Scaling your Company by Investing in your People

As a leader, I can confidently say that there is nothing more rewarding than seeing your employees thrive and grow in their roles. Too often the business world pushes the narrative that creating a unique and valuable employee experience is a cursory concern that only large companies have the resources or time to attend to. However, here at PFD, we are big believers in the idea that the culture and environment you create for your employees should be a central part of your business strategy. 

After all, companies grow due to the actions and commitment of those who work there. If you are not taking the time to create an environment in which every employee can succeed, then you are actually hurting your business. To create a company in which every employee is set up for success, we recommend that you take time to invest in three areas of your employee’s life: 

1. Ensuring cultural fit: While it is important that your employees be diverse in talent and experience, it is also equally important that each of your employees share a set of workplace values. This means that there is an understanding of what behaviors are expected and that each employee lives by that. What is crucial as a leader is to ensure that you communicate clearly what those values are on a daily basis. This can minimize conflict and create comfort by increasing clarity of expectations. 

2. Providing opportunities for growth: Your employees want your workplace to be a space where they can grow and reach their full potential. To ensure they are able to do this, you should be providing them with timely coaching and resources for learning. For example, at PFD, I make sure to build mentoring relationships with my employees to ensure that they have the support they need to accomplish all their goals. 

3. Environment: Your physical environment is something that can either add to or detract from the mental wellness of your employees. If your physical environment is sterile and dull, it may be difficult for your employees to focus. On the other hand, if there is natural light and greenery in your workplace, your employees may feel more connected to one another and motivated. You don’t need to have a Google-esque office environment, but it should be clean, comfortable, and welcoming. 

If you’d like to learn more about each of these three steps and how to fully make mentoring and employee experience a part of your business strategy, I highly recommend that you look into ordering our book The Mentorship Engine when it is released this November. The Mentorship Engine will walk you through a repeatable framework with which you can craft a compelling vision for your company and then source and retain the talent you need to fulfill that vision. If you are at all interested in the idea of growing your people while also growing your company, this will be the book for you. Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for a pre-order link.

What Should Your Office Look Like? Creating a Workspace that Promotes Wellness and Productivity

We often underestimate just how much our physical environment impacts us, but it impacts us immensely. Many of us have been working at home lately, and for a few of us, it improved our productivity, but for the vast majority of us, it made it much harder to work the hours that we were used to. The average person will work 90,000 hours in their lifetime. That’s a lot of time to be spending in a space that is dull, cluttered, dark or nondescript. The spaces that we exist in affect our health and our ability to perform, and while we like to deny this fact for the sake of cutting costs in our business, we do intuitively know this to be true. We’ve been in spaces that are like a breath of fresh air – perhaps they have exposed brick, high ceilings, and plants everywhere, and they genuinely feel nice to go into. Conversely, we’ve been in spaces that are overwhelming and stress us out – they are filled with clutter, unkempt, and with little natural light. If we were trying to work long-term in the second space, we would feel more exhausted, less creative, less satisfied and less motivated. Our spaces should energize us, inspire us, and motivate us and our employees. So, as we get back to our offices when it’s safe to do so, it might be a worthwhile endeavor to upgrade our spaces to this end.

What would it look like to be able to step into your workspace and immediately know what kind of culture you have? Likely, if you have never considered this question, your environment is affecting your culture, you just haven’t put much thought into how. This isn’t to say that you necessarily have a bad culture if your workspace is uninspiring but think of how much better your culture could be if your employees were excited just to exist in your office each day because your company put some thought into how it looks and feels. When we get our office spaces right, we can only add to and show off our culture and company.

Evergent Office in Hyderabad, India

Consider a case study from one of our clients - Evergent - and their office in Hyderabad, India.

Evergent Hyderabad Office - Inspiring quotes, and open and ergonomic work space

They hired a top interior design firm Zyeta to transform a new, gorgeous 36,000 square foot office to emphasize employee health, collaboration and creativity.  Now, when you walk into the Evergent office, you’ll see a clean, organized, naturally lit and modern space, with brightly colored furniture, numerous plants, and different textures on the walls to add subtle visual interest. You’ll see giant, inspiring quotes that emphasize their creativity and global reach, ergonomically-focused furniture, and community spaces that allow for gathering – both in a work setting and on breaks. One of the things that Evergent wanted to emphasize was transparency and accountability to foster their culture of excellence and teamwork, so they decided to make all of the meeting rooms have large class doors and walls so anyone could easily see inside. There are no secrets to what you are working on, and you can easily reach and collaborate with all of the other people you could need.

Evergent Hyderabad Office gym to promote employee wellness

The Evergent office is made complete with a gym, and foosball and ping-pong tables. The office is so beautiful, that it has been toured by other big tech companies for them to get ideas on how they can improve their own spaces. Best of all, this new office reflects Evergent’s brilliant and colorful culture, and holds central the well-being and thriving of their employees.  Now, when new hires enter the building to begin their two-week onboarding process, they enter into a space that shows just how much Evergent cares about them and their success.

Now, when we think of incredible office design, we tend to think that considerations for the office are reserved for only the bigger companies, because we tend to believe that it is out of our budget or expertise. Perhaps we are going to the wrong places for inspiration. When we think of office interior design, we think of tech companies with slides between the floors of the office or a rock-climbing gym, or creative agencies with beer on tap in the kitchen. What we should know is that having foosball tables or treadmill desks is not a prerequisite to creating an office that is inspiring – and we should invest in beautiful and functional working spaces regardless of the industry we are in. Now, I am not a designer, nor should I be. I have created my fair share of unstylish places, and there are plenty of books you can read on office design from experts that are far more talented than me in this area. This being said, below are some considerations that I have found should be taken into consideration when you transform your working environment for your employees.

1. Your environment should have what you need

The first thing we need to consider is this question: do we have what we need to do our jobs? Our office design should, first and foremost, be functional. Our employees should have the right tools in the right space to be able to get their work done. When I was early in my career, working as an internship, nothing drove me crazier when I was given old, outdated equipment that would impede my ability to get tasks done. Make sure your employees have the right equipment to be able to do their tasks. If you have to do a lot of brainstorming and whiteboarding, make sure you have whiteboards throughout your office. If you have creatives who need to share their work with others, make sure you have TVs in the meeting rooms that they can connect to gather feedback. If you have a manufacturing facility, make sure your equipment is optimized for production and safety. If you need people to collaborate, have an open floor plan. If you need people to go and do deep work by themselves, have offices with walls. If you need both, have a combination of an open floor plan with smaller offices with walls. If you need an agility and flexibility, build that into your workspace with moveable tables and chairs on wheels. The needs you have for your business should be held central to your considerations when creating an office.

Evergent Hyderabad Office - includes open floor plan to promote collaboration, whiteboards, chairs on wheels to promote agility and flexibility, and meeting spaces that have TVs for presentations for feedback

2. Your environment should inspire you.

These next questions might seem obvious, but it is often overlooked when it comes to designing the office, and that is: What sort of spaces inspire you? Where do you get your best work done? While the idea is to create an office that is inspiring to everyone, you as the CEO lead and set the culture of your workspace, so your spaces should speak to you. Really consider these questions, and don’t answer them in a way that you think you should but aren’t actually reflective of where you are at. If you would do better in a cozy space with lower ceilings and a large armchair over an open-concept floor plan, take that into consideration. Take a look at these couple unconventional working spaces:

My “office” on an airplane - picture taken before the global pandemic

For me, where I absolutely get my best work done is sitting on an airplane. No kidding – for me, there’s something magical about being suspended 30,000 feet in the air, looking down at the earth below me. When I get on a flight, I am flooded with ideas and energy to tackle those ideas. Travel in general absolutely inspires me, so on years that aren’t affected by a pandemic, I would sometimes take day trips to work on my business and our strategic direction. On these days, I would get up early and head to the Denver International Airport, and I’d be in a new city by noon, where I’d spend some time, and be back home that night. I’d also travel to run our client offsites, so I’d spend quite a bit of time in the best office I could possibly have, where I am traveling at 500 knots and my desk is a tray table. These days and investment in travel are a reliably some of the best uses of my time - I’ll come up with ideas that I could have never done sitting back at home. What does this mean for our office that is headquartered in Colorado? First, I let some of my design-minded employees who spend more time in it than me optimize it for their needs.  Second, our office is travel-inspired. We have numerous pictures on our walls from the international places that we’ve gone and the people we met while we were there. These people, places, and cultures are consistent reminders of why we do what we do – to steward a movement, no matter where you are born, anything is possible. We are on a global mission to empower workplaces to create opportunities of thriving and upward mobility for everyone. Whether I am soaring 30,000 feet high in an aircraft, or I am in an office in the mile-high city, I am reminded of that, and I am inspired.

Bob Goff, working on Tom Sawyer Island, picture taken from his Twitter.

When I think of another unconventional office space, I immediately think of Bob Goff, New York Times Best Seller and founder of the Love Does, an organization that fights for human rights and education for children in conflict zones. In his book with the same name as his organization, Bob revealed he had a rather unusual office: he worked out of Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland. He started there when he was a lawyer and law professor, worked there, and held office hours there for his students. While Disney may not have recognized Tom Sawyer Island as officially Bob’s office, working out of that particular little corner of Disneyland really works for him. Bob has an unusually attuned sense of whimsy, and he found it to be particularly inspiring – where he could reflect and understand who he was created to be and work accordingly.

With these two unconventional examples, this is to say, figure out what inspires you, and really run with it and incorporate it into your office space and design. As CEO, you have a lot of control over your workplace culture. How you show up every day matters to the overall tone and feel of your company, so your space should give you energy and creative inspiration.  

3. Your environment should be authentic to your company culture.

Our next consideration is a very important one, and that is: what is authentic to your company culture? If nobody in your company would honestly use a ping pong table in the break room, don’t waste your money in buying it. Dig into the culture you have, return to your foundational elements, like your core values and core purpose, and figure out the type of things to go into your space that would enhance that experience.

Evergent Hyderabad Office - Glass offices to promote transparency and accountability - something they really care about

As an example, while I greatly admire Evergent’s decision to have all glass conference rooms or open spaces in their Hyderabad office, I would never make that decision for my own office. Why? Because one of our core values is “Be the Confidant” – At PFD Group, we nurture a culture of confidentiality, trust, and vulnerability. When our clients reach out to us, they share their greatest opportunities and challenges. There are highly sensitive and confidential conversations that I regularly have with my clients. It would be imprudent and thoughtless of me to not have at least one office with soundproofing and opaque walls and doors so I can have these sorts of conversations. This isn’t to knock on Evergent’s decision to have such a transparent office – for their culture and office needs, a transparent and open workspace is a highly strategic and effective choice. In fact, like them, we have meeting rooms that our team can gather and strategize. But unlike Evergent, we have to design our space to support our core value of “Be the Confidant”, and that is important to note.

4. Your environment should support health and wellness

When I first started my coaching practice, I had an office in a co-working space. It was a smaller office, without any windows to the outside, only to the rest of the building. It worked for what I needed. I didn’t find it to be particularly inspiring, but that was okay, because I didn’t spend much of my time in the office anyway. Since I do my best work when I travel, I was always taking meetings around town, flying on airplanes to offsites, so I really was only in the office for short periods of time. As my business grew, I hired an Executive Assistant named Emmalee, and, after a few months, we outgrew the little office in the co-working building. As we looked for new offices, Emmalee had one request: that it have a window with sunlight. Because I spent so much of my time out of the office, I hadn’t considered the necessity of a window. Emmalee was spending so much time in the darker office, that inevitably, by 3:00pm each day, she felt drained and sluggish, even though she genuinely enjoyed her work and was learning a lot. When we moved offices, we got a space with a huge window overlooking the front range of the Rocky Mountains. With this change to our space, Emmalee reported that the days felt much shorter, and she remained energized and motivated throughout, increasing her productivity and capability. In fact, she is now no longer my executive assistant, but she heads up our marketing and client education efforts. To have such an office was undoubtedly a worthwhile investment.

Amazon’s Seattle Spheres.

There are many things we could consider when creating health in our working environment, but I want to focus on a couple of key elements that I believe should be in all offices. The first, is making sure we have the right layout and furniture to encourage health, whether this be through buying ergonomic furniture, or creating an office layout that encourages people to walk throughout the day. The second is to make sure we have elements of nature in our offices –through sunlight and plants. There are ample studies that show that having plants incorporated into our working spaces not only improve our mental and physical well-being, but they also boost our productivity. Natural light stimulates human metabolism and regulates blood pressure, while artificial light induces fatigue. 

One shot of the inside of Amazon’s Seattle Spheres. For more information, head to https://www.seattlespheres.com/

Large companies like Amazon are starting to understand this, making huge investments in creating sunny and plant-filled offices to give them a creative edge. The best example of Amazon’s work in this this called the spheres located in Seattle. The building is comprised of three large spheres, with glass to let natural light in, and more than 40,000 plants. Why did they invest all of this time and money? They recognize that people think and work differently when surrounded by plants.

My wife Kate’s family used to own a particularly special and inspiring space called Caribou Ranch. It was a recording studio built out of a converted barn in the Rocky Mountains near Nederland Colorado. Before a fire burned it down it 1985, it was an iconic recording studio.  Famous bands and artists like Elton John, Michael Jackson, Earth Wind & Fire, Chicago, Stevie Wonder and Amy Grant recorded there, and many of the albums and songs went platinum and won Grammys. Elton John even named one of his albums that he recorded there “Caribou”. Kate’s family knew there was something special about bringing talented people to a place where trees and mountains loomed overhead. Going there is like a breath of fresh air, where you could get needed reprieve and clear your head to do your best creative work.

Caribou Ranch - an inspiring setting for a recording studio

While you might not be able to create a near-biodome in the heart of Seattle or build a mountain campus, you can still incorporate plants and greenery into your spaces, and I encourage it.  In your office designs, make the investment of cultivating health. Not only give your employees a chance to have good furniture and to walk around, but also make sunlight and nature (like plants) be a central part of your office design. Your employees will be happier, healthier, more satisfied with their jobs, more productive, and more likely to produce their best creative work.

Evergent Office in Hyderabad - natural elements of plants and sunlight incorporated throughout

5. You can make small changes over time that add up to a cohesive design goal.

 If you don’t have the budget, these changes to your space don’t have to be made overnight. It is okay to slowly build a cohesive and beautiful office space over time – to prioritize the highest-leverage design elements and save the rest for when you have the budget and cash and buy other pieces later. Perhaps one quarter you will invest in whiteboards and a TV in your war room, and another quarter you will replace the desks, tables, and chairs. The important thing is that you make progress to bettering your space and culture. Small changes that you are making to create a better your space will still contribute positively to your employee experience. If you were to build slowly, make sure you have a plan for your needs and your space, so you don’t waste money on furniture or items that don’t match what you functionally need, or undercuts the design at a later point.

At PFD, as we have been building our coaching practice, we have prioritized different office design needs over time. In one iteration of our office (Q3 2019), we prioritized the creation of a War Room, so our strategy was highly visible. War Rooms can get messy-looking, which can undermine their functionality, so we used acrylic sheets as a design solution. The acrylic sheets anchored the War Room materials, giving it a clean, cohesive look, while also providing the functionality of a dry-erase board that allowed for the war room to be routinely updated.

6. If you don’t have the design talent to pull this off, find someone who does!

What if you’re like me, and you don’t have the design skillset to create an amazing office space? Like Evergent, you could get a professional interior design firm to come in, and create a beautiful office that is perfectly tailored to your needs. While, as CEO, you are in charge of the overall culture and employee experience, you don’t need to be and shouldn’t be personally in charge of every little detail. It’s okay to hire the right people to overhaul your environment. What if you have the resources to buy new furniture, but not necessarily to hire an entire interior design firm? That’s okay – having a great looking office space is still possible for you and your employees! If you don’t have the skillset, find someone who does! Perhaps one of your current employees would be interested in self-teaching interior design and would be happy to take on your working environment as a special project. That’s what happened for me - several of my employees have been quite happy to take over our interior design. Perhaps you could go to your local college’s design school and find an intern who would vastly benefit from having an entire office that they conceptualized and put together on their portfolio. Perhaps your spouse has a talented friend who just had a baby and is looking for a flexible gig while they raise their child. Whoever you hire to get the job done, just make sure they have context into your culture, needs, sources of inspiration, and elements that support health, like sunlight and plants. The possibilities are endless, it just takes some creativity into finding the right people to making it happen.

A suggestion: take some time (10-30 minutes) to brainstorm to truly consider your working environment and and write down:

1. What would it look like to be able to step into your workspace and immediately know what kind of culture you have?

2. In your current office space, does everyone have what we need to do their jobs? If not, what’s missing?

3. What sort of spaces inspire you? Where do you get your best work done? How could you incorporate what inspires you into your current space?

4. When it comes to working spaces, what is authentic to your company culture? What do your employees enjoy doing? What do you value, and what might it look like to incorporate what you value into your design?

5. Do you have any sunlight or plants in your office? Do you have opportunities for your employees to move around or sit in ergonomic furniture?  If the answer is no, what do you need to do to incorporate these elements into your workspace?

6. Who do you need to make this possible? If it is not you, what can you feasibly do to get the right people to transform your workspace?

7. What are you doing to make your home work space inspiring until you can get safely back to the office? Do you have plants? Ergonomic furniture? A standing desk? Are you going for walks frequently?