Elise Stribos
Chief People Officer
Jungle Scout
Episode 351
Remote Work's Missing Link: How Authentic Connection Fuels Productivity & Engagement
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleJanuary 14, 2025 · 9:15
Thesis
“Authentic human connection and intentional relationship-building are paramount for productivity and engagement in remote-first environments, necessitating active leadership championship and a clear philosophy to empower employee participation.”
Show notes
The Built by People Podcast features an insightful discussion with Elise Stribos, an HR leader with a diverse career spanning various industries, including startups, fitness, wellness, and now a SaaS platform, Jungle Scout. The conversation delves into her strategies for fostering community and connection in a fully remote company. Elise emphasizes the importance of leadership in setting the tone, the critical role of relationships for productivity, and the need for intentional, humanized interactions, particularly as businesses navigate the era of AI. Creative initiatives like remote magic shows and transparent town halls are highlighted as effective methods for enhancing engagement and reinforcing a shared sense of purpose among remote employees. 00:44 Meet Elise Stribos: Career Journey and Experiences 02:04 Fostering Community in Remote Teams 03:13 Balancing Productivity and Personal Connection 04:18 Leadership's Role in Remote Culture 05:30 Measuring Success in Remote Engagement 06:39 Creative Initiatives for Remote Engagement 08:33 Final Thoughts and Parting Advice
What you'll take away
- 1Productivity in remote teams is fundamentally dependent on strong relationships and connection, making these non-negotiable for success.
- 2Leadership must establish a clear philosophy for connection, actively model desired behaviors, and explicitly grant employees permission to engage in community-building activities.
- 3Success in fostering community among remote employees should be measured through a wide range of factors, including engagement dashboards, pulse surveys, exit metrics, and external ratings like Glassdoor.
- 4Effective remote engagement initiatives require intentional design, accessibility across diverse platforms, alignment with company values, and visible participation from leadership.
- 5Prioritize 'humanization' through personal stories, authentic interactions, and transparency to counteract the potential for loneliness in remote businesses, especially as AI integrates further into work.
What most organizations get wrong
- •You won't get productivity without relationships and connection. You just won't. It's absolutely fundamental to it. It's critical to it. And everybody has to believe that.
- •You probably shouldn't organize over a board meeting or like a town hall or something because then you're really not going to get the attendance.
In Elise's words
“I think our profession is a really important one with really important things to do, particularly in the world of AI. And the more experience I can bring to whatever company I'm in at that moment or that point in time, the better.”
This highlights the guest's belief in the increasing importance of HR expertise, especially in the context of emerging AI technologies.
“you won't get productivity without relationships and connection. You just won't. It's absolutely fundamental to it. It's critical to it. And everybody has to believe that.”
This is a core tenet of the guest's philosophy, asserting that connection is a prerequisite for productivity, particularly in remote environments.
“leaders need to again, set aside and set the tone that it's okay to make this trade by being involved.”
This quote emphasizes the crucial role of leadership in actively enabling and endorsing employee participation in connection activities.
“Well, in my mind, I definitely correlate it to engagement.”
This succinctly defines the primary metric the guest uses to measure the effectiveness of community-building efforts.
“Humanization is the most important thing as we go into like more of an AI world, whatever. I guess the HR community can do to reinforce the idea that personal stories, like being real as a human in your interactions, like addressing things that are good and bad and transparency, that's going to be the difference for us, particularly in culture and connection.”
This powerful closing statement underlines the enduring significance of human authenticity and transparency in maintaining a vibrant culture amidst technological advancements.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Companies struggle to maintain community and connection among fully remote teams, leading to disengagement and loneliness.
- •Leaders and employees often perceive engagement activities as a 'loss' of productivity, hindering participation and buy-in.
- •Without clear leadership philosophy and active participation, remote engagement initiatives fail to gain traction and achieve desired outcomes.
- •HR teams lack robust methods to measure the direct impact and ROI of culture and connection strategies on engagement and business results.
- •Virtual communications, such as town halls, can become impersonal or 'robotic,' failing to foster genuine human connection and transparency.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
I started my career in Australia, in Sydney actually
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How to Build a Remote Community
How do you balance the need for productivity with creating opportunities for personal connection
Remote Work: How to Balance Productivity and Personal Connection
Leaders set the tone for connection and collaboration in a remote-first culture
Setting the tone for connection and collaboration in a remote-first culture
Jungle Scout measures success of efforts to build community among remote employees
How Do You Measure the Success of Your Culture?
What creative initiatives have worked best for engaging remote employees and reinforcing a shared sense
What creative initiatives have worked best for engaging remote employees?
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
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