Orla and Claude discuss the benefits of in-office work, and how Sigma Computing creates a stimulating, inclusive workplace culture. Orla also shares Sigma’s data-driven approach to internal feedback and decision making.
Orla and Claude discuss the benefits of in-office work, and how Sigma Computing creates a stimulating, inclusive workplace culture. Orla also shares Sigma’s data-driven approach to internal feedback and decision making. She emphasizes the value of a supportive office culture to promote high quality work.
Sigma Computing redefines business intelligence by enabling instant, in-depth data analysis on billions of records through an intuitive spreadsheet interface. Its write-back capability and comprehensive support system accelerate organizational growth and innovation.
[00:00:00] Claude: Hello and welcome to Office Libations Unwrapped. I'm your host, Claude Burns. And I'm here today with Orla Clifford, the VP of Operations at Sigma Computing. Hey Orla, how are you doing today?
[00:00:10] Orla: Hi, how are you, Claude? Nice to be here.
[00:00:12] Claude: I'm doing well. Where, where are you coming on this podcast from? I hear it's somewhere far away.
[00:00:17] Orla: Yeah, no, you, uh, you've caught me an unusual place for me. Uh, I am, I am at home in Ireland, uh, in my parents house this week. But yeah, happy to be joining you. Generally, I would normally be in San Francisco, but today I'm in Ireland.
[00:00:32] Claude: I'm a little jealous if I'm, if I'm going to be, uh, be honest with you. Yeah.
[00:00:36] Orla: Well, it is the first day that it hasn't rained since I got here last week. So, you know, temper that jealousy.
[00:00:43] Claude: well, we have the opposite problem in the Bay Area, right? We don't get enough rain. So maybe bring some back with you.
[00:00:49] Claude: Hey Orla, before we dive into your role and your company, we kind of start with kind of a quick hit segment to get to know you a little bit better. So I'm just going to ask you some questions and just, just respond with first thing that comes to the top of your mind. All right, ready? All right. Coffee or tea?
[00:01:03] Orla: Coffee.
[00:01:04] Claude: Okay. Do you have a favorite, favorite brand?
[00:01:07] Orla: Uh, I'm very consistent to Starbucks. I, uh, started drinking that a long time ago and I stick with it.
[00:01:13] Claude: Okay. Do you have like a favorite, like a roast that's like, that's the one I get? Or,
[00:01:17] Orla: It's always the same thing. Grande Americano, black, no milk, no sugar.
[00:01:21] Claude: Do you go to the same Starbucks and they know your order? So you kind of walk
[00:01:24] Orla: They do.
[00:01:24] Claude: app? Yeah. No,
[00:01:25] Orla: The 44 in Montgomery, every morning I'm in there and, uh, Marcello said hi and hands me my two coffees, uh, and I bring it to the office. So yeah, very consistent in my coffee order. Uh,
[00:01:37] Claude: Yeah. That's such great customer service. All right. Favorite go to, uh, snack, uh, or drink for work.
[00:01:44] Orla: snack is easy. It's. Cheese. I've often said that as long as cheese exists, I would survive. Um, because yeah, that's, that's my, that's my, my go to snack every day. Sometimes even my go to lunch every day in terms of water, sparkling water. Sparkling water, coffee, and cheese. That's it.
[00:02:00] That's my diet right there.
[00:02:01] Claude: I think that makes it easy, right? Um, you're retired. Money is no object. Where do you live?
[00:02:08] Orla: tough. Um, a little village in the south of France that I'm not going to name because then you'll know where it is. And so you'll want to go there
[00:02:16] Claude: It will no longer, then it will no longer be a little village.
[00:02:19] Orla: Exactly.
[00:02:20] Claude: You got to hide those like hidden gems, like just for yourself sometimes. What's your go to fun fact? Like if you do an icebreaker and you're introducing yourself, what's, what's the fun fact you lead with?
[00:02:29] Orla: My best fun fact, uh, is that I once drove Nelson Mandela around Dublin, uh, while he was performing at the opening of the Special Olympics. And I delivered him to Bono, uh, from YouTube.
[00:02:41] Claude: Oh, yeah. I've, I've
[00:02:43] Orla: Good, right? Yeah.
[00:02:45] Claude: That's, that's pretty insane. Um, what's, what's the last book you've read?
[00:02:51] Orla: Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zeven, uh, which is a, it's a novel, um, bit about tech, bit about futurism. Very interesting.
[00:02:59] Claude: Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow.
[00:03:01] Orla: Yeah. Highly, highly recommend. Put it on your list.
[00:03:04] Claude: Okay. We'll do. I actually just, uh, asked a bunch of people about, uh, what audio books I should download. So I'll have to have to
[00:03:10] Orla: a good one.
[00:03:12] Claude: What is your favorite historical figure? They can be dead or alive.
[00:03:17] Orla: I think for me, that's going to be Marie Curie. Yeah, Marie Curie for sure. Um, like she overcame such odds when you think about it, you know, that she ended up winning the Nobel prize. She, she had to overcome such odds to even get recognized for the work that she did and then went on to win the Nobel prize.
[00:03:34] So like, that's how brilliant she was. Um, which, you know, we don't necessarily give, give credit for across the board, but yeah, Marie Curie beyond a shadow of a doubt. Wow.
[00:03:43] Claude: I read somewhere that her notebook uh, still is radioactive because it had so much, uh, from her research and it's, uh, somewhere that could be like a fake thing and I got to like fact check that, but, um, I think I saw that on the internet somewhere, but it wouldn't surprise me. Let's sort of get into it. Um, can you, you know, tell us a little bit about your company Sigma Computing and what it does?
[00:04:05] Orla: Sure. Absolutely. So Sigma Computing is an analytics platform for your cloud data. So effectively, if you are a company that is storing data in a cloud data warehouse, Such as Snowflake or Databricks BigQuery. You need a visualization layer to be able to bring that data to life, to really, to be able to talk to your data. Sigma is that visualization layer that allows you to talk to your data, build your analytics up from the ground up, or from the top down, whichever you prefer using a spreadsheet like interface as the, as the base. So it feels and looks a lot like what you would be used to in Excel. Which is a little different than everything else that's on the, from a competition perspective.
[00:04:48] Claude: Got it. And who's kind of the main user for the product? Is it like sales team, marketing teams, engineering teams?
[00:04:54] Orla: It is any team. Um, so we, uh, we are very focused on enabling the business user and by the business user, we mean people like you as the CEO of your company, or me as the VP of operations of my company to be able to interact and make decisions based on the data that we, that we have. So. For example, we at Sigma, of course, use Sigma for everything from analyzing what is our most popular snack in the office, uh, all the way up to, you know, what is our revenue waterfall for the next, you know, 18 months.
[00:05:26] So across the board, we use, we use Sigma for, for everything that, that, that, that evolves around our data. Um, and we expect every employee in our company to use it. And they all do because we deliberately made it as simple as possible to interact with your data, using the platform.
[00:05:43] Claude: Yeah. I mean, you kind of have to use your own tool, right? So if you're not using the own thing that you're building for other people, you kind of have to question why that is. Um, I'm.
[00:05:52] Orla: Right.
[00:05:53] Claude: Because you have so many users internally, I mean, how much of product is really driven, like internally, um, with people being like, I have a good idea on how we should use this. And then it sort of provides value to, uh, existing clients.
[00:06:05] Orla: A huge amount, we, we live by a series of operating principles, uh, in, in Sigma and the number one operating principle is, uh, we are data driven. And the number two, uh, operating principles is we are our own customer. So as I said earlier on, we expect everybody in the company to use it, to try to use Sigma, um, as their platform to try and understand their data and make good decisions or make arguments as to why they expect to make a decision. So as you can imagine. Within that context where everybody is freely using the product, there's a lot of feedback that comes up and a lot of feature requests or enhancements or UX enhancements that come back to our product team and our engineering team from our sales reps or from me or for somebody in the finance organization.
[00:06:49] Um, so we very much rely on that internal feedback, uh, to both test out the product, because we bring features to market. All the time, uh, and also to provide that feedback back into, uh, into, into customers and as a result of, of, of that, um, some of the, that feedback, you know, turns into whole new directions from the product and there's some stuff that we're working on right now around, uh, creating the idea of a data application that really came from internal feedback.
[00:07:16] So it's, it's, it's enlivening, exciting, um, and yeah, pretty cool what we've been able to do.
[00:07:23] Claude: That's amazing. Um, VP of operations, that can mean so many different things. So what's it mean for you? Like, can you tell us a little bit about your role and kind of how you play into that?
[00:07:34] Orla: Sure. Yeah, you're right. VP of operations is a very broad church role that kind of means everything and nothing all at once. So, uh, yeah, I, I appreciate the question. Um, so, well, I've been with Sigma Computing for four years. So I joined Sigma in June of 2020, when we were just about 50 employees around that time.
[00:07:51] Um, and since then I've pretty much run the, the, all of the back office functions. So you can finance, you Uh, IT, legal, HR, um, uh, the data team, uh, have at various stages, uh, in my tenure with Sigma have rolled, have rolled into me or those teams have been part of my team today. Um, I'm very focused on two areas of the business.
[00:08:16] I'm running our data platform team. So, you know, looking at how we use Sigma across Sigma and building out all the business operations and analytics. Also run the people operations team, which includes our workplace experience team, which I think some of why, um, some of what we're going to talk about today, which is also a lot of fun.
[00:08:35] Um, and think about things like real estate and how, how we, um, create an excellent experience for our employees. All of that's still part of my remit.
[00:08:43] Claude: Yeah, that's, that's pretty broad.
[00:08:46] Orla: It is.
[00:08:46] Claude: a lot, a lot of things keep you busy for sure. Um, when you think about those, uh, like employee experiences and sort of how you're running people ops, you know, how, how does Sigma sort of approach, um, their employee experience and how to deliver, um, kind of best in class, uh, experience for their employees and ultimately hopefully to build a great company.
[00:09:08] Yeah.
[00:09:10] Orla: great question. Uh, to answer it, I'm going to give you just a couple of minutes of context. Um, and then we'll, we'll talk specifically about the programs that we've implemented. Um, so at Sigma, we, we have long believed in the value of the in office experience. Um, so, as I mentioned, um, Uh, I joined the company in June of 2020, along with our CEO, um, Mike Palmer.
[00:09:34] Um, so we joined when the world was on complete lockdown, joined the company when it was, you know, nobody was in the office, um, and that was tough because we were onboarding, trying to learn about this new product that we were trying to learn about the team, trying to understand and get a sense of what the go to market was, and everybody was dispersed, but we were Um, so that was a, it was a tough experience.
[00:09:55] It was a tough introduction, um, very early on or as early on in our tenure as we could, if you remember back to 2020, we started to try and get together in as safe a way as possible in the office, never forget, we were like spaced out in this huge office, basically shouting at each other in the first couple of meetings that we had together.
[00:10:13] But we recognized in those early discussions, just how much more value we were getting out of the two or three hours that we were spending together, um, than we did on the, you know, 15 hours of zoom calls that we were having in between those in person meetings. So we decided very early on that it was important for us, given the stage of company that we were at.
[00:10:32] Um, and wanting and knowing that we had to evolve and innovate and continue to evolve and innovate as we look to grow, that we needed to, to be together as much as possible. So we established and went back to the office, uh, really in, you know, mid 2021, um, and I've been consistent to that, uh, ever since. So our expectation is while we are hybrid,
[00:10:52] we do expect our team to be in the office 4 days a week, um, in either San Francisco or New York. We're pretty clear about that because we don't want anyone that's joining the company to be uncertain as to both our expectation and why we have that system. Expectation, we really believe. In fact, we say, we know that having our team be together has created, uh, an environment in which we've continued to grow 300 percent year over year, and that we've acquired, you know, a thousand new customers over the period of time that we've been with the company, uh, developed two new product lines.
[00:11:26] We know that part of the reason that we've had that success is because we have people together. We can talk about that in a moment, but to answer your specific question, Uh, in the, in that context, we think having an excellent employee experience is critical. We expect people to come to the office, um, and we expect them to be there four days a week.
[00:11:44] Um, so it's incumbent upon us in that context to, to, to offer as Excellent in employee experience as we can, as engaging in employee experience as we can. So we put a lot of thought and frankly, investment into that. Everything from, let's make sure that we're supporting people, uh, with commuter stipends all the way through to, let's think about what the experience is like when they're in the office, when people are in the office.
[00:12:09] So what's our, how good is our SMAC program? How do we create, um, opportunities for people to meet with each other? We have a dog friendly office, so we have a dog walker that comes and takes the dogs to the park in both of our offices in New York and San Francisco, but we're very deliberate about the, the investment that we make there because again, we expect people to be there and we want, we want them to want to not, not be there because they have to.
[00:12:34] Does that make sense?
[00:12:35] Claude: Oh, absolutely. Um, I want to kind of talk about the dog walker a little bit. Um, we, we work with a lot of different offices, so we kind of, you hear about a lot of different perks and things that companies do are different. Do you know how that sort of came about to, you know, not just be a dog friendly office, but to actually have dog walkers come and, and take the pups out for a, for an afternoon stroll?
[00:12:56] Yeah.
[00:12:57] Orla: I would love to take credit for it, but I cannot. Um, so our CEO, Mike Palmer, that was his idea. Um, he was, we were very keen. Um, we knew our employees that this is, again, back in 2021, we knew our employees were, uh, Invested in coming back into the office, but a lot of them had, um, either acquired dogs during the pandemic or, um, their dogs have become used to them being at home.
[00:13:24] And so one of the things that we, we heard a lot in those early days was, you know, like, I'm, I'm concerned about leaving my dog at home. And so we were like, okay, we're going to be a dog friendly office. But then the next obvious question is, yeah, but won't it be disruptive? And, you know, like, how am I going to make sure that the dog gets out for a walk and get some exercise?
[00:13:40] And so, we were thinking that through, and then Mike was like, well, why don't we just invest in having a dog walker come once a day? And I was like, yeah, that's kind of the simple, easy, genius answer here. Um, so we did that. We, we, we invested in having a dog walker come by. They come, they take the dogs to, uh, to a local park. The dogs have fun. They play. Um, so yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's an amazing perk and run by an amazing company, so I'll give a shout out to Who Let the Dogs Out in San Francisco, who are the company that, that
[00:14:11] Claude: That's a great name.
[00:14:12] Orla: take them. It is right? It is. Yeah. So, so the team there do an amazing job. Come take the dogs.
[00:14:18] Bring them to the park, the dogs have great fun. They come back, they're exhausted when they do come back. So they're, they're prepared to sit quietly, um, for the rest of the day. So it means that we can be productive while knowing that our dogs are well cared for and that they're having fun. I would probably say it's a, it's the most beloved perk, um, that we have at Cigna. So if you're thinking about having a dog friend in office, think about investing in having a dog worker as well. It is definitely, absolutely 100 percent an investment that, uh, will pay you back in employee engagement.
[00:14:51] Claude: how about the other perks? Like, how do you guys sort of, you know, they, they cost money, right? They cost resources, you know, every company has limited resources, you know, even if you're super well funded, there's some level of RoI you need on these, uh, benefits and perks and pay packages. How do you guys think about what you want to provide employees and if it's actually moving the needle for them?
[00:15:11] Orla: We have a workplace experience team, an amazing team, uh, small, but mighty, uh, of, uh, Melissa and Chantel. Melissa's in San Francisco and Chantel is in New York. Um, together they come up with ideas all the time about, you know, here is some ways that we can, again, improve on the employee experience.
[00:15:27] And we do have conversations about ROI. And as I said, we are very data driven. So we measure, uh, we measure the investment in our programs as much as we can. But there is. To be fair, an intangible investment or sorry, an intangible return on investment. So every so often we'll go out and we'll talk to the team to say, you know, what do you like?
[00:15:46] What do you not like? What could we do more of? What could, you know, what should we do less of relative to scarce resources? Um, and we get feedback and then we iterate and we improve. So it's a constant process of thinking, is this working? Is this creating the right outcome? Um, and being both quantitative and qualitative in our assessment of both, um, uh, in our assessment of those programs.
[00:16:10] It's important for us because we need to be able to say, yeah, this is, this is something that's working. So as an example, one of the things that we, we decided again, very early on in our time back in the office, uh, was that we wanted to Obviously most tech companies in San Francisco or in the Bay Area, uh, sponsor a lunch program.
[00:16:28] And one of the things that we were thinking about is, you know, should we cater in, which was kind of an odd thing back in 2021, cause people weren't really doing it. Um, but at the same time for anyone that's been in the Bay Area, you'll recall that, you know, mid 2021 downtown San Francisco wasn't such a fun place to try and have a local business, uh, particularly a local businesses that were serving lunch, but we were there, and we decided that, uh, we could, you know, in, in effect, create a program that, that, that served many needs.
[00:16:59] Firstly, the program that we invested in is that we, uh, Created agreements with a number of small local restaurants around our office in San Francisco, uh, whereby any of our Sigma employees could go and order their lunch in any of those, in any of those restaurants. And at the end of the week, those companies or those restaurants would just send their bill to us.
[00:17:18] And so each day our employees can choose. I'm going to go to Working Girl Cafe or to Cafe Madeleine or whatever restaurant that they chose from that, from that group. Um, and we did that for a few reasons. Firstly, we really wanted to support these local businesses. Um, you know, the local businesses are the lifeblood of a downtown.
[00:17:35] And if we, as larger companies don't support them, you know, it's, it's, it's a tough place for them to be. But also we really wanted to have, uh, to create opportunities for our employees. To leave the building during the day. Um, and in addition to that, that they would maybe meet other employees of Sigma, um, from other departments when they're waiting for their lunch to be prepared.
[00:17:56] So that really worked out for us. Um, you know, during the peak hours of 12 until 2, uh, every day, if you walk down New Montgomery Street in particular, you'll see a group of, of Sigma employees or a group of people, you won't know they're Sigma employees, but they are standing around outside Working Girl, waiting for Max to finish making their sandwiches or standing outside, uh, Madeline.
[00:18:18] And, you know, those are groups that are mixed across departments, and that's great because we're always looking for those opportunities to bring people together. we recently added, in addition to that, based on again, employee feedback. So in addition to that part of the program, we recently added the ability to, uh, order your lunch through DoorDash because some employees were saying, Hey, it's great, but I don't always have the 15 minutes to go and wait for my sandwich to be created.
[00:18:42] So is there another option whereby I can, you know, get that food and either go pick it up or have it delivered if I'm particularly busy? So we added, The DoorDash, uh, option to the launch program. Continued with the existing program because we love what it does, we love what it does for those businesses and we love what it does for our company.
[00:19:00] Claude: And I imagine people sort of like, Hey, I'm going to go get a sandwich. Do you want to come with me? Um, and then they sort of meet people,
[00:19:06] And I think what's, what's interesting in how you create these kind of employee, you know, touch points and experiences. I'm curious, like, has, has there been anything like internally where it's led to like a product sort of improvement or sort of solving a, a, you know, a problem that somebody's working on where it's like, I can't get, you know, the, the, the excels to excel. Can you, um, can you help me? Right. Mm
[00:19:32] Orla: yes, it has. Now, I'll give you a personal recent example, but it's not actually necessarily about the program because this happened in one of, we have. Kitchens. We have six floors in our building in San Francisco, and we have kitchens on every floor and those kitchens are stocked with snacks and water and everything that you would expect.
[00:19:50] And so during and throughout the day, you know, you'll see people going over there to either grab a coffee or grab a snack or grab a water. Um, and a couple of weeks ago, I was one of those people I was in dealing, I was dealing with a particular problem on a workbook, which is a Sigma constructs that I was working on, on our platform, and, And I just couldn't get something working quite right for me.
[00:20:12] Oftentimes it's like stand up, walk away. And maybe when you get back, the problem will have somehow miraculously resolved itself. So I decided, okay, you know what? I'm going to go get a coffee. So I did went over to the kitchen, got a coffee. And as I was there, there were a couple of people already there. One of them I was an engineer, one was a product manager and we had somebody from the user experience team as well. And as I saw them, I was like, Oh, Hey, actually you guys maybe can help me here. Um, so I was explaining what I was trying to do to them. Um, two things happened. First of all, they were like, well, if you do it this way, maybe it works.
[00:20:45] And I was explaining content. I was like, not quite what I was looking for, but you know, it's kind of somewhat similar. Um, To speed the way through a relatively long conversation, what came out of it was, first of all, they helped me navigate the specific issue that I was finding, that I was having, um, in, in, and the problem that I was looking to solve, but also as we went through the conversation, the person that was in the conversation from UX was like, but Hey, I see what you're doing.
[00:21:10] And actually, That's really good feedback from a product perspective. Um, you know, we should maybe change, you know, X, Y, and Z because you represent the type of user that might do this. So, you know, we should maybe kind of factor in your feedback into, into what we do. And that sort of stuff happens all the time.
[00:21:28] That example can be, you know, is, is a specific one to me, but you could, you could repeat it generically across a huge number of Sigma employees. That are constantly iterating and improving upon the product or solving a problem, you know, that maybe a customer is having during either a sale cycle or post sales.
[00:21:45] And it's all because we create these opportunities to get together either over snacks or over lunch or over a happy hour. Um, there's, there's nothing that, that replaces the value of those kinds of spontaneous meetings. Um, so yeah, we do everything we can to, to try and create the Situations by which those spontaneous meetings happen.
[00:22:06] Claude: We actually see kind of the same thing here. We build, you know, some software and tech to help run our operations. And, you know, we kind of like in the engineering and designs or it comes together and we're like, okay, we're, we're happy with this. And then we kind of have someone use it that, you know, really wasn't part of those conversations necessarily. And then it's like, that's how you use it. That's, that's really interesting. Right. And they're like, well, this is what I'm trying to do. And we're like, okay, cool. Well, you could do it this way. And they're like, that's just not how I think about it.
[00:22:32] And it's like, okay, let's, let's do the, the part that is how the user actually thinks about it. Um, and we make a ton of things just watching. I know it sounds weird, but just watching people work, um, and being like, Oh, is that, that's what you're doing? Hmm. Okay. If, if that's sort of the, the path of least resistance, how do we, you know, amplify that and make it easier for people?
[00:22:53] There's a lot of people out there that are, you know, sort of anti office. Like, uh, we want remote distributed teams. Um, it's a big investment in office space and perks and everything else, and we can just do it just as well. And we can recruit and hire from all over the world.
[00:23:07] So we're going to get the best talent. What's your take on that, um, sort of viewpoint?
[00:23:14] Orla: I have a fairly simple, uh, response to that. You're wrong. Um, I, and this is, again, I'm speaking both in terms of how we think about it at Sigma Computing, but also my, my, my personal belief, um, it's not to say that you can't. With a distributed workforce, a completely distributed or remote workforce, um, uh, that you can't get individually better talent.
[00:23:40] You can, because to your point, if you can hire from anywhere in the world, you can hire rock stars that just happen to live in Ireland, for example. But what you can't do is solve for time zone and distance. So how is the rock star that lives in Ireland going to collaborate in the way that I just described? With the rockstar that lives in, uh, Bogota, Columbia, and somebody else who lives in Seattle and somebody else who lives in San Francisco, they can't. And, and much in all, as we appreciate the value that Zoom and WebEx and Teams and all of the virtual meeting platforms have given to us over the last several years, it just doesn't replace it.
[00:24:18] So the sum of the parts doesn't become greater than the whole in that scenario. I truly believe that if you get a group of talented people, uh, people together, the sum of the parts, um, becomes a much better whole because everybody is together. Um, and, and the ideas and just the way that people spark off each other, particularly people that are, you know, bright and clever and engaged in intelligence, because you might say something and I'll be like, yeah, I thought, or, you know, we'll have a debate or it'll be like, I'll build on your point.
[00:24:48] And that's just really, really hard to do, when you're in a, a virtual meeting. So, this is a, an argument that is asked and answered for me a long time ago. I just don't agree that it's better. I believe strongly in the appeal of having people physically together.
[00:25:03] Of
[00:25:03] Claude: You know, if you ask someone, it's like, tell me a joke. It's like, you can never come up with a joke. Uh, but if you're just having a conversation, it's like, oh, that was kind of funny. Right. But, and I think the same thing happens in a lot of things, like, well, we're going to have a meeting and we're going to be innovative in this meeting, or we're going to be creative in this meeting.
[00:25:19] It's really to me difficult. So how do you sort of ensure kind of, you know, in a, in more of a hybrid, right? And that'd be kind of more of a hybrid or typical distributed setting that, you know, your two offices are still able to communicate and sort of get together.
[00:25:33] Orla: Yeah, it's a really good question. And we spent a lot of time thinking about that when we were when we were opening our office in New York. Um, because I suppose it was, you know, there's, there's, there's a couple of risks when you open your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th office. You do it for reasons of either I need more space than I have in my current office, or I'm looking for a low cost location.
[00:25:56] I want to be able to tap into talent that, you know, is in that location or whatever it is, but if you don't think about, well, what is the purpose of this office? Um, and how does that office work with this office here? You know, you create the risk. Um, and we've seen it time and time again, over the course of my career, where you've got these two offices that become culturally very different, um, not necessarily aligned to the vision or mission of the company, but you've got kind of doing their own thing. Communications are strained and that risk is huge. So when we were opening our office in New York, we thought a lot about that. We thought a lot about what is the purpose of that office? Why are we doing this? How are we going to ensure that, that the team in New York feel every much as part of, you know, the corporate decision making process as the team in San Francisco do, um, and some of the things that we did as a result is we decided, And because our New York office is, is it, it is what we call a complete office in that every function is represented in New York in the same way as it is represented in San Francisco.
[00:26:54] We thought that was important, um, that we have, you know, engineering support, customer success, et cetera, in both offices. Um, so that was kind of decision one. This is a, this is a complete office. And then within that, we also agreed and decided, well, each team within or function within each office should have a concrete function as well.
[00:27:13] So, you know, we want full teams in New York and we want them to be co located together for all the reasons that I've talked about already, because that just creates additional value. So within each office, you've got a full team. You're not waiting for San Francisco to wake up, for example, before decisions can be made in the main.
[00:27:30] The last, um, as well as the most fundamental point was we need to make sure that there's opportunities for the office teams to come together. So again, uh, we, much like we said, you know, being in the office is important. It's also important that people from New York come to San Francisco and from San Francisco go to New York and that we sort of create those opportunities where people can collaborate together. So last week we had our innovation week, um, which is, you know, our, our, our also our hackathon and we invited, uh, people from New York to come from San Francisco to participate in the hackathon. We put on a series of events.
[00:28:05] Just so much that the, uh, particularly our engineering teams had an opportunity to spend time together, to work together on kind of fun projects. Although some of those fun projects, uh, are so awesome that they are going to make it into the products because the team came up with some really creative and cool ideas as to how we could develop and evolve the product during the hackathon.
[00:28:26] They'll end up in the product and that has happened every year. So the ROI on that week of having everybody that wants to come together to participate in innovation week, it's off the charts. Um, again, our product gets better as a result, so we're more than happy to support it, but it is really important to be very deliberate, to think about those experiences, uh, I and the rest of the leadership team commit to being in New York, um, once every, you know, six to eight weeks so that we make sure that like corporate headquarters decision making processes happen in both places.
[00:28:59] And we are now looking for our first office in EMEA, so I'm part of the reason that I'm coming to you from Ireland is that I spent, I was earlier this week, I was in London looking at offices there with our head of EMEA team. We found one that we really like, and we will do exactly the same thing there as we have done in both offices in the U S.
[00:29:20] Claude: Well, congratulations first. That's, that's awesome to hear. Um, I imagine that, that that's probably pretty fun to be able to travel around, uh, to different countries and find, uh, different office spaces. That's, that's gotta be a nice perk of the job.
[00:29:33] Orla: It doesn't hurt. That's true.
[00:29:36] Claude: When you think about like your, you know, your team and, and their overall kind of happiness or experience, are there ways that you sort of, you know, measure, sort of figure that out.
[00:29:47] Orla: Yeah, for sure. I mean, probably the fundamental way that we engage with, uh, engage just to understand how people are feeling and how they feel about their experience at Sigma is we, we, we run formal and informal surveys, um, formal surveys, you know, traditional employee engagement service. Although admittedly, we don't do them as often as we should we look to once at least once a year, do an engagement survey with the team to say, you know, what's working, what's not working.
[00:30:13] And we also run less formal versions of those surveys, um, you know, on specific topics. So for example, uh, we had a, it was discussing with the workplace experience team, um, Melissa in this case in San Francisco. This week about the location for our upcoming holiday party. And she had two really great locations, one of which was right in the city.
[00:30:36] And one of which was a little further away. Uh, the one that was a little further away was admittedly cooler, but it was a little further away. And so I was like, Oh, I don't know if I'm making this decision, I'm probably going for the slightly less cool option that's in the city. I, um, , in my mid forties and I go out probably once a year, um, so I'm like, you know, I don't necessarily speak for the rest of the company and I'm certainly not necessarily of that demographic.
[00:31:01] So we decided, okay, let's survey, let's do it. Let's put it out to a vote. Um, and we did, and I was overwhelmingly wrong. The overwhelmingly, I mean, every, almost every single vote came back, uh, with, yeah, you know what we should, we should go to the cooler venue that is slightly further away. Uh, so I had to eat humble pie on that one for sure.
[00:31:23] But again, that's, that's really important because I can't, uh, speak to the experience of everyone in the company. So it's really important to ask questions like, what, what do you want? What, what kind of works for you? So we try and do that as often as we possibly can about big decisions, either whether it's something as, uh, Well, I was about to say insignificant, but the venue for a holiday party is not insignificant.
[00:31:43] It's very significant, but something as small, perhaps, as, uh, as where will we have our holiday party up to something as large as how should we evolve our benefits program, uh, over the coming year? Um, you know, what, what additional health benefits are important to you? Um, and that's something that we also do every year, um, as we think about our open enrollment season.
[00:32:04] Um, so employee surveys are obviously the kind of the key touchstone to, to measuring, um, to measuring how well we are doing in the employee experience. We also look at other more quantitative factors like voluntary attrition. How are we doing there? If people are leaving. And, uh, that might suggest that there is, you know, a problem that we need to address in, in some way and capacity.
[00:32:24] So we do exit interviews with everyone that's leaving the company to try and see what we can learn fairly typical stuff in that respect. Um, but yeah, those are, those are some of the ways that we, uh, that we look to, to understand how people are feeling. And truthfully, Uh, Sigma, at least I hope this is true when I say it, is a fairly transparent culture.
[00:32:44] So if people don't like something, I'm going to hear about it regardless of whether I sent a survey or not.
[00:32:50] Claude: I think that's a good sign is if we hear about problems before you really have to dig into them. Um, got a question for you. Know, the work workplace has changed a lot, you know, over the past 20 years for sure. But even in the past five years since COVID or your pre COVID post COVID office, what trends are you seeing that employees are, you know, either more interested in sort of benefit wise, what's their relationship with work and how has that changed? I think is probably the question I'm trying to ask, um, very poorly, but that's where I'm going. So help me out here.
[00:33:20] Orla: so I've been working for a long time, my experience of what it was like when I started working in the mid nineties, very different to, uh, to the experience that the 22 year old will happen, will have, uh, when they, when they join a company in 2024, but also, uh, I started working in it, ireland in the mid 90s, which is a very, very different place to either the Bay Area or New York in 2024. So not sure that I can necessarily say that I can trace a direct line over the course of my career. But what I can say, um, is, um, what I, Hugely value and appreciate, and whether this is the passage of time or a difference in culture is, it's hard for me to know.
[00:34:00] It's the ability or the willingness for companies to be more inclusive with, um, both information and data. So being more transparent about here is, you know, You know, here's what's happening in the company. Um, here's, you know, where we're going, here's the feedback that we're getting from customers and investors.
[00:34:16] What do you think? Um, do you have ideas or are there suggestions that you would make as an employee that would either improve our product or improve our outcome potentially as well, um, that, that did not exist, um, back when I was starting, uh, starting my work in my career back in, as I said, the, the mid to late 90s.
[00:34:36] The workplace has become more inclusive of everyone's thoughts and opinions and diversity of thoughts and opinions is also something that I feel has changed significantly, um, over, over the course of my career. Um, in terms of how people engage with work, you know, I really don't think that has changed.
[00:34:54] When people are energized, engaged, and passionate about the work that they are doing, you know, I, I think the experience of the work of working life is exactly the same now as it was 20 years ago, or even 100 years ago, because there's nothing like being passionate about the work that you do.
[00:35:10] You know, they say that if you enjoy what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. And I really believe that's true. If you're having fun at work, um, because you're really enjoying the things that you're doing, it never feels like work. It just feels like fun. Um, so I think for, for us at Sigma, that's really what we're looking for.
[00:35:24] We're looking for people that are as engaged and as passionate about what they do in the context of Sigma, as I am about the context of Sigma. And that as soon as we have that team of people around us, it's going to work. Everything becomes, you know, so much more engaging and frankly fun because we're all rowing in the same direction.
[00:35:44] We're all going after the same goal and we're having fun while we're doing it.
[00:35:48] Claude: It reminds me of something that we said, uh, you said in your, our pre call, um, uh, with some of the challenges or, you know, so the perceived challenges of recruiting people for a fully in office role. And you said that top performers, um, like to solve hard problems and work in a challenging environment.
[00:36:06] And that you guys provide that. So you don't have any problems recruiting people. And I think, you know, going to like the work is what matters. The work is really what. People gravitate towards and, you know, we can kind of talk about employee experience and all these things that we do to be, to, to make work better and more fun and interesting.
[00:36:23] You have to love what you do. You have to like the job. You have to like the work because that's 90, 95 percent of it. Right. I think it's something really to keep in mind, you know, as we talk to other leaders, it's, it's, it, at the end of the day, it has to be a good fit for the person and the company and the work that they do.
[00:36:40] Um, do you guys have any ways that you kind of identify that in the hiring process of like, who is that person that we're trying to find that's going to be that good culture fit for us?
[00:36:49] Orla: absolutely. face. So I suppose just to reinforce your point, we really do believe that it is the work that makes a difference.
[00:36:59] Like we want to provide the best in office experience that we can, but if we don't have a good match between a great in office experience and the work that people are doing, you know, it's not compelling at that point. It's like, yeah, I've got, I've got, you know, I've got this great series of, you know, Benefits.
[00:37:15] And so it's hard for me to think about leaving because I've got these great benefits, but I'm not mentally stimulated. And so, you know, self actualization to kind of quote selling man just becomes impossible in that, in that context. And that just breeds resentment and, you know, all sorts of bad things.
[00:37:32] And we've seen it. We see that happen over and over again, where companies that are focusing on let's go build the best, most fun office that you can have, but not providing the most compelling work. Um, you know, the people that are staying are the people that are energized and engaged by the in office experience and the people that really want to solve challenging problems.
[00:37:53] They're going to, they're going to go and find them somewhere else. Um, so we 1000 percent believe that a great employee experience is to provide challenging, uh, opportunities for everyone that works at Sigma and then surround that with, with a great, uh, with a great employee experience.
[00:38:08] But to answer your question specifically about how do we identify, well, two things that we, we do, first of all, we are super transparent and super clear about who we are in the, in the recruiting process. Um, so we're very upfront about, here's the expectation about in office, um, and that we are in office four days a week, and we expect you to be in office four days a week, and we appreciate that for some people that doesn't necessarily work, um, if you are one of those people.
[00:38:35] Uh, we wish you the best and, uh, you know, good luck with, with your, with your future endeavors, because, you know, we're not going to compromise. Um, this is something that's really, really important to us. And we know that it is really, really important to the growth of the company. So this is who we are, either you love it or you don't love it and that's fine.
[00:38:52] Um, so that's one of the things, but also we do a lot of work during the recruiting process to, I suppose, test for. Uh, ability to be challenged or resilience and grit, um, you know, and, and like understanding, you know, how well do you want to focus on solving big problems, solving challenging problems? How well are you going to operate in an environment where, you know, things are pretty, Brilliant, candidly discussed.
[00:39:18] We're, we're, we're a transparent, candid culture. And what I mean by that is pretty direct. Uh, I will never not thank someone for an idea. And you know, if someone has an idea, I'm always going to say, Hey, listen, thank you for an idea, for your idea. But I don't necessarily agree with every idea that is given to me.
[00:39:34] I'm not, I'm going to tell you why I don't agree, uh, when you give it to me. So thank you. But here's why that won't work. Um, or here's why that's not something that we would do. And we have discussions like that all the time. So we test for that during the interview process as well, because ultimately not everyone's going to feel entirely comfortable in that.
[00:39:51] And, and, you know, we don't want to have somebody come to the company and have them, you know. You know, completely feel like this is not what I thought I was getting myself into because that's a bad experience for them. And it's a bad experience for us. So we're, we're very upfront and very transparent as we go through the recruiting process to identify people that we feel like would be a good fit for Sigma.
[00:40:12] And that we feel like are, you know, going to operate well in our environment. It is challenging, but also energizing. Um, uh, that, you know, is intellectually stimulating, but also very candid and direct and transparent. And if you're one of those people, you know, here we are, we want you.
[00:40:28] Claude: Yeah. And I think a lot of that goes to, to building trust. And that's probably a theme that we've seen on the show is, um, you know, em, employers that are transparent and open, uh, build a lot of trust with their employees. And ultimately that creates for a, a better employee experience because they know they can have that conversation and, you know, they're, they're going to get the truth, right?
[00:40:47] They're not going to get kind of the runaround and like the company feels like the company's hiding something. So, And ultimately, no amount of perks and benefits and stuff like helps if you don't trust somebody. Um, so I think it leads with leads with trust, right?
[00:41:00] Orla: I couldn't agree more. Um, the, uh, one thing that, and I think it's, it's worth saying, because again, it's one of those things that we do at Sigma that I recommend to others. We have a weekly all hands, um, which is something that we started, uh, at the start of, of, of the pandemic, but, but we continued when we came back to the office.
[00:41:20] So every Friday, the whole company gets together, um, in both offices or remotely, if you happen to be some of our remote employees. And, and we just talk about, you know, what's happening during the week, you know, whether it's feature launch or, um, you know, the latest priorities with respect to the company or promotions or new hires, we do that each and every week.
[00:41:39] But once a quarter, um, one of those all hands is given over to the leadership team presenting our board deck. So, uh, we present to our board once a quarter in the same way as every other company does. And then the very next week we present that exact same deck, uh, to the rest of the company. So that we're showing and sharing.
[00:41:57] Look, here's what we told our board, um, and, you know, we'll, here's, we're going to tell you the exact same thing because you're shareholders too. And the board of directors are, are very important and they give very important advice, but you're shareholders as well.
[00:42:10] Each employee is a shareholder. Um, so we want your feedback as much as we want theirs. We, we, uh, we do that every, every quarter. And again, it's something I recommend. Constantly to other leaders because it, you know, the, the level of understanding that that creates across our, across our employee base and, and, you know, I suppose engagement with the process, it's an intangible benefit, but it's definitely real.
[00:42:33] Something that we as a leadership team see all the time. The fact that we can talk with, uh, that our employees can talk with us about, well, you know, I saw a GRR rate was great again this quarter and, you know, that's great. How did the investors feel about that? And we can talk to them about that and they have context and they understand, makes a huge difference.
[00:42:51] Claude: if I've known what it was like to work for a company where you love the product, um, yeah, that, that, that's probably, I mean, just, you Quarter why I love working at Sigma. I love the product.
[00:43:01] Orla: I love the people. I love the culture, the transparency, the energy, the whole lot of it. So literally feel like the last 4 years have been the most compelling 4 years that I've had in my career. And I've had many years in my career, but the last 4 have been the most compelling. Off the charts, it's been, been the best time that I've had. Um, so if it sounds like that's something that's interesting to people that are listening to this podcast, you know, reach out, talk, talk to us. And we're, we are hiring and we're hiring all the time.
[00:43:29] Uh,
[00:43:39] Claude: in Sigma computing, you know, how should they get in touch?
[00:43:42] Orla: you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. You'll find me at Orla Clifford, or if you wanted to send me a direct email, my email address is orla. sigmacomputing. com. So send, uh, to either place. I'd love to hear from anyone that's interested in knowing more about, uh, about the company.
[00:43:56] Claude: Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. And I'm really looking forward to seeing Sigma continue to grow.
[00:44:01] Orla: Thank you very much, Claude. It's been a pleasure.
[00:44:04] Claude: Thank you for joining me and Orla today on Office Libations Unwrapped. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast for future episodes filled with inspiration, ideas, and strategies to optimize your workplace culture. And remember, happy employees make happy customers. Until next time, I'm your host, Claude Burns.