Intention & Impact: Creating Employee Connection in Remote Teams With Justin Tsatsa

Una: Welcome, everyone, to the Amazing Teams podcast, where we talk about all things that make work better. Today I'm joined by Justin Tsatsa, Associate Director of Workplace Operations at Fetch. Justin joined Fetch in January of 2020, basically right before every company on earth had to figure out remote work overnight.

He's spent the last six years helping the company grow from a tight-knit team to over 800 employees spread across offices and home offices nationwide. Justin, thank you for being here.

Justin: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Una: Justin, tell me more about Fetch. How did you end up there, and what do you guys do at Fetch?

Justin: I came from a corporate real estate firm job and was looking to go from an admin role to something a little bit more. I saw a job opening at Fetch for Chicago office manager, applied, got it, and that was right before the pandemic. Fortunately I was able to stay on when the office wasn't operational, but in the middle of that we did a full Chicago office relocation during the pandemic, which was fun and challenging while no one was going in.

What I do at Fetch now is help with our remote operations, making sure our remote teams still feel connected while also supporting our Director of Workplace Operations, who oversees all of our office operations. When I started we had Chicago and Madison as our main office hubs and maybe five people working remotely. Once the pandemic hit, we started hiring in all states, which opened up this huge talent pool. We went from fully in office to pretty much fully remote with office hubs.

Una: So from about 170 people when you joined to over 800 in the last six years. Tell me more about what Fetch actually does.

Justin: Fetch is a mobile app. Scan your receipts, get rewards. We play games on our app with our app partners and get points for the games you play. We have a browser plugin too, so whenever you shop online you get points, and you turn all those points in for gift cards. That's as simple as it is. I promise there's no catch to it.

Una: It sounds like during the pandemic people were spending a lot of time on their phones, which probably helped balloon the company into what it is today.

Justin: Absolutely. You'd buy stuff online because you weren't doing anything else, turn in those receipts, get gift cards, and buy more things. We love to see it.

Una: So literally two months after you joined the company, you had to be behind a screen. Were you in charge of creating engagement opportunities and helping people feel connected, or was that someone else's role?

Justin: I don't think it was really anyone's role at the time. It was me, one other person in charge of our Madison office, and our manager, and it was basically, all right, let's try to figure this out. First it was figure out what return to office means, then it became, we may not even be returning to office. How do we stay connected? How do we build that engagement? That's kind of what my role shifted into.

Una: So what did you start with? I'm sure you've tried a billion things. What are some of the things you tried?

Justin: We did the main ones. Happy hours, virtual coffee chats, we tried a co-working thing where you'd open your Zoom and people could come in and work at the same time, but no one really joined that. We did trivia, and a few things that actually stuck. We hired a wellness director who created a wellness bingo we still do to this day. Go out, get some steps in, cross off a square, give someone a shout-out in one of the channels, cross off a square. That created engagement that wasn't just joining a video call.

Una: You mentioned some of this became a lot. It was kind of an overcorrection, going from no time together to throwing every opportunity at the wall. Was it too much? Was it just the same people joining? What weren't you happy with?

Justin: We started to learn that employees were getting burnt out from Zoom fatigue, from Slack fatigue, and here we were trying to throw more on top of that. It just became a lot of fatigue in general. There wasn't any structure, so you'd get online and try to chat with people, and by that point in the day everyone was like, I don't want to do this.

Then our ERGs would offer events for any festivity or celebration, plus town halls, plus impact events, plus all the regular meetings your teams were doing. It became so much that no one had time to do any of it. And yeah, to your question, it was kind of the same people every time.

Una: Just hearing you talk about it sounds exhausting.

Justin: There were people who actually really enjoyed that virtual socializing, which is very different from in-office socializing. It became a matter of, how do we tailor that into something more meaningful and more impactful? It wasn't about the quantity of things we offered, it was the quality.

So our ERGs shifted to fewer events, but events that were more impactful and thought through more. One example: our Pride ERG used to offer events throughout the year, and now we scale that back and instead put our resources into actually participating in the Chicago Pride Parade. Things like that make it more impactful than just doing coffee chats here or there.

Una: What does the new normal look like? What do you guys do daily, monthly, quarterly, annually to provide these engagement and team-building opportunities?

Justin: It's still an ongoing learning process for us on what's working and what's not. We have a monthly town hall everybody is expected to attend, and one of our remote specialists runs a town hall trivia at the end of it, so you have to pay attention throughout and then chime in with answers.

Una: What do people get for getting the answers right?

Justin: It totally varies. You could get a gift card, tacos, obviously, sometimes actual treats, and we've even done specific merch for it. Our ERGs will do maybe one or two events a quarter to help people stay engaged and connected.

We also tried to mimic our in-office happy hours by hosting a virtual happy hour, come in, get your own cocktail or coffee, and just chat. But we found you need a little structure to it. People naturally mingle in the office; it's difficult to mimic that on Zoom. That became one of our early lessons: don't try to mimic what we're doing in the office. It's okay that virtual is different, and that's still allowing people to be connected.

Una: Do people get together in person? Do you have a company off-site every year, or does a department or team get together with budget for it? How does that work?

Justin: We do offer team meetups. We haven't done a full company meetup now that we're at 800, but who knows what the future may hold there. For teams, we encourage them to meet up as frequently as they need with a specific outcome or business purpose tied to it, like a product launch or a sales meetup, not just to go do a city tour.

We've also learned that if you're getting together in person, that's not the time to do slide deck after slide deck. You do that remote. In-person time is for collaboration, brainstorming, small groups, and activities you can't get the same effect from doing virtually.

Una: I know you're putting together something like an in-person meetup playbook. What goes into that, besides coffee, which you've gotta have?

Justin: It's everything you can think of. A rough agenda, content, building in breaks that are longer than five minutes so people can check Slack and email, how you want the rooms set up, whether you need food catered, external speakers so people aren't just watching someone on a Zoom call, activities, restaurants, hotels, travel. It's all in one place so it's a one-stop shop: we want to do a meetup, where do I start, it's right here.

Una: How are you getting that to people? Distribution can be hard with so many channels.

Justin: Absolutely. We have a people portal that employees know to go to for travel information and things like that, so once this is finalized it'll live there and be a little more interactive. We also do manager forums where we can explain what we're trying to accomplish with the guide, so communication goes top-down and managers can pass it on to their teams.

Una: I'm sure you'll still get a DM every so often asking where that thing is.

Justin: Absolutely, but hey, it's a little bit of job security. People still need me. I'll put together as much information as I can, but I'll still answer your questions.

One big thing we're adding after the meetup is feedback. There will be a survey we facilitate so managers can get back to their work and we can still get appropriate feedback, measure things, and keep improving.

Una: How big is the workplace operations and remote operations team? How many people are you working with on these efforts?

Justin: There are five of us, covering Madison, Birmingham, Chicago, hopefully New York, and remote, plus myself and our director. So eight total, but very collaborative, everyone jumps in and helps as necessary.

Una: What's one thing about your remote operations that's changed as you've grown? Something that worked at 200 people but breaks at 800?

Justin: Jira used to be pretty much our entire thing, where we had all our office information and our handbook. We built out a people portal that transferred a lot of that, which came with its own learning curve, and it's evolved a lot over time as we figure out the best way to organize everything. We've put together toolkits, basically little tables of contents, so it's more self-explanatory.

Slack also released a Slack bot that's been really helpful, since people can search it and it'll pull up all the times people have asked the same question and show them where the information is.

Una: What did you learn when you used it to pull data from your HeyTaco channel?

Justin: They're very, very short. So nothing new, but it's fun. It's a great way to pull different data points.

Una: Was anything ever mandated, or is everything voluntary? What's Fetch's philosophy on voluntary versus mandated?

Justin: Everything is always voluntary. It goes back to our pillar of trust. We trust that employees are doing their best work and making the right decisions about their time. If it comes between taking time away from your computer or coming to one of our events, take the time away from the computer. There's no policy that says you have to attend this or your manager will get you.

Una: You mentioned you hire adults and treat people like adults, so to mandate or police things wouldn't be coherent with that.

Justin: Yeah, absolutely. I would hope that you'd do the right thing, and if not, that's a different conversation. But people are smart enough to figure out what they need to go to, and it's working out so far, knock on wood.

Una: Since you've grown to over 800 people, what surprised you about how the culture held up from when you joined?

Justin: The energy is still there. Fetch still moves very quickly, and people are still really on board with our product. Even something as small as a sticker in the mail, or our HeyTaco channel, we've had to grow how many tacos people get because they're just giving them out so much as our teams have grown.

Una: Besides the growth itself, what else do you think has helped maintain that energy?

Justin: I think it's having a CEO who genuinely cares about employees, and you can feel that sincerity in our town halls. We've also hired amazing people who really know how to connect with one another, and there's real pride in the product and the story of how much it's grown in a short amount of time.

Una: What have you learned is the fastest way to lose a great employee in a remote setup?

Justin: There's always going to be new opportunities people want to try, and it's very possible to grow out of a role. We move quickly, and with AI and everything else there's a lot more to juggle, so if you're not one to wear multiple hats it can get tricky.

We have great education reimbursement, and it's possible someone learns something, wants to go a different path, and there isn't a role open for them here, so they take an opportunity elsewhere. We help people learn and grow and better themselves, and it's very possible they do that and then go somewhere else.

Una: The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay, as the Henry Ford quote goes.

Justin: There you go, Henry. If you train and invest in your employees, they're still going to give you their best work while they're there, and they'll keep growing, whether at Fetch or elsewhere. It goes back to how much we trust and care about employees. We want them to do what's best for them and give them all the resources we have.

Una: If you were talking to someone at a 150 or 200 person company just starting to think about workplace engagement and remote operations, what would you tell them to start with?

Justin: Don't be afraid to try and experiment with things. We wouldn't know what worked for us if we hadn't gone through a huge, long list of things that didn't work. It came down to the content we put out and how impactful and meaningful the event is, not the amount we're trying to do. It's okay if participation is low. It gives you a place to start and grow from.

Una: When you're communicating something to a few hundred people, there's always that fear that no one will show up. What advice would you give to overcome that?

Justin: I'll give you a story from just this past week. We're a company of 800-plus employees, and we did a virtual happy hour at the same time as our in-office happy hours. Four people showed up to the virtual one. But those four people had such meaningful conversations, with people they don't usually talk to, that it was still a win. Even if you're a company of 200 and you're afraid no one will show up, even if it's you and one other person, you can give that person the best time they have there.

Una: What are you and your team working on next?

Justin: We're working on connections with intention, trying to get the best out of our in-person meetups, and building out what we're calling an enablement strategy that gives us the data behind remote operations and employee connection. We're pulling together data points on what other companies are doing too, though that research isn't easy, so if anyone out there has ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Una: Are there companies you think have it figured out that you secretly follow and learn from?

Justin: Some companies have it figured out for themselves, and it's working for them, but I wouldn't say any company has found an end-all-be-all for remote operations. Some are doing full company-wide meetups or in-person onboarding, which works for them and maybe we'll try next. I love hearing those stories and seeing what we've tried or haven't.

Una: That makes sense. A marketing approach that works for Fetch might not work for Starbucks or Nike. Timing matters too. What doesn't work today might work again in three years.

Justin: One hundred percent. We've talked a lot about virtual happy hours, but some things have stuck around, like the wellness bingo cards and book clubs, different ways people are already doing something and we just bring it into Fetch a little bit.

Una: That's the async piece I keep hearing about too. You can't take an in-person office hour and mimic it virtually and expect it to work the same. You have to think about what you're trying to accomplish, not just mimic the mechanism.

Justin: Exactly. We didn't do a big holiday party where the whole company got together, but one thing we did and I loved was a Fetch recipe book. Like those cookbooks church groups put together, with little stories behind each recipe. We put it into an eBook and people had a lot of fun submitting recipes and stories. It was something you didn't have to be on a Zoom call for, but it was still a way to connect and share your story. It's also something we can keep adding to, like another chapter.

Una: Justin, before we wrap up, in HeyTaco everyone has five tacos to give out today. I know you guys actually have ten at Fetch, but for this exercise, who would you like to give your five tacos to today, and why? It can be anyone.

Justin: The first person I'd give a taco to is my old boss Cheryl at the corporate real estate firm I used to work at. From the minute I started she invested time and energy in shaping me, and even after I moved to Fetch I'd still call her with questions.

I'd give a taco to my colleague Betsy, who's awesome when it comes to our remote culture. She runs our remote Slack channel, from brain teasers to reaching out personally whenever there's a crisis near someone, bad weather, a power outage, whatever it is.

I'd give one to my best friend Kita, who hears me talk about all things work and life. And I'll give one to Wes, our CEO, who created a company I love to work at and truly loves rewarding employees.

And the last one, I'll go cheesy: a taco to HeyTaco itself, because it's become such a huge part of our culture. We use it for everything, surveys, meetings, bingo cards, birthdays, work anniversaries, you name it.

Una: Well, if it was in the app, HeyTaco would politely tell you that you're not allowed to give a taco to HeyTaco, but on behalf of HeyTaco, I accept it. Justin, thank you so much for joining me.

Justin: Perfect, give it to Una. Thank you, it's been great.