E57: Building a Strong Culture with a Remote Team with Rentable’s Andrew Zuckerman

This episode, I’m joined by the VP of People at Rentable Andrew Zuckerman to discuss how to build a strong culture with a completely remote team, the importance of being accessible as a leader, and how we can give more power to employees while staying in control.

• How employee experience changes when a company reaches over 100 employees.
• What it means to have a ‘no asshole’ policy.
• Where the main focus of HR should be.
• How to use games to make staff feel part of a team.
• How to keep a strong culture with a completely remote team.
• How to be accessible as a leader.
• How and when to review with employees if the job is a right fit for them.
• The problems with performance improvement plans.
• How to give more power to employees while staying in control.

• Rentable
• Donut
• StaffGeek

• LinkedIn
• Email

• Lindsay Patton on LinkedIn
• Lindsay Patton by Email

Quotables:

• 15:29 “It takes six to nine months to really feel comfortable in a newer role, it may even take longer depending on the size of the organization and your role in that, but it’s always great to have that roadmap for yourself and it’s something that I’ve used in the past to share with my managers to say hey how does this look, is there anything you’d like me to change, what do you think I should add or take away because it really depends on the organization. But it gives me the opportunity to set the stage and also to meet with my peers, with my team members, and also to share it with them and have them hold me accountable to that.”
• 25:48 “It’s the old saying, you treat people like you want to be treated. Like I mentioned I am an employee first so that’s kind of the space that I operate from. I want to be honest, I want to be transparent, I want to be helpful because that’s how I want my HR team to be with me.”
• 27:10 “Being as welcoming as possible and creating a strong foundation and an easy to navigate landscape for people to bring you into the fold. Meet people where they are and allow for those conversations to take place, because that’s the biggest part of our position is relationships. Building those and creating effective relationships and treating our internal customers and clients like we do our external customers and clients, and always being self aware and allowing others to be as well.