard and acclimate team members to their team, even celebrating their first day back and re-setting expectations on the role. 

Remind them of the impact they make. Staying close to engagement metrics to drive performance is critical always, but more so when an employee has been let go or furloughed. By checking in, we support our employees. Encourage coworkers to do the same in order to make employees transition back to work easier. The goal here needs to be compassion and understanding of their experience leaving, and now coming back. 

Q: How can employers make work safe, both physically and psychologically, for employees?

Jamie: The easiest answer to this is simply ask how people are doing. I asked all managers and leaders to start meetings with top of mind check-ins in order to assess how people are and what energy they are bringing to the table. Sometimes, we get answers that are not great. Someone may be going through something and having a really tough week, their aunt is hospitalized due to COVID or someone they love has passed away and they cannot mourn, be with family or even have a funeral. I encouraged our leadership in these tougher moments to end meetings early in the event that participation may require too much engagement for an employee at this time and make sure their teams are taking time to prioritize mental health. 

We have also been really careful about our philosophical approach in returning to work. When you walk into the office, it physically feels different. It is very easy for employees to return to a place they know well and can immediately go back to previous behaviors. We re-organized our workplace, provided storage for employees onsite, amped up our cleaning methods and created socially distanced seating, all in effort to overextend our precautions as an organization and make people feel safe.

Pulse and feedback surveys are meant to check in and manage the sentiment of the workforce. I would highly encourage teams to continue these surveys to manage how people are feeling at different stages of re-entry. Things change quickly. 

Q: What sort of organizational cultural changes are we looking at in future?

Jamie: For most companies used to in-office work, there will be an increased focus on performance management while they are semi-remote or completely remote.  Particularly during times of economic crisis, there will be an emphasis on lean operations and reduced spend.

In an office, it is easy to oversee productivity, attendance, engagement and attitude. While remote, we rely on autonomy and outcomes. For companies that have probably gotten away with unclear role definition or without key metrics, or paths to promotions - change will be necessary. Under the surface, they have relied on internal politics: “who seems most engaged” to promote next, who do we “like the most” who has the best “executive presence” or “who works the hardest” -- and it is no longer completely visible. 

The first question an employee will ask when not promoted and someone else is, will be “why not me?” If a company has not fully defined what a career path and expectations look like to move to the next role, they will ultimately fail answering this and lose employees who are working hard, deserving the next step and pay increase but overlooked due to not being physically visible, or working within a structure that engages accountability and outcomes.

This is easier said than done: defining metrics, KPIs or OKRS and role expectations is a heavy lift for any company to take on, especially in the startup world. I think we will see more supportive operations and HR positions appear to work in tandem with managers and executives to further define these paths and roll out tools needed to create project management or reporting visibility.

The ultimate question companies will begin to answer in the coming weeks is how, if at all, the compensation philosophy will shift for remote workers and people who now live in different markets.
 

• Do we change compensation for senior leaders if they are moved into a market with a lower cost of living? 
• Are we building a company based on the cost of labor or a more economic policy based approach on what labor is paid for in that market? 

For the first time, HR leaders are required to participate in some way; economic policy is a conversation we don’t get to experience often. The next phase of growth will ultimately define how we approach compensation, which is the underlying cornerstone of benefits for all employees. 

While some employees choose to return to their physical offices and others opt out, we will nevertheless see communication standards change. The experiences of employees at all levels and in every interaction are important considerations to think about when building a remote or semi remote culture. 

I have heard companies adopt the “one remote, all remote” philosophy; this can be uncomfortable for some but ultimately creates equality within meeting settings. At the end of the day, companies need to decide what works best for their teams and stick to a cohesive policy in order to maintain inclusion and participation across the board. 

Q: What are the new HR technologies that will be important in future? How adept are HR with them?

Jamie: This has been on the forefront of HR issues for a while, but I believe business analytics tools and people data are incredibly powerful for HR leaders to use to inform overall company strategy. 
 

• What teams or departments have the lowest retention? 
• What departments have the longest ramp time? 
• Are we actually paying people fairly in markets that they move to?

In a semi-remote/remote setting, feedback loops, one on one structure, and performance management tools are going to be ever more important than ever. I would love to see analytics on ramp time pre and post-COVID to understand what the impact of remote training looks like. 

We know it is likely not going to be a better experience being trained remotely, it will be important to learn how we can create trainings or experiences to accommodate those all learning styles for employees to be more successful long-term. Other tools that impact this are learning management systems (LMS) and intranet systems - companies must consolidate materials and resources for all new hires to quickly adopt and ramp.

Pulse surveys have been extremely important throughout quarantine to check in on the sentiment of employees and how they are feeling, if they want to return to work, or if they feel safe returning to work. Analytics for these tools overtime become increasingly powerful. It is no longer just about internal NPS or if your employees are happy, it has evolved to do our employees feel safe? Can they do their work at home? How can we support them?

Q: Tips for creating or updating policies to help reduce the likelihood that the crisis will be repeated

Jamie: The biggest thing companies can do is extend and promote their sick policy. I manage my team very clearly - if you are sick, stay home. Work from your couch if you are up to it; you will use 70% less energy by rolling out of bed, staying on top of things and sleeping when you finish your day. The alternative is pushing through your symptoms and commute, being engaged in person, potentially making other employees sick, all to just go home feeling worse than when the day started.

Well, please don’t come in...

Outside of the care for personal health, companies need to step up their cleanliness and sanitizing procedures. 
 

• When was your HVAC last cleaned? 
• How often do employees wipe their keyboards? 
• When was the last time someone disinfected the pens in the board room that holds 10 meetings per day?

We will see an investment in facilities maintenance and cleaning protocols, but I would encourage companies to think outside of just the tactical approach. 
 

• Are you building a team that can operate autonomously every day without visible oversight? 
• Do you have performance management standards in place to hold people accountable? 
• Are you prepared to onboard people remotely? 

These are the questions companies need to ask themselves to better prepare for a distributed, modern workforce more than ever before.
 

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