In March of 2020 when COVID-19 hit, many organizations updated their remote work policies at least temporarily to allow people to work from home. Twitter made headlines in May by announcing that a remote work option would be available to their 5,000+ full-time workforce, forever! 15Five CEO, David Hassell interviews Twitter’s head of HR to discuss what Twitter has learned from making this shift after several months. 

Jennifer Christie is the VP of People and Chief Human Resources Officer at Twitter. She leads the global people team and works with the executive management team and board of directors to support the strategic direction of the company. Jennifer oversees talent acquisition and management, diversity and inclusion, people systems and analytics, organizational and performance management, and training and development.

Even before COVID, Twitter allowed employees to work remotely as part of their larger strategies around decentralization and Diversity & Inclusion. Now as a fully remote organization, in order to maintain the camaraderie that existed in the office, Jennifer and her team find ways to maintain deep connections between “Tweeps” in the remote space. Additionally, they have shifted their benefits plan to support people’s health and well-being in a new reality where gyms are closed and people need certain staple equipment to be successful at home. 

Hopefully, in the next year or so, the health risk will abate and people will begin returning to the office once it is safe to do so. Twitter, like many other businesses, are planning a “return to office” strategy. At Twitter, offices will be available for the people who want to return to a shared physical working space. For now, Jennifer shares how to maintain social and emotional connections without a physical office and why it’s imperative that companies start planning for this readjustment now. 

How has Covid created new roles for HR within your organization? Tell us in the comments on the episode page!

Also in this episode:

• Going fully remote and returning to the office 
• Helping employees with resources, setting boundaries, and remote benefits
• “Camp Twitter” - Supporting parents when school and camp are closed
• Diversity & Inclusion at Twitter - a comprehensive strategy including transparency, and setting goals that optimize for D&I efforts 
• HR as strategic partner to the Board and the rest of the C-suite

Quotes

“If we want to be able to attract and retain this growing employee base that is growing very rapidly, we’ve got to start shifting our culture. We have to shift how we work if we’re going to be inclusive of that work style.” [0:57]

“We want to try to engineer a different experience so people don’t feel compelled to come back to the office if they don’t want to because they feel like they’re missing out on something.” [13:33]

“I don’t think you can nail inclusion if you don’t have a diverse workforce. Decentralization is a key driver of that.” [27:05]

Links

Start With Why by Simon Sinek

Washington Post: “Twitter Employees Don’t Ever Have to Go Back to the Office (Unless They Want to)”

Keeping Our Employees and Partners Safe During #Coronavirus

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