Exclusive Interview with Renita Sandosham, Director of Employee Experience, Everlaw

 

“When Covid hit, the team needed to build a remote working infrastructure from the ground up. Providing the team the hardware and tools they needed to successfully carry out their roles was just the tip of the iceberg. We also had to figure out how to replicate the daily social interactions that occur naturally in an office setting,” says Renita Sandosham, Director of Employee Experience, Everlaw during an interaction with HR.com. Renita touches upon the challenges, learnings and the experience the transformation taught Excerpts from the interview:

Q: What challenges did you face while moving a complete, in-person workforce to a work from home set-up?

Renita: Up until March, Everlaw cultivated an in-person working environment that built its culture and operations functions around being in the office. We value face-to-face interactions across teams, believing that live collaboration – whether walking over to someone’s desk to ask a question or chatting in passing in the kitchen – is critical to building relationships. 

When COVID hit, the team needed to build a remote working infrastructure from the ground up. Providing the team the hardware and tools they needed to successfully carry out their roles was just the tip of the iceberg. We also had to figure out how to replicate the daily social interactions that occur naturally in an office setting. 

Q: How did you overcome the challenges?

Renita: Our most immediate need was remotely onboarding new employees, since Everlaw was (and still is) actively hiring. We had to think through modifying everything from the interview process to providing new hires with laptops. Once the logistics had been determined, we sought to enhance the social experiences of new hires to minimize the feeling of isolation:
 

• Created a new welcome video to give new hires a peek into our vibrant Everlawyer community.
• Started daily new hire cohort check-ins to kick off each morning during the first week of onboarding and created chat groups for each new hire cohort as a peer support space.
• Added an activity session for multiple new hire cohorts to hang out and play fun games together.
• Added an informal debrief at the end of the second week to shorten the feedback loop.
• Custom-designed a sticker to represent the chosen cohort’s name.

Our strategy for engagement was to act first and fine-tune later. While this initially went against our nature as a process-oriented company, operating without a playbook proved effective because there were never any long gaps in engagement activities as the company transitioned from in-person to fully remote. We had our first Ask Me Anything (AMA) with our CEO within 4 days of moving to WFH, and another AMA with one of our board members a week after that. We launched multiple new activities that first month of working from home and created a “Virtually Connected” page on the intranet to showcase the different programs. We knew we needed to establish norms for remote engagement quickly, and that if we didn’t do that right away, we would later be digging ourselves out of a hole. 

Q: How many days did it take to completely transform the workforce to a work from home model?

Renita: We were up and running the day after the shelter-in-place order but it took a few weeks to smooth out the logistics. Fortunately, our Incident Management Team had been preparing for a possible office closure for some time and we were ready with a game plan. Having a ready supply of hardware served us well during the early days of shelter-in-place when long shipping delays were extremely common. As a result, we did not skip a beat in continuing onboarding.

Q: What does your remote working infrastructure consist of? How did you set it up?

Renita: Happily, our infrastructure is not complex. We already made heavy use of collaborative, cloud-based software for most company functions. Some employees needed to be provisioned with laptops, but that was the minority and could happen gradually. Like many workplaces, we had to provision a lot more Zoom pro accounts!

Q: How did you set the virtual engagement model and how was its adoption?

Renita: We introduced a number of virtual activities within the first few weeks of WFH, which we had to ensure were worth the time out of people’s busy schedules that also didn’t feel forced. One activity that embraces the virtual format in a fun way is an ongoing Zoom background competition, whereby the person with the most votes receives $50 to donate to a charitable organization of their choice on behalf of Everlaw (for example, one person picked the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation and others have picked various social justice groups). It also sets the tone that it’s OK to bring a little character and fun into meetings. Interesting Zoom backgrounds also serve as a great icebreaker!  We have also hosted a virtual event for some of the contest winners to discuss why they chose those organizations and many had stories to share about their personal connections to the organizations.

One of the most popular activities has been the TED-style “Everlawyer Talks,” which feature presentations from employees on topics they’re passionate about. We have so many employees with interesting “side hustles” and interests. So far, topics have included astrology, professional DJing, performing in bands, perfumery, playing games in professional tournaments, Zoom hacks, and photography. Other activities we’ve launched:
 

• Created EmPAWee of the Month photo page on the intranet for team members to share pictures of their pets as they work from home. Each month there is a drawing for a pet parent to win a pet portrait from a local artist.
• Launched drop-in Zoom rooms for team members to randomly connect with others for a few minutes. This was designed to replicate the casual drop-in of running into a co-worker in the kitchen and making small talk, hence the first room nicknamed the “Snack Zroom.” 
• Launched virtual beverage breaks where team members opt in to be matched randomly in a foursome or pair. A third of those who have signed up started after shelter-in-place so it’s a great channel to meet team members you’ve never met in person before.
• Launched Movie Club for those passionate about movies to gather every other week to discuss a movie that the club votes on in advance.
• Transitioned many on-site group gatherings and photo opps into virtual settings, such as our Festy Friday assemblies where we pick a theme and dress accordingly!

While not every activity we’ve introduced has taken off, we’ve been able to shift nimbly precisely because engagement is completely virtual. There’s no waiting for venue availability or worrying about losing a deposit on a physical venue. We’re constantly reviewing employee feedback to iterate on our offerings. About 2 months into the shelter-in-place order, we distributed our quarterly satisfaction survey with a bit of trepidation. We were happily surprised that we received higher scores for social engagement events than in the two previous surveys pre-COVID.  

Festy Friday Gathering: “outfits you were going to wear on vacation”
 

Q: Did you face any employee engagement and productivity drop? How did you address these issues?

Renita: We knew it was essential to set expectations for engagement and productivity immediately. We did our best to communicate those expectations clearly. One of the first resource documents that we shared was a Remote Engagement Employment Playbook for managers. It outlined ideas for keeping teams engaged, productive, and, above all, feeling supported. These included using daily standups for casual check-ins, increasing duration and frequency of 1:1s, robustly using different communication channels and setting aside time for non-work discussions and activities. 

We also realized the importance of acknowledging the stress and fatigue of WFH and normalizing those experiences through candid discussions at 1:1 and team levels. Some other actions we took based on early feedback:
 

• Set up COVID Resource page for employees with information on everything from health resources to working securely from home to remote IT troubleshooting
• Facilitated Productivity & Prioritization and Adaptivity & Resilience workshops
• Established Everlawlidays (office closures) to help employees recharge as we recognized many employees were not using their vacation time
• Created a WFH budget so employees could comfortably set up their home office
• Expanded how employees could use their team activity budgets, such as subscribing to wellness/meditation apps or donating to charitable organizations

Q: What are some of the lessons you learnt during the transformation?

Renita: Our robust systems and commitment to process-first thinking got us through what could have been a very messy transition to WFH. Recognizing there is no tried and true playbook for this kind of transformation was critical. We were willing to execute rapidly, iterate, and discard things that were not working. Four months in, we are continuing to refine what it means to engage the team and do so in a sustainable way. Through it all, we’ve sought feedback from the team, including launching additional surveys.

As our CEO said in the earliest days of shelter-in-place, we can come out of this stronger in some ways than we were before. He reminded us that we’ve done the work and that we're prepared, and we will continue to evolve. “We have processes we can rely on, business continuity plans to fall back on, and most importantly a capable, thoughtful, hardworking team.”