It’s possible to turn those new-hire fuzzies into long-term passion. Today, Becky Lehman, Senior Manager of Employee Engagement at Babylist, describes how to sustain a positive employee experience. She describes how feedback can be a growth driver, the value of continuous learning, and the best way to model company culture.
It’s possible to turn those new-hire fuzzies into long-term passion. Today Claude interviews Becky Lehman, Senior Manager of Employee Engagement at Babylist. She’ll describe how to sustain a positive employee experience with intentional onboarding and consistent opportunities to provide feedback to leadership. She also demystifies feedback by describing how it can be a growth driver. She and Claude dive into the value of continuous learning, and the best way to model company culture.
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“I love asking new hires, why did you decide to join us? ‘Cause they're very different across different people, different roles, but hearing what they have to say gives me really warm fuzzies about my decision to be at this company and invest my time and effort into this company. And then really thinking about how we can capitalize on that excitement and passion of new hires and extend that as long as possible as part of their employee experience. I've been a BabyList for over two years now, I still feel that excitement and passion about the work that I'm doing. So I hope we can continue to pull that for people for as long as possible”
“It can feel like someone is telling you that you are bad and you did a bad job and you are a horrible person. And no one likes that feeling. But actually, when someone is giving you feedback, what it really means is that they feel like they have a strong enough relationship with you that they can give you that feedback in a way that you'll hear it. And it also means that they believe in you and they believe that you can be even greater than you are now. And that's real neat. “
“My philosophy on the employee experience is that it should be closely tied to that user experience. And so we want our employees to feel the same things, feel secure, feel celebrated, feel like they have the information they need to do what they need to do. When we show up for our employees like that, then they can take that and bring it to our users, which is what we want.”
“Always be learning is our value. So I like thinking about how we can train and lean into those growth edges and really support each other and teach each other across the company in those different areas.”
“One of the important things when you're thinking about culture specifically is that you're modeling it all the time. So how you treat people every day that you work with them, how you show up on Slack, how you show up on Zoom, how you show up in every way you like interact with your users or your coworkers, that's your company.”
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00:18 - Quick Hits
03:22 - Becky’s story
07:44 - Building a remote company culture
10:28 - Why Becky loves onboarding
16:20 - Employee retention tips
23:56 - The benefits of ERGs
26:53 - Building culture across teams
37:48 - Leadership should showcase culture, too
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More about Office Libations
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Office Libations Unwrapped Podcast. I'm your host, Claude Burns. Today, I'll be speaking with Becky Lehman. Becky is the Senior Manager of Employee Engagement at BabyList, which has a lot of great tips about treating your employees well.
[00:00:12] Claude Burns: And we're going to get to know her a little bit better real quick. All right, Becky, ready?
[00:00:17] Becky Lehman: Ready.
[00:00:18] Claude Burns: Let's go. All right. Coffee or tea?
[00:00:21] Becky Lehman: Coffee.
[00:00:21] Claude Burns: Do you have a favorite brand?
[00:00:23] Becky Lehman: We get Ritual Coffee. We have a fancy espresso machine, so we order Ritual coffee and nothing else will do.
[00:00:30] Claude Burns: Yeah, yeah, we know Virtual very well, they're definitely a top tier coffee brand in the Bay Area. Um, what's your go to work snack or drink?
[00:00:39] Becky Lehman: I am not a huge snacker, um, but I drink a ton of water, so I have my big, millennial, water bottle that I sip from all day long and I drink it non stop.
[00:00:52] Claude Burns: Do you have one of those that says like, you know, this is how much water you need to drink throughout a day, or?
[00:00:56] Becky Lehman: No, I need no encouragement to drink lots of water. I do it all on my own.
[00:01:01] Claude Burns: Okay. I like it. Um, you're retired. Money's no object. Where do you live?
[00:01:07] Becky Lehman: I want to say Maui. I love Maui so much. But the real answer is wherever my family is. So I want to be close to wherever my family is.
[00:01:16] Claude Burns: That's fair. Good answer. Your family's going to like that one. Um, what's the best thing you've eaten lately?
[00:01:22] Becky Lehman: I've had an eventful week and I got to have an In N Out burger, and it really hit the spot in the past week. So my In N Out cheeseburger with grilled onions was the best thing I've eaten definitely in the past week.
[00:01:34] Claude Burns: That's fair. What's the last book you've read?
[00:01:37] Becky Lehman: So I'm a voracious reader and I have a goal of reading 100 books this year and I am 10 books behind, so I'm trying to read 10 books in like the next 10 days to hit 100. My goal of a hundred books. So I've been reading like really fast Christmas rom com type books. So I've just been reading a lot of those.
[00:01:59] Claude Burns: You're like, I'm not going to tell you the name of it, but just know that's what it is. And that's,
[00:02:02] Becky Lehman: it's like the book equivalent of a Hallmark movie is what I've been reading.
[00:02:06] Claude Burns: Perfect.And we changed our, our last question for you since we know you, we know you like doing some onboarding and uh, what's your favorite icebreaker question?
[00:02:15] Becky Lehman: So we ask all of our new hires at BabyList to share a strongly held opinion that in the grand scheme of things doesn't actually matter.
[00:02:25] Claude Burns: That's pretty good. What would be your answer?
[00:02:28] Becky Lehman: I have a lot of them, but the one that keeps coming to the top of my mind is very niche. , But when you're at a restaurant and you order a dish that has shrimp in it, I don't understand why they don't cut off the shrimp tails. Like you have like a pasta with shrimp in it. Why? Why do they include the shrimp tails in like a sauce that you have to like do the work to separate it? I'm at a restaurant. I want someone to do that for me.
[00:02:56] Claude Burns: it's always like a white tablecloth. So you get like the sauce all over your fingers and now your,
[00:03:01] Becky Lehman: mm hmm.
[00:03:02] Claude Burns: yep. No, I like it. I like it. Um, all right. So that's the end of our quick hits. So we're going to, we're going to switch into, to learn a little bit. Uh, more about your background, which I think is really, really interesting, sort of how you got into the employee experience role. Can you walk us through sort of what led you to this job and maybe your prior experience and how that shaped the way you view work?
[00:03:22] Becky Lehman: Yeah, so out of college, I got a job at a big law firm like a big international law firm in kind of an administrative role and there was a lot of bureaucracy, as you would expect in a law firm, not not surprisingly. , But we had kind of a pretty toxic work environment for a while. And there was some pretty small things that management could have done that would have made people feel a lot happier at work. Small things that were not expensive, like access to their manager more frequently. Uh, small, you know, important, but small things like that. That they just weren't doing because there was so much red tape and so much process. And that was really frustrating to see, like, really great coworkers leaving because they weren't being heard.
[00:04:09] And so I started thinking about how, like, that's really what I wanted to do was to work in a world where I was making, helping leaders listen to their people better and like, make those small changes that actually really enhance the experience of working. So I started looking for roles in that world, but as I didn't have a background in HR or something related to that, I ended up, um, working, like, being an early, employee, like employee number four at a startup where I was hired as the office manager, but really what that meant was I was the only employee that wasn't an engineer for a long time and then even longer, the only employee that wasn't an engineer or a salesperson.
[00:04:50] So I was doing accounting, real estate, IT, and HR, people ops stuff, too. Really, anything that needed to get done. and I got to figure out what I didn't want to do, like accounting, like IT. But I also got to really lean into growing in the areas that I was interested in. So, it's really easy to do more like relationship building and engagement with 5, 10, 20 people.
[00:05:18] Um, so really building that foundation and then growing to 100 and 150 people as a company grew, my skills got to grow there too, which is really, helpful me and my growth there. And then I had a baby and COVID, sorry, first COVID, then a baby, um, and then. Uh, when I returned to work after I had a baby, uh, it was really hard.
[00:05:40] First of all, it's universally hard. Someone from BabyList reached out. So I had used BabyList as a baby registry when I was expecting, and they were hiring for a role that was just focused on this employee engagement and kind of internal community building. And I was so interested in it that a company was like, actually investing in a role, investing in a person, completely dedicated to this. That meant that, to me, that showed that the company actually cared about it and was willing to like, put effort into it and saw how important it was. So that was kind of what got me to where I am today in this role. And I love my job. I love the company I work for. I tell new hires and onboarding, like, welcome to our company.
[00:06:23] Sorry, I have the best job at our company. I'm sure yours is going to be great too, but mine is, I already have the best one. So sorry about that.
[00:06:31] Claude Burns: Interesting. I didn't realize you use BabyList and then they reached out to you after that. So you're kind of a user before you actually join the, join the company.
[00:06:40] Becky Lehman: I think it is a common trajectory for a lot of our employees that um, if you don't have a baby or you haven't, don't know anyone who's had a baby, maybe you haven't ever heard of BabyList. But I think if you have had a baby in the past five years or so, you've most likely used BabyList or like your friends have used BabyList. So it's very common that like, you're like, oh yeah, it's like an industry. Like standard company, like, yeah, it's the best one. We all use it. Mm
[00:07:10] Claude Burns: I used it. So yep, I can agree.
[00:07:12] Becky Lehman: hmm.
[00:07:13] Claude Burns: I want to go back to something you said about sort of the office manager. We work with a lot of office managers and it's surprising how diverse that role is and the number of things that an office manager actually does. I think it's really interesting that you use that opportunity to sort of figure out what you didn't like and then what you didn't like. What did you want to lean into in sort of your next role?
[00:07:34] let's, let's talk a little bit about when you're looking for employees at BabyList. You said something that was really interesting to me and I hope you bring it up. But what do you guys look for in a new employee?
[00:07:44] Becky Lehman: We're a fully remote company, so I think that's really, it's really important that we hire people who are going to be successful at a fully remote company, which can be a real challenge for a bunch of reasons, so we really do look for people who have high levels of ownership and accountability and getting their work done. We look for people who are going to make our culture even better. So I think often when we're talking about hiring, we think about culture fits like, Oh, this person isn't going to fit in here, but we really want to look for people who are going to be successful in our culture and challenge us to be even better. So to continue to grow as a company with bringing new people on that are like going to be successful here and going to make us even more successful.
[00:08:31] Claude Burns: Yeah, I loved, I think you said, culture addition, not a culture fit. Um, and I thought that was so eye opening and interesting, inspiring, because we always talk about how do you build a good culture? But as your team grows, you're just naturally going to have people with different viewpoints, different, you know, upbringings and backgrounds. And what you really want is that to strengthen your culture and not really take away from it, while also bringing in all those diverse, uh, opinions. And I know that's something that we'll talk about a little bit later, uh, with BabyList. The other thing you brought up was, having a growth mindset. What's that mean and how do you guys sort of look for that?
[00:09:04] Becky Lehman: Yeah. So we, one of our core company values is always be learning. and I think. it's easy to think about that as like curiosity. Like, oh, I just want to learn everything. and I'm interested in the world. And so I want to like, learn, like, oh, I want to learn how to play the accordion. Like, cool. That's great. That's not going to help you be better at your job unless you're an accordion player. . And so how we really think about this idea of growth and learning is identifying those areas where you can really lean into them to grow, and learn more. Like there's an opportunity at the company someone needs to step up to take care of something, own a project, whatever it looks like. And you haven't done that before. Neither has anyone else. So we're going to learn as we go. As we do it, we're going to challenge ourselves and continue to like push on that kind of growth edge. And that's how we really think about our like learning and growth mindset.
[00:09:58] We think about that as an individual and as a bigger company too, right? We're always kind of trying new things. And. We haven't done them before, so we're going to have to learn how to do them, build new muscles, and that's how we're going to be successful, is really like leaning into those areas too.
[00:10:14] Claude Burns: Yeah. One of the things that I think you were most excited about was onboarding, right? And that's sort of the beginning of like the employee experience. Can you talk to us about sort of your onboarding process and you know, what, what brings you so much joy in that process?
[00:10:28] Becky Lehman: I love welcoming people to our company. I, like I said, I love this company, and I love my job at this company, but it's so special when we're Bringing new people on board because they're also really excited to be here. First of all, I love asking new hires, like, why did you decide to join us? Like, why did you choose BabyList and hearing all of those answers? Cause they're very different across different people, different roles, but hearing what they have to say gives me like, really warm fuzzies about my decision to be at this company and like, invest my time and effort into this company, and then really thinking about how we can capitalize on that excitement and passion of new hires and extend that as long as possible as part of their employee experience. I've been a BabyList for over two years now, I still feel that, like, excitement and passion about the work that I'm doing. So I hope we can, like, continue to pull that for people for as long as possible.
[00:11:21] We do have a pretty prescriptive onboarding process through the first 90 days. Company onboarding that last about four weeks where people will go have one to three sessions each week that focus on different parts of the company or like knowledge that they need to do their jobs. One of the biggest things that we identified as a need in onboarding is to really. Like be very clear about our different revenue streams and talking about that. We have a bunch of different ways that we make money at BabyList.
[00:11:53] Claude Burns: That's
[00:11:54] Becky Lehman: a lot of people, yeah, it's diversification, right? Um, but a lot of people coming in have experienced in one of those areas. And that was like the superstar of their last company.
[00:12:05] So they like our, our. used to that being prioritized over other things. And so we have to really be clear about how we have these different revenue streams and they compliment each other and we work together to make them successful.
[00:12:20] And so we have to really balance those priorities. And I think that can be a big challenge to wrap your brain around as a new hire at the company. So making sure that's really clear in our onboarding is going to make people like ramp faster, understand how to do their jobs faster, understand how they fit into all of those different revenue streams faster.
[00:12:39] The other thing about onboarding that we do kind of from a company perspective is I give a presentation about. what are the weird things about working here that you usually would slowly learn over time? We want to tell people all the weird things about working here in week one. So they're not coming, like, three months down the line being like, I didn't realize we were supposed to have our cameras on in meetings.
[00:13:02] And, like, that has been Um, like, tension point on their team since they started. We don't want people to wait to learn these things. We want to tell them very upfront. And that's, I think, really important, especially in a fully remote company, that we can be really clear about our expectations for how we show up for work and how we work with each other.
[00:13:20] And then the other thing about our onboarding that I think is really wonderful is everyone has a 30, 60, 90 day plan that their manager puts together with input from kind of their key stakeholders, and it's pretty prescriptive. It, like, links to all the different documents they need to read, lists all the people that they should meet with in their. Like, as they're onboarding, and then actually tells them which projects they'll be working on in that time period. And with the whole goal of like, delivering work and getting feedback on that work, and then incorporating that feedback again, like re launching that work. Feedback is really important to us at BabyList and that's how you're going to learn how to get work done here and what good looks like here is to just like do it and, and get that feedback and continue to grow in that way.
[00:14:07] Claude Burns: Yeah, you said something that I thought was really interesting in our, uh, our pre call where you said feedback is a gift. can you kind of talk to us about how you and BabyList view feedback from your team members and you know, if it's led to any sort of changes internally?
[00:14:21] Becky Lehman: Yes, feedback is a gift. Is a cliche, but it's very true.
[00:14:27] Claude Burns: I, you believed it. You, you were like, no, this feedback is a gift. I want more, give me all the gifts,
[00:14:33] Becky Lehman: You been,
[00:14:33] Claude Burns: Time.
[00:14:34] Becky Lehman: it different? Have you been thinking about a difference since we talked?
[00:14:36] Claude Burns: you, you know, you know, I have, cause I think I'm not going to steal your thunder cause you're going to tell us, but I'd love, I'd love you to sort of explain why feedback's a gift because I do think it will, it changed my, my line of thinking a little bit, so I think other people will find it enlightening.
[00:14:53] Becky Lehman: So when we think about getting feedback or like when we get hard feedback, we get into that like lizard brain fight or flight response and it can feel scary. It can feel bad. It can feel like someone is telling you like you are bad and you did a bad job and you are a horrible person and no one likes that feeling. But actually when someone is giving you feedback, what it really means is that they have They feel like they have a strong enough relationship with you that you, they can give you that feedback in a way that you'll hear it. And it also means that they believe in you and they believe that you can be even greater than you are now. And that's real neat. So when you get to that point where someone is giving you some harder feedback, it's actually because you have this really strong relationship and they trust you and they believe in you. if you can think about that, I tell all of our new hires in, in my, uh, onboarding session that when you get some harder feedback, I hope you hear in the back of your brain, my voice saying feedback is a gift. And that makes it a little bit easier.
[00:15:54] Claude Burns: I think I'm going to be hearing that, uh, that voice for, for, for a long time when I, when I hear things that I don't always like to hear. And sometimes, uh, you do have to, you know, understand where it's coming from and that, that person does want to make you better,
[00:16:06] and so I, I appreciate, uh, you sharing that with us. Let's talk about retention. how do you guys retain employees? , and what is, what are the other things that go into your employee experience post onboarding?
[00:16:20] Becky Lehman: so I think retention is really. about making sure employees feel like they're supported, and heard, and celebrated, and like motivated. That's kind of core to our employee experience at BabyList. We kind of think about those as big pillars. Putting things in place that allow for all of those, that people are feeling like they're reaching their full potential, that they're getting the feedback they need to be great at their job, that they are aligned with the work that their team is doing, that the work that the company is doing, and they know how that their work is impactful to kind of our user.
[00:16:59] It's really important, that they feel heard, that they can talk to their manager, that they can talk to their executive, that they can talk to our CEO, if they really wanted to, and give feedback. We have this very strong feedback culture, , and it's heard. It might not be actioned on. There might be a good reason that it's not actioned on. It might be a good reason things are the way they are, , but that we can voice those things to each other and give additional context and clarity. Just another baby list value, around those things is really helpful. It makes people feel like they're working on the right thing that they're doing what they should be doing to be successful and that they're supported when things come up that are unexpected or, we don't know how to move forward. We have a like good culture of supporting each other. If that comes up.
[00:17:46] Claude Burns: Yeah, you had something come up unexpectedly recently. Uh, do you mind sharing that with, with everyone?
[00:17:51] Becky Lehman: Yeah. Yeah, um, so, I think how we think about all of these things in the end play experience really come from the top. One of the things I love about BabyList, one of the reasons why I joined BabyList, if you recall, is that, they were investing in this role. They were, they cared about this employee experience. And that really comes from the CEO and from our executive team. They care deeply about our employees.
[00:18:16] and I think this culture is set by our CEO and by our executive team really specifically, um, and we support each other when things go sideways in our work lives and in our personal lives. My story is that my daughter is actually hospitalized last week with a respiratory virus. December with a toddler is a wild time for everyone. Um, and I was supposed to be presenting at our all hands meeting with our entire company there. It's an expensive meeting. Everyone's there. We put a lot of thought and effort into prepping for all hands call because it's so expensive. We want it to be really impactful for everyone.
[00:18:54] I was the main presenter on Thursday of last week. I had spent the whole night in the ER with my daughter. We got admitted to the hospital at like 530 in the morning and I shot off a message to my VP of people and my CEO. And I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't think I can present at all hands. I'm in the hospital and with my daughter and my CEO just said, Go be with your daughter. We got this. Like, don't worry about it. Don't do anything else. Like, just take the time you need to be with your family. And like, that's your priority right now. And that, like, when your CEO tells you that, that feels good.
[00:19:29] That you feel like, okay, I'm doing the right thing by being here with my kid when they need me. And that shows up in every part of the company too. Like, we give each other that grace. We step up and fill in for each other when we need it. work really efficiently in order to do that because we have a lot of stuff that comes up just as a, that's life.
[00:19:49] Um, and so that's a big part of our culture at BabyList is that we show up in that way for each other.
[00:19:55] Claude Burns:
[00:19:55] Still feeling safe to, to go to, you know, the CEO and say, Hey, I have something else that's important to me. And built that culture that you guys are all taking care of each other.
[00:20:07] Becky Lehman: It was well received all hands, as far as I've heard.
[00:20:10] Claude Burns: That's awesome. Yeah. I think we'll, I think we'll talk a little bit about how you guys work in public. Cause I thought that was really interesting. , but before we get there. You told me that BabyList has the best users and that you guys constantly celebrate them. How do you show up for your users and how does that play into your employees understanding your users better and creating a better experience for both parties?
[00:20:33] Becky Lehman: I mean, we're included in that.
[00:20:37] Claude Burns: Yeah, I'm not disagreeing.
[00:20:38] Becky Lehman: Our users are, right? So, I mean, what more evidence do we need? But, um, we have this wonderful pleasure of serving people that are in this like wild change in their life where it's like exciting and they're nervous and they're anxious and they're like, have all this advice from everywhere.
[00:21:01] They need all these new things. They're going to be doing all this stuff that they've never done before. And we get to show up for them and be that like. Supportive voice for them. We like to think of our voices like that older sister or cousin that's like gone through it before and can help you navigate this world.
[00:21:17] My philosophy on the employee experience is that it should be closely tied to that user experience. And so we want our employees to feel the same things, feel secure, feel celebrated, feel like they have the information they need to do what they need to do. When we show up for our employees like that, then they can take that and bring it to our users, which is what we want. We also stay really close to our users. Another company value, I hope, I've gotten three so far, so maybe I can,
[00:21:48] Claude Burns: company value bingo. We're
[00:21:49] Becky Lehman: Tick through all of them, um, is that we love our users, which is not maybe a unique company value, uh, but it's really foundational and core to most companies, but we really stay close to our users and listen to them. So many of our employees are former or current BabyList users, so there's a big overlap there, but also we bring users in to talk to the whole company once a quarter. We do a user panel where we get to hear, we bring in like five or six expecting parents. Here's what they like using about BabyList, what they don't like so much, what we could do better, what bugs they ran into, anything, like what do they spend a lot of time thinking about, where do they get their information from, all of the like good stuff that helps us.
[00:22:37] Really focus on the things that are most impactful to our users because sometimes it's easy to like drift away from kind of that core value of our product because there's like lots of really cool and exciting ways we can continue to support parents, but really what they love about our product is that it's a universal registry and they can price match a bunch of places.
[00:22:57] Really making sure that experience is a really good one. It's always really grounding to us. Our CEO always says she has a goal of everyone at BabyList being able to hop on the phone with someone using BabyList and help them do what they need to do. So everyone should have the ability, should know the product well enough that they're able to support anyone that's using it, that's going through it.
[00:23:19] Claude Burns: And that creates a lot of, a lot of empathy no matter what division or department or whatever, however you classify it, with understanding your users and understanding what you're actually building. Uh, I think that's brilliant.
[00:23:31] Let's switch gears a little bit. Um, maybe not really switching gears that much, but you kind of talked about diversity, inclusion, and belonging being a core part of BabyList. And gathering sort of that information from your team to sort of see like what, what needs to be improved, what needs to be made better, sort of led to a decision to create, ERGs or employee resource groups.
[00:23:54] Can you walk us through kind of some of the, some of the outcomes of those resource groups and, why you think it's helping the company overall?
[00:24:02] Becky Lehman: Yeah, so one of the, so we run a bi annual engagement survey, which is another way we can, like, surface things, uh, to us on the people operation side of things are for our leaders, uh, across the company and the first one I ran, uh, after I started at BabyList, one of the things that came up in the survey was this desire for
[00:24:27] connection to that, to people that have a similar background or similar identity factor. we care really deeply about diversity and inclusion and belonging at BabyList. It's an important part of our like customer experience. It's also a very important part of our internal experience. and so always kind of looking for ways we can continue to lean into that and enhance that.
[00:24:50] And so we heard this in our engagement survey. And we were like, Oh, you know, maybe this is the time. Maybe we have a big enough employee base that there's enough people that want to be part of these groups that we can stand them up and support them.
[00:25:04] So then we were able to kind of gather that information from people, like, which groups would you want to be a part of? How would, what would this look like? And we launched five ERGs after that. Now we have nine. We have, you know, over a hundred people that are involved in an ERG at BabyList. They're wonderful places for people to hang out. I want them to be people's favorite place at the company to spend time. They have a dedicated Slack channel, they have dedicated monthly meetings and budget, but really the whole goal of them his connection with each other. Now, some of them have done other things too, which I love and it like brings me so much joy when we see that. For example, our queer ERG put together a user panel that was in June, which is pride month of, Queer parents, queer BabyLess users, so queer expecting parents, so we brought in a handful of actual BabyLess users who are queer and they talked about their experience using BabyLess as a queer parent.
[00:26:08] And one of the things I learned in that user panel is that a second parent adoption fund is really important, especially for same sex parents parents, and that our cash fund could be something that we enhance to better support them. So bringing up things that really affect specific groups was really helpful and interesting and something valuable to us as a company too.
[00:26:29] Claude Burns: Yeah. That's, it's great using sort of those resource groups to, to sort of identify like niche needs within, uh, your user base
[00:26:36] Becky Lehman: But I want to clarify that that is a, that is like
[00:26:40] Claude Burns: Yeah. It's a second order
[00:26:40] Becky Lehman: on top of a sundae. The sundae itself is like about connection with those people.
[00:26:47] Claude Burns: Yeah, for sure. What other, what other things do you guys do to sort of build culture across teams at BabyList?
[00:26:53] Becky Lehman: We do get together at off sites a couple times a year. So we have a annual full company off site where we bring in everyone to one location. We spend a lot of time really connecting and relationship building with each other and with the company. So the whole goal of that is to see the people you've known for a while, meet people that you haven't met yet.
[00:27:14] And they're a great time and we know that you can really build relationships and Build that culture much more efficiently when we're in person. So we really leverage that time we have together to do the things that are really hard to do when we're remote. We really think about these times when we're in person as foundational to our ability to be remote the whole rest of the year.
[00:27:34] That you're meeting the people you work with, getting to know them better, understanding how to work with them better. Building relationships with people on other teams that maybe you don't work with all the time, but maybe you like might need a resource on that team at a certain point. And you know, the person that you met at the offsite and you can tap them and be like, Hey, what do you think about this?
[00:27:51] Or are you the right person to talk to about this? So we have our full company offsite dedicated really to that. Then we also have team offsites where each team gets together, focuses still on that relationship building and that stuff that's harder to do remotely. And I think about the class of work that we do in person is like the stuff where you interrupt each other and that's okay. So all of that like collaboration, creativity, brainstorming, goal setting, all of that stuff can feel really awkward over Zoom or video chat. But in person it feels like good and invigorating. We want to do that in person where it feels invigorating and exciting.
[00:28:30] Claude Burns: I think you guys do something really unique with, Slack and sort of building in public. Do you mind sharing that?
[00:28:38] Becky Lehman: Yeah, so the, uh, all hands presentation I was meant to give last Friday was actually, or last Thursday, was actually all about how we use Slack at BabyList and really setting some expectations across our company. At this point, most people have used Slack at a company before, but we all have maybe used it in different ways at different companies. So we want to be, we wanted to be really clear about how we use it at BabyList and what our expectation is for how people use it at BabyList. And that's really like I think about it as our virtual office space. It's how we hear, you know, Oh, what's the sales team excited about this week? Or like, what bug is the engineering team really like working through today?
[00:29:20] And we can only do that if we're working in public. I'm not going to be in all the engineering channels. I'm not an engineer. That's not an important part of my job, but I'm able to still have the visibility on like, hey, if anyone's interested in this incident, like join this channel, see what's going on here.
[00:29:37] It's really important that we share that information in public so that we're able to jump in if we're needed down the line and have like the whole context for it, or we might not know who the right person is to like, talk to about this in an office. You might be talking to someone about it and someone else overhears.
[00:29:56] And it's like, Oh, you should go like, talk to Steve about that. Like he really knows he's done that before. Or like, Oh yeah, tried this before and that it didn't really work, but maybe now it like looks differently and they'll like point you in the right direction. And that's how we have, we have to do that very intentionally in a remote workplace to make up for that ambient learning, which is what I call that in an office space when you have it, where you're learning about what's going on without being actively part of it.
[00:30:23] Claude Burns: Yeah. That kind of learning through osmosis is, is kind of what I refer to. You just see somebody do something like, Oh, that's a better way to do that.
[00:30:30] Becky Lehman: Yeah.
[00:30:31] Claude Burns: I'm going to steal that. Um, but it's more informal than sort of, uh, that, that ongoing sort of education.
[00:30:38] Becky Lehman: I would always be learning, right, is our, is our value. So like thinking about how we can train and lean into those growth edges and really support each other and teach each other across the company in those different areas.
[00:30:50] Claude Burns: And so we're getting ready to wrap up, but I want to see, do you have any sort of, things that you guys have tried that haven't worked as well. , and then we'll follow up with a more positive version of that. But anything you've tried that sort of hasn't worked really well to sort of build that culture and engagement across your employees.
[00:31:06] Yep.
[00:31:08] Becky Lehman: of the things that when I first started, I was like, okay, we're all about our whole product is about gifting, right? Like buying things for people. So we need to be better at gifting to each other. Like that should be core to our employee experiences. Like we're buying presents for each other.
[00:31:26] \ Which is nice in theory, but really hard practically, especially in a remote workplace. And so we didn't do any kind of anniversary gifting. At that point, and I set up a program where people like got an anniversary gift, and a birthday gift, because again, celebrating Big Milestone's important part of who we are as a company.
[00:31:47] Becky Lehman: It turns out that people like that on their birthdays, but if you get like a 25 gift card on your anniversary, it actually doesn't feel that great. Especially if it's kind of automated, which is what I set up. Because, you know. When you're thinking about a program like that, some managers do a really good job with that, and some managers don't. And I wanted to make that experience kind of more universal at the company. So to like a manager who that was not their strong suit, didn't have to pushed like in that way and a manager who spent a lot of time doing that maybe shouldn't be spending a lot of time doing that And it actually like really didn't feel good really backfired a little bit like oh, it's my five year anniversary and I got a 25 Amazon gift card. Cool. Thank you. so we're like re evaluating what that actually, what we want that experience to be, how we want people to feel about that, so we can make that experience actually align to that feeling of celebration through these milestones.
[00:32:47] Claude Burns: That's awesome. And on a more positive note, what have you done that you think like just killed it and people have really, really enjoyed?
[00:32:55] Becky Lehman: Um,
[00:32:59] Claude Burns: No, I mean, it sounds like you guys have done a great job meeting a lot of those psychological safety and sort of things that allow people to be their best self at work and like continually get better and grow. And I think part of it's probably attracting the right people to begin with and sort of your hiring process, but all the way through. So I do think you guys, uh, have probably done a great job and it may all work pretty well, but what's the one thing that really, you're most proud of, let's put it that way.
[00:33:26] Becky Lehman: I do think our offsites are really important. They're a great opportunity. They're a great time. We are very thoughtful about how we put them together, so they're introvert friendly, because it can be pretty overwhelming if you are introverted. In your home all year long, and then you have like one week where you're like on for 24 7, that can be exhausting.
[00:33:50] We're really thoughtful about our goals for the offsite and how we structure like the programming and the time we spend together to really hit those goals. And they're really. They're really special. We make sure that everyone attends them because they're so important to how we work together throughout the rest of the year. So really setting those up to be successful is a ton of work, but the return on investment for that specifically is so high and we see it like almost immediately after an offsite.
[00:34:22] Claude Burns: So that foundational investment and the offsite and the building relationships in person set you guys up to be successful throughout the rest of the year.
[00:34:30] Becky Lehman: Totally.
[00:34:31] Claude Burns: Makes sense. before we go. There's one thing in my notes that I want to make sure we talk about. Your sort of employee shout out or sort of employee appreciation. Can you share a little bit about the structure of that, how you guys do that internally, why you set it up that way?
[00:34:46] Becky Lehman: Yeah. So I think one of the important things when you're thinking about culture specifically is that you're modeling it all the time. So how you treat people every day that you work with them, how you show up on Slack, how you show up on Zoom, how you show up in every way you like interact with your users or your coworkers, that's your company one of the things that we put into place in our all hands is we do an employee spotlight, which serves to celebrate people who are doing great work. But we don't want it to just be like a, Yay, Becky, she's great. We love her. Because that's like, might feel good. It
[00:35:23] Claude Burns: True, but not
[00:35:26] Becky Lehman: It just doesn't feel like as authentic as we want it to be. And it's, we value feedback and that's not specific feedback, right? It's not like she is great because of X, Y, Z, and this is the impact it had. It was, it's very like vague. And so actually what we do is we. So we have people talk about the employee we're spotlighting and actually think about what those behaviors are that they do really well, that we want everyone to do, that we want everyone to copy or learn from. And we really talk about those in the employee spotlight. And then we have that individual share, like how they approach their work that makes them successful. And so we've learned from people across the company in from accounting to supply chain to inventory planning to engineering, like everyone has some tip or some way that they approach their work that we can broad is more broadly applicable that we really want to showcase and model that so everyone can say like, Oh yeah, this person's really good at project management.
[00:36:27] If I have a question, I can go to them or like, here, I'm going to like, look at a project plan they put together and copy that and use that because I know it's really good and it'll be successful. So, I think that's a really core thing, a core part of modeling our culture and how we get work done together.
[00:36:44] Claude Burns: Yeah, I love that. And I think, you know, a lot of companies will do similar things where they'll say, so and so did a great job, here's why. But what I think is really interesting and how you guys do it is you actually give the employee the chance to sort of say what they did and why they did. One of the reasons I like doing this is you get to hear experts talk about something that they're very passionate about and excited about.
[00:37:06] And being able to share that with the company and seeing like, Oh, all these other parts, like people are just as passionate about. Their job as my job sort of helps you, you know, push through that next milestone, that next, challenge that comes up.
[00:37:19] So I think that's a really, an interesting part of what you guys do in, in spotlighting the employees. Um, so thank you so much for sharing. Before we go, any tips for people that are struggling to build culture. um, Particularly around accountability, which is one of the things that I hear a lot of people talk about is how do I make sure my teams are accountable when they're fully remote?
[00:37:39] Becky Lehman: Yeah. Well, I think my biggest tip is not that helpful if you're struggling to build culture is that it really comes from the top. So you can have a dream for what your culture is as someone in this space, but if it's not aligned with what your leadership wants a culture to be or what your leadership is willing to enforce, then it's not going to be successful.
[00:38:05] So you have to really get aligned your leaders, and that's the culture that you're going to have, and that's the culture you're going to build. In terms of accountability in a remote workplace, it's a lot about who you hire.
[00:38:17] It's a lot about how you set expectations. We like to have, like, status updates as part of, like, working in public. We don't want any surprises, right? Surprises are gonna happen, but we don't want you to be, like, working on something by yourself in your, like, room. And then presenting like a fully formed product. And then people are like, that's not what we needed at all. Like, that's actually like, we're not going to use any of that. Or like, that's complete, you spent a lot of time working on that. That
[00:38:47] Claude Burns: Somebody else was doing that too.
[00:38:50] Becky Lehman: Exactly. And so we want to be sure we're working in public, that people know what we're working on, that people, that we know our goals, that we know other people's goals and we know how they like interact and prioritize.
[00:39:00] Prioritize around those, and we do that with like one on ones with our managers, or we have some templates for status updates that we share. We want everyone to have visibility into the work that's getting done across the company. And when we have visibility that builds that accountability.
[00:39:18] Cause you're like, well, I told so and so that I was going to do this by next week. I guess I have to do it by next week or like I've been working on this project and it's not hitting the goals. I need to like actually explain what happened there and why it didn't hit the goals and what the impact of that is and what I'm going to do next to address that or, like, make a recommendation moving forward.
[00:39:41] And so all of that builds that culture of accountability if we're providing that context, providing that clarity. And one of our Man, I'm just going to get four values in here. One of our values is actually be your own CEO. And that really comes down to ownership and accountability and actually leadership that it's not like, it's not autonomy. It's not just like you have full control of what you do and how you do it. It's like here's the work that you're doing and the work that needs to get done. You don't have to do all of it, but you need to make sure it's getting done in the way that you're proud of and that you're delivering it in a way that feels right and is aligned with the goals of that work.
[00:40:22] Claude Burns: Yeah. Awesome. Well, Becky, thank you so much for your time today and sharing all your insights with us at BabyList. Really appreciate it. Hopefully you had a good time today and, uh, I, I, I know what coffee that's going to be coming your way. So thanks again. And, uh, looking forward to sharing this with our, with our audience here.
[00:40:41] music break
[00:40:42] Thank you for joining us 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. I'm your host, Claude Burns.