PMP Membership Event - AMA w Darcy Marie Mayfield

[00:00:00] David: All right, well, welcome everybody. This is the latest edition of our Ask Me Anything series. Uh, we're hoping to see these continue to grow and become a valuable way for our members to sort of engage with the experts who contribute to people managing people. Uh, so thank you for the feedback that you've given us so far.

We really appreciate it. Uh, for those of who don't know me, my name is David Rice. I'm the senior editor of People Managing People, and I'll be your host for today. Today's session is going to be focused on building great hybrid and remote work cultures. Uh, and we'll be speaking with future of work, thought leader and culture architect, Darcy Marie Mayfield.

Uh, she's got an episode coming up on the podcast too, by the way, definitely want to check that out. She's a, like I said, future of work, thought leader, culture architect, remote work first experience designer. She's passionate about, [00:01:00] uh, wellbeing and building strong company culture. So I can't wait for us to.

Really dig into this and hopefully you all have lots of great questions ready. Um, we'll be getting started in just a sec for now in the chat. Why wasn't, why doesn't everybody tell us where you're joining from today? And, uh, if you feel so inclined, tell us what your biggest, the biggest challenge you're facing at work right now is.

And while you all do that, I'm just going to handle a few little housekeeping items just so that we can kind of establish how this would be going. Um, this session is being recorded. We may use clips from it on our website. So just keep that in mind. Uh, you can keep your camera on. You can keep turn it off.

Whatever you're more comfortable with. I've kept I've kept your microphone. I've kept your microphones off for now. Um, but if you feel like asking a question yourself, just feel free to use the little hand raise emoji. It's kind of in the center of your screen there by all the emojis just underneath it.

Uh, so feel free to pop that on if you wanted to ask it yourself. [00:02:00] Otherwise, the rules are very simple. Uh, you can post a question in the Q& A section, and we'll get Darcy to answer as many as we can in an hour. Um, so feel free to, Also have like side conversations in there, however you want to handle it, but pops pop your questions in there and we'll take care of it from there.

Um, we've got some folks here who are guests and I would extend a big welcome to you. Uh, we have also some people from our people managing people community. So this is just one of the series of monthly sessions with HR experts that we hold for our members. Uh, if you're not currently a member, but you want to check it out, you can learn more about it at, uh, peoplemanagingpeople.

com forward slash membership, head on over there. Uh, Gail and I laid out kind of some of the biggest benefits of it, uh, on that page. So, all right, without further ado, Darcy, welcome.

[00:02:52] Darcy: Hi, thanks for having me.

[00:02:54] David: Well, just to get the ball rolling, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

[00:02:58] Darcy: Sure. Um, as David [00:03:00] mentioned, I, uh, feature work thought leader.

I've been in the distributed remote workspace for almost 10 years now. Um, started kind of my career, I would say, like off traditional career at Airbnb in 2014 working with distributed teams. And prior to that, I was actually Fully in the hospitality industry. And so I like to really say that I am at the intersection of the future of work and hospitality because I really think about how we're looking at the future of work is really holistic.

It's cultural. It's about the whole person. How do we treat people? In a way, as if they were traveling to another country or a hotel and having that experience, and I really look at the experience design process from higher all the way to retire and how that person feels when they go into a remote environment.

So, um, that's what I do. I design experiences. I'm now working a bit as well with economies and cities. to help attract remote workers for economic development. I'm working directly with [00:04:00] Tulsa Remote at the moment to design work cations and a work cation blueprint for them, um, for economic diversity. So I think there's a million different ways remote work can better the world and those are a few that I work on.

[00:04:12] David: Yeah, definitely check it out on the podcast. We kind of talked about the Tulsa project a little bit. Super cool stuff. I'm really excited to see how that develops. So, uh, I'll just jump into some of the questions that we already have. So, 1 of the ones I think is interesting is it says we're transitioning from a very in person social culture to a more remote social culture.

So, to 1 office party, we booked out a water slide park for folks who live near headquarters, but many of our remote. Employees and contractors were not included. So the question is, what are some ways to facilitate team building with remote teams in different time zones?

[00:04:50] Darcy: Yeah, I mean, I think that that that question is a very real one and one that so many people are dealing with right now.

I think I'm gonna answer it in a little different way that might be more beneficial if [00:05:00] that's okay. And if it doesn't hit the mark, just let me know. Um, I think when you're really thinking about when you have In person events as well as facilitating remote first events is how do you create sort of a similar experience?

A similar feel, but two experiences, right? And so I don't have enough creative juices right now or time to tell you what you could do specifically for the water slide event. But I'll give you an example. So we were throwing an in person event once Where we were bringing an astrologer into, I'm sorry, astronomer, not astrologer, an astronomer to a little different, uh, to look at the stars in the middle of the desert in Arizona.

And there were a lot of people that could not join that in person event. And so what we did is we used the budget per person to actually buy telescopes for all the people at home and sent them to them. And then we were able to actually do an online class. We're going to be talking about how [00:06:00] to map the stars to the ones in Arizona.

So really thinking about how do you start to create this cohesive experience, even though they're really different, but what's that tie in between the two, because they're never going to be exactly the same. So I hope that gives you an answer to the question of really starting to thinking, think about, okay, these people are getting in person.

We know these people are going to be bummed. How do we create this experience where everyone's going to be stoked that's going to be some sort of similar container.

[00:06:28] David: Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, God, there must have been some great opportunities around like the eclipse last week, but yeah. No, like, you know, the I like that because everybody experiences of stars in some way, right?

So it's sort of like you can always everybody can have this. So that's cool. Um, so there's one person asked, do you have any examples of virtual team celebrations that don't make people feel like it's 2020 all over again? Because God knows, like, None of us want to relive that year. So

[00:06:59] Darcy: for sure. [00:07:00] I mean, I don't know how people are going to feel when they're having a virtual celebration.

They may camp themselves back in 2020, but I think there's a lot of really creative things you can do. Um, some things I've seen to be very successful actually are mostly related with food. Um, it's something you're always Already doing at home. It spans cultures. Um, done the great bake off competition before.

So people bake cakes at home with their families, get on a zoom call, present the cakes. And then there's an async judging. Um, so I've seen that would be really successful as a virtual celebration versus just like, okay, I'm gonna hop on a call and we're having like a happy hour. Like, I don't want to do that.

That sounds awful to me, but if it's something that's going to be creative outside of the house, maybe it's sparking some sort of creative juice. You can do it with your family. And then you're bringing that activity from the outside in to the virtual space. I've seen to be very, very successful and it creates a much stronger feeling and through line of, of creating that collaborate, uh, collaborative [00:08:00] culture.

[00:08:02] David: Very cool. Um, 1, you know, obviously we're moving. A lot of us are going towards hybrid, right? And this is becoming more and more popular. Hybrid calls, though, continue to be a little bit of an obstacle for some folks, especially when you've got meeting rooms. How do you make hybrid calls work for in person and virtual attendees kind of at the same time?

You know, because virtual folks, it's hard to kind of feel included, or you might feel at a disadvantage in many of the hybrid calls that we're experiencing right now.

[00:08:33] Darcy: Yeah, I mean, it's it's going to be a harsh reality answer, and no one's going to want to hear it. But I have have everybody on zoom, even if they're all in the same room.

Um, it's really about creating the equity of experience. And I think it's really important to start shifting our mindsets into if you're going to be hybrid, if you're going to be an office first culture, then those Remote employees are always going to be left out and you're gonna have location bias and and inequity.

Like that is a very harsh [00:09:00] real reality that people need to start accepting. Um, if you're willing to really start to shift into a remote first mindset, sure you have offices, you have people there. It's really about how do we now adopt remote first principles to ensure that everybody is included. And that includes taking calls specifically from Zoom one on one so everybody's on the same plane.

[00:09:21] David: Yeah, there's a lot of like, uh, technology platforms. I've seen they're trying to address this and you've got like the metaverse stuff. I'm just wondering how much of that is actually going to be able to re simulate essentially in person experiences versus, or is it going to create like new types of bias?

I sometimes wonder.

[00:09:41] Darcy: No, I think a few of them, like I am, I tend to not be a fan, but that's also because like, I don't think I've explored enough of them That said, I did a, an AMA actually in one recently, and it was kind of cool. It was actually like a cool experience. I was able to like bump [00:10:00] into people and like, we were all in the same room and people were able to raise their hands.

And like, it didn't simulate, like it was really geeky. Like it was totally this like 1980s, like video game style. But at the end of the day, it did, it, it solved the problem that they were trying to solve for. So I can't complain about it.

[00:10:19] David: Interesting.

[00:10:20] Darcy: Yeah.

[00:10:21] David: Well, uh, Fred asks, I'm a big fan of remote work for a majillion, which I didn't know was a number, but a majillion reasons.

But one of the things I'm most excited about is the tremendous, but often lesser seen benefits, particularly to neurodivergent people, introverts and others for whom working in an office is challenging or even under the best circumstances. Could you speak to some of the major benefits, ways that orgs can be more mindful of this and ways that work from home workers can support.

the embrace of these benefits.

[00:10:54] Darcy: I'll answer the second part of that question first. I mean, I'm somebody who's neurodivergent as well. And when I [00:11:00] used to be in the Airbnb office, I, people would find me with bags of flour on my chest when I have panic attacks, like in the, in the back kitchen with our kitchen team, because it was too much simulation for me.

And I couldn't get permission to work remotely. Doesn't matter, but I've definitely been through that experience and I found is when I started working fully remotely, in order to take advantage of those benefits, I really had to train myself. I had to train myself around my energy. I had to train myself around really resourcing myself before I logged into work, really saying, okay, I know that if I meditate, I do my breath work or I work out.

Which I didn't have time to do when I was commuting to the office, I'm now in a much better position to be able to show up wholly and fully if I do need to be synchronous online. So I think that's, that's the answer to the second part of the question that I would offer. Um, let me just read this again.

Some of the major benefits what orgs can do. I mean, I think in a lot of ways, it's really [00:12:00] looking at the traditional model and saying there might be people that don't talk in a call. There might be people who actually need that time to process and then be able to respond to maybe a decision that might be being made or respond to something that was shared in the call.

And so I think it's a It's really making sure that there's a strong asynchronous feedback mechanism infrastructure in place with clear guidelines. With we had this call, you have 24 hours to respond with your thoughts and then we're going to make a decision. I think really starting to implement different ways of the way different people process information is really important.

And one of the things instead of just dump, just jumping to that is asking your team one on one, depending on how big your team is. How do you best process information? How do you bet? What do you need to show up best at work? And then once you understand sort of the makeup of your team, you're able to architect the environment that's in support and alignment of the business needs, as well as the [00:13:00] needs of the individuals that you have, it takes a little more work, but you're going to get more out of it.

[00:13:05] David: All right. So, um, Fay asks, as a remote work advocate, what are the things that you struggled the hardest to replicate from the in person workplace? Are there some things that will just never have an equivalent in a remote context?

[00:13:19] Darcy: Yeah, I mean, the hardest to replicate, the hardest to replicate, I would say, If you're not intentional about it is shared experience.

So I use this example a lot. There's if let's say you have an office in Silicon Valley and a lot of the employees live in Oakland. Well, it's very likely those individuals are taking part every day to the office. They have a shared sense of what their days are like. There's this shared Understanding that completely goes out the window in remote work.

There's no sense of shared experience unless, except for the one, the architect online, both asynchronously and [00:14:00] synchronously within the culture that you have. And so I think that's. That's a reality. That's like the hardest thing to replicate and you're, you're not going to replicate it unless you're very intentional about the moments you do want to replicate.

Are there some things that will never have an equivalent in remote context? Yeah, there's no replacement for getting in person. I think some people think that as a remote work advocate, I'm like, against getting in person. And I get that a lot. And I that's a total misconception. Like, I really think it's about really designing that in in person time to build that deeper sense of trust.

You have those really hard conversations to make really strong decisions to energize the next six months or 12 months going forward in whatever your planning is. So I do not think that there is a replacement. for in person time and that in person connection, but I do think it can vastly be supplemented by the way you architect the virtual time around that.

[00:14:58] David: Yeah, I would agree. I think there's a lot of [00:15:00] chitchat around like, you know, water cooler moments to call. Everybody always likes to talk about that one, and I think it, I mean, first of all, I remember a lot of people stopping by my desk when I worked in an office and being a little annoyed by the end of the day, to be honest.

I was ready to go home, but no, like, I just think of like, you know, those, those water cooler moments. And I found that. As we've gone on in remote work over the last couple years, I think I've found ways to replace them most of the time, you know, like, they're not that hard to engineer.

[00:15:32] Darcy: Well, and what's cool though, too, I think, is the water cooler moments or shared experience channels, you can actually be so much more prescriptive in what you're sort of permitting, permitting people to talk about.

And the reason I use the word permitting is because in a virtual space, people don't know if it's okay to talk about water cooler stuff in an HQ channel. They don't know if it's okay to talk about pets in a product channel, right? Like you actually [00:16:00] can name the channels in order for the behavior you want to see.

So if you see a lot of people talking about Art or music, let's say. You can go and create that channel, and there's this wonderful vessel where people are now connecting on their own. Just because you notice that these are themes that people do share and they share that experience so you can actually be even more intentional about it versus being exhausted about the end of the day, because people just wanna talk to you about what color shirt you're wearing or the fact that you're.

Tuna fish smells. I don't know.

[00:16:29] David: Oh man, I was never that guy.

[00:16:31] Darcy: Have

[00:16:31] David: you

[00:16:32] Darcy: been a microwave fish

[00:16:33] David: guy? Oh god, no. Uh, uh, Galen popped this question in the chat. I think it says, uh, can you tell us any stories of what it was like working for Airbnb in 2014? What was the challenge you took on there and what was the most surprising obstacles you faced to get there?

[00:16:52] Darcy: Oh, it's a really loaded question. Uh, it was wild guys. It was fucking [00:17:00] wild. I mean, I joined it 400 people and left it 8, 000. Four years later, I'd be sitting at lunch and Steph Curry would be at the table next to us. I was. Designing a trip in Cuba the day Fidel Castro died. Um, it was wild. It was wild. I don't know what else to say other than the fact it was a highly innovative environment that was like a massive playground.

But also really intentionally designed. And so I think it gave me a lot of permission to just experiment with a lot of things, especially when it comes to remote work. I didn't have necessarily a frame of reference of like, this is how things should be. Which was really cool. Um, I don't know, Galen, what other, like, that's a really broad question, so I'm happy to answer a little more, like, specific ones.

[00:17:55] Galen: I'm cool. I hop on the mic if you're okay with that, but I'm just thinking, I'm looking [00:18:00] at your LinkedIn and it's like, you're doing remote work pilots for Airbnb. And like, like you said, like hyper rapid growth. And I'm assuming, I mean, as long as you're allowed to talk about this, I'm assuming that, you know, there were that growth had that intentionality to have like this remote first focus because it's such a distributed business and they needed to figure it out really, really fast to not disappoint Steph Curry and, and, and other stakeholders.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, like, was that like, uh, was, was it dragging people uphill to this? Like idea that remote work is, is the only way that this is going to work? Or was it the opposite where people were like, like, they brought you on to try and like pull the rest of the organization up to like, be like, remote is the vision.

Let's go everybody. Or neither.

[00:18:44] Darcy: Neither. So remote work, there was actually a fairly large subset of remote employees. Um, pre 2014 when I joined, and they actually had everybody move to offices as a [00:19:00] requirement. Um, I just started leading really small remote work pilots because I was really passionate about it and partially was because of my neuro, uh, divergency.

Like, I wasn't getting a lot of the work done that I knew that I could bring to the table with, you know, The disorders that I do have. And so I knew that there were a lot of other people like me, so I pitched, Hey, let's test this out, you know, a couple days a month. Like, here's what it's gonna look like here, what the results from our team.

Um, it never honestly took off. And that's the reason I left Airbnb was because I. If I wasn't going to move to San Francisco, my career just was going to be stunted at the time. It was pre 2020. And I, I think as well, Airbnb is a very in person culture. They're a very shared experience culture. Like that's who they are.

And that's wonderful. Um, it just wasn't something that was going to work for me and my makeup. So

[00:19:53] David: you mean like your personal makeup, not like your makeup cabinet? Yeah.

[00:19:57] Darcy: Yeah. Like my personal. [00:20:00]

[00:20:01] David: Sorry, we were tired of the dad jokes. I just, yeah, I had to keep the theme going. Okay. Uh, something that I'm curious about and this is kind of like this idea of remote work equipment classism. Now you see this wonderful microphone sticking into my face and I probably sound pretty decent on it.

So, uh, but not everybody has this stuff, right? So like in the future, are people going to be sort of measured by like quality of your microphone or your lighting? I've seen people with like some pretty elaborate lighting. Setups and cameras that aren't even attached to their computer, all kinds of different, all of

[00:20:35] Darcy: them.

Yeah.

[00:20:36] David: Yeah. Yeah. So like, is that already happening or is that part of what will come? And what do you think about that sort of development in the remote workspace and how people present themselves?

[00:20:46] Darcy: That's a really interesting question, right? Think we could spend a long time unpacking this. Um, I actually put a light up today, which I don't normally have, which I think it's flashing.

Oh no, it's not flashing. I don't know what's going on [00:21:00] here. Um, which I don't normally have because I saw that question on here and I was like, maybe I should have a light today. Um, I don't know the answer to that. I would think it would be bullshit if a company were to, without providing the materials to judge individuals based on their setup.

Right. Like I'm not sure. That to me feels like it's a responsibility of the company to provide the tools if that's going to be the expectation. Um, that to say, there's another question on here that I think fits a little bit into this that I want to talk about is, You know, cameras on, cameras off. Like if somebody's camera is off, I find it personally incredibly disrespectful because they're not, and if I'm, if I'm one on one with somebody, right?

Like, I'm going to give you the time of day. I'm going to look at you. I spent the time to be here. Like, pay attention to me. I don't know how many other things you're doing right now. Like, I don't find it respectful. And that's another interesting thing. It's, I think [00:22:00] there's this. world that we're living in that I don't think is going to end anytime soon of different expectations of how people should and can show up to meetings virtually.

And I think that has a lot to do with dress. I think that has a lot. I've taken a meeting from a wetsuit before, but it was, I decided to take it because I knew wearing the wetsuit because I knew the people on the call. And so it's really about like, okay, how do I best want to present myself for the environment that I'm going to be in?

But I think that's twofold because it's, are people going to, you have to know if the person is expecting you to show up in a certain way too. So I think it really comes down to expectations and providing the materials.

[00:22:44] David: Yeah, I gotta get on a wavelength where they expect me to be in a wetsuit.

[00:22:48] Darcy: Exactly,

[00:22:49] David: Michael.

[00:22:50] Darcy: Yeah, like, come on.

[00:22:52] David: Yeah.

[00:22:53] Darcy: Tides.

[00:22:54] David: Yeah, I mean, I can't help the timing of this meeting. No. So, [00:23:00] um, Fred asks, Could you speak to any new research or trends in and around remote work? Related to productivity, execution, problem solving, culture, belonging, those kind of things, because I imagine things like time loss to distractions are down, no more popping in to ask a question at your desk, like we talked about earlier.

But as you said, building strong relationships takes more intention and maybe a little bit more time. So have there been any, I think anybody kind of what he's getting at, has there been any studies into kind of how that balances out or.

[00:23:33] Darcy: I have honestly been so far for the last, like, four months in the economic development realm that I can't speak super intelligently to studies at the moment.

I do know that, uh, FlexIndex at Scoop just released a pretty strong productivity study, um, that I'm happy to share after this call. I haven't had a chance to dive into it at the moment. I do think, though, It's hard with all of these studies that come up because at the end of the day, it's about the culture [00:24:00] and the architecture of the culture of the individual company and how that company is really lining people up in the field and setting their employees up for success as well as setting their people up for success with a foundation of psychological stability.

And those things need to be in alignment in order for productivity to skyrocket. And so When I look at these studies and it says, you know, Nike's CEO says productivity went down because people because of remote work and it's like, did it or can you actually fairly say that? What was your remote work environment?

Like if it we were just on zoom all day, then yeah, no shit. Your productivity is going to go down. Our brains are fried at the end of the day. So I think it's really, really specific around to the individuals that you're hiring in the environment in which you're architecting.

[00:24:49] David: Absolutely. I think that and then it's there's another piece of that, which is how you define and measure productivity, which always has to change, right?

Especially in the setting where you can't look [00:25:00] over someone's shoulder necessarily. And a lot of times, like the work that we're doing, you know, if you see you've got somebody doing data analysis for a day, well, that's not going to show up on your website or in your product necessarily. But it doesn't mean that they're not working and being really productive and doing something important.

And it's just how we sort of monitor And measure that is just sort of has to keep evolving.

[00:25:23] Darcy: And it's all a mindset thing. And I think part of it, in a lot of ways, it's, it's generational too. And I, and I think that that that's something I talked to my, my dad's 84, and it's something I talked to him a lot about.

Um, and he was in, in academia for a long time. And I remember recently I was going on a work trip to Ireland to speak at a conference and he was like, Oh, you sure are taking a lot of time off. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? Like, no, I'm just working remotely. Like, I'm not taking any time off. Like, I'm, I'm working the entire time I'm there, and I think I talk to a lot of individuals.

Who say, I feel like I have to make it like, I feel like I have to over [00:26:00] compensate for working remotely. I feel like I have to show that I'm online all the time because the environment or sort of the leadership isn't saying on a multiple occasion level, we trust you to get your work done. We're results driven environment.

You don't need to presence isn't productivity.

[00:26:18] David: Absolutely. Fred just put in a follow up note there, uh, read the research. He said a lot of it is still finding its grounding, so it's probably not far along. Kind of like AI trends, nothing is really stable.

[00:26:30] Darcy: Yeah, listen though.

[00:26:32] David: Yeah.

[00:26:33] Darcy: Yeah, I think that just, I really think that we're three to five years out of companies really codifying their hybrid operating rhythms, their remote first operating rhythms.

Um, I mean, if, if you're trying to transition a 500 plus person company out of the office. Like that's like tearing down a house and rebuilding it. Like it's gonna take time. And I, that's just a reality that people [00:27:00] and people on this call, like give yourself some grace. Like no one is going to figure this out right now.

It's all an experimental field.

[00:27:08] David: Yeah. I didn't like anything like that. Right. You got to throw some things at the wall, see what sticks. Some of it's not going to work. It's okay. So, um, So first, this question was interesting to me, too, is for some orgs, uh, working remote is an option, but in other industries, maybe some of you worked in remote work is actually quite a necessity.

So what is your biggest remote work success story? And what challenges did you face along the way?

[00:27:35] Darcy: I would say my biggest remote work success story comes from TaxJar. So I was the director of culture at a fully remote, uh, SaaS company called, or SaaS tech company called TaxJar, where we filed sales tax.

all across the United States. Super boring industry. Like, on, like, everybody will tell you that. Every [00:28:00] worker will tell you that. It's like, it's like the hardest, most, like a bagel is, a full bagel is taxed differently than a sliced bagel. Like, it is so absurdly complicated to solve sales tax. Like, I cannot even tell you.

But what's amazing about it is that the founders at the time said, okay, we have this really, really hard problem to solve. Right? Like, really hard problem. And I never want to miss my kids, uh, baseball games. So what if we just hire people, really smart people that really care about solving hard problems with other smart people?

That's it. That was the entire criteria. And we were incredibly successful and ended up selling to Stripe. We, with no overhead, we went from 3 million to 50 million ARR in three years, um, and went from 25 employees to 300 without any real estate. And so because that decision was made so Early [00:29:00] being able to be so intentional, intentional about our hiring process, our architecting, the culture process, really designing specifically for this environment was an incredible success.

And that's what I try to help people with now is catch them early and make those decisions really early before the culture develops in a, in a different way than you want it.

[00:29:22] David: Absolutely. All right, so we've reached the uh, half hour mark, which means we need like a little half time question. We gotta, we gotta break it up a bit.

So I'm just gonna ask you something random. Do you wash the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher?

[00:29:36] Darcy: I've never owned a dishwasher.

[00:29:40] David: One. That's even crazier than washing them first.

[00:29:45] Darcy: And also, so I, my husband, I'm like not very good at washing dishes. So like my husband will come in the kitchen, he'll pick a glass up and he'll be like, excuse me, can you come here Darcy?

I'm like, yeah sure. And he's like, [00:30:00] does this look clean to you?

But it's great.

[00:30:04] David: I've pretty much gotten

[00:30:05] Darcy: out of, like, ever having to do dishes now because I'm so bad at it.

[00:30:08] David: This is bringing back memories of my last marriage. I got that question a lot.

[00:30:18] Darcy: Yeah, but I've never owned a dishwasher. I never had a microwave growing up. Um, yeah. All

[00:30:25] David: right, well, I don't know. I haven't owned a microwave in about 4 years now, and I really don't miss it.

So, yeah,

[00:30:30] Darcy: I've never

[00:30:31] David: had 1 more thing. I got to clean. It takes up a bunch of space. Yeah. Um, all right. Well, that was that was good. I like that. That's wow. All right, so, um, we'll start, we'll back up with this 1. so what skills might a newly remote worker need to proactively focus on when I'm stumbling through this question.

So what skills might a newly remote worker need to proactively focus on to keep [00:31:00] when, uh, yeah, when transitioning from in person work? Sorry.

[00:31:06] Darcy: Yeah, there's a lot. Um, so a little quick plug for my playbook, The Shift System, there's an entire section of, uh, exercises on this called, and it's called Train Your Brain.

And really, it's interesting. I've talked to over a thousand remote workers in the last five years. And Everyone new to remote, no matter their tenure, no matter their age, goes through this very similar assimilation process where there's this self permission in order to say, can I really go out on a bike ride in the middle of the day?

Can I really leave my computer? Am I really allowed to design my life around my work now? And really getting through that like self permission and guilt that can often come up is going to be really important. And so my advice is to really start learning how to manage your energy and not your time [00:32:00] in alignment with the goals and alignment with the company and the needs that you're working for, whether you're a consultant or you're working full time, whatever it might be.

So I think that's really important. And part of that is just having boundaries with yourself. And that is hard and really important and takes a lot of practice. So I'd say those are the two things that are really important is learning how to train your brain and manage your energy and not your time and really start experimenting early on.

Start doing things that might have felt scary when you first started working remotely. Maybe you get in for a month, you get into the groove of your job and you're like, Maybe I really do need to go to the post office at 2 p. m. today and don't tell anybody you're going. Just go and see how that feels.

See if you come back and things are on fire. 99. 9 percent chance they're not. Don't take your phone with you. Take slack off. Like start to play with these very small but very impactful moments so [00:33:00] you can start to take control of your life back.

[00:33:04] David: Yeah, that definitely takes some getting used to, right? The first time you go out.

It takes

[00:33:08] Darcy: time! And

[00:33:09] David: then,

[00:33:10] Darcy: based on my qualitative analysis, the average, like, assimilation to fully remote from in first office, like, mindset shift is about two years.

[00:33:21] David: Well, yeah. Yeah, I would say that's about right. I think I had a very similar experience. So, but you've been, you've been working remotely for almost a decade.

Um, so, You know, what are some of your best examples from your career, basically, on how to not treat remote employees? Because you've seen, uh, basically workplaces go through the whole experiences of getting, bringing in remote. So what's some of the worst things that you've seen, I guess?

[00:33:51] Darcy: Deciding for people without asking them.

And I think that's something people miss so much. Like y'all, your people have all [00:34:00] the answers, literally all of them. And I think I see so many leadership teams just making decisions without even asking a subset of employees. Like what would benefit even the customer? What would benefit the product? What would benefit the innovation?

Like. That answer might be different than you assume. And so I think that's a really important one. I also think, um, command and control hierarchy is one that a lot of people are still trying to implement that doesn't work at all. That's definitely something not to do. Um, One thing that I'll say that I do not think the majority or really hardly any company has moved away from is the visualization, and stay with me here, of how we look at organizational structures.

And so a lot of the times, And most tools [00:35:00] have a very hierarchical, like, org chart, so top down, and it's, it's usually, um, very traditional. And I think, in a lot of ways, that makes people feel really small, like they can't talk to people above them, because when they're looking visually on a screen, they're seeing people above them.

And so I think, in expressing that, Experimenting with amoeba style, uh, organizational charts, experimenting with heartbeat style organizational charts. It's, it's harder and there aren't a lot of tools that support it, but I do think the visual cues are really important to how people expect to be treated.

And I think we default to this command and control, this hierarchical, very hierarchical structure just because of our visual cues that we're used to and we repeatedly see online.

[00:35:50] David: Yeah, absolutely. I think people have, you know, it's sort of like we've all been sort of trained to expect some level of, I don't want to call it [00:36:00] gamification, but kind of in a way, right?

Like the, like you said, the visual cues, it's, it all comes back to like, that's the center of a lot of our experience now.

[00:36:08] Darcy: Yeah.

[00:36:10] David: So you mentioned their command and control tactics or models, basically, that folks try to implement. Sometimes I wonder, does that come out of, like, a feeling that, like, you got to force people to do things, they're lazy, that that sort of mentality towards your employees?

And if so, how can HR folks sort of convince leaders that remote employees are not lazy?

[00:36:36] Darcy: I hate this question. I hate this question because I hate that anyone has to convince anyone of anything. Like I, I think if you're having to convince a CEO or a C suite that remote workers aren't lazy, I wish you the best of luck.

You should probably find another job. Like, Those people aren't going to change their mind unless it's something that they're [00:37:00] experiencing themselves and they've seen the benefit themselves. And I think that that's really important. Like you can collaborate all the data in the world and that may strengthen your case.

It depends on. your relationship with the person you're trying to convince. But I think it really comes down to, if you're going to convince anybody, it's about saying, have you experienced this? What has been your experience working remotely? Have you gotten more done? What has your environment been like?

And really reflecting it back for them to share their own experience versus saying, Look at all these amazing people who are working well remotely. Well, that's all great and good, but if this person doesn't work well remotely, that you're trying to convince there, it's very unlikely that you're ever going to genuinely get them on board.

[00:37:45] David: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I had a colleague once who told me, stop trying to convince people. No, one's changing their mind about anything you just have to. Basically find a part of their experience you can engage with and then see how you can slide your argument into what [00:38:00] they understand and relate to.

[00:38:02] Darcy: Yeah, and it's like, if somebody needs, I, let's say I know somebody needs to go to therapy and they don't want to go, well, good luck. I hope at some point you find a, Amazing therapist, but I, I'm not going to give it to you to go. It's it'll never work.

[00:38:17] David: Absolutely not.

We got a hand up. Okay. When you want to ask a question, go ahead.

[00:38:23] Galen: I was typing it out. I was like, nah, this is easier just to say it. I want to make sure I picked up on something earlier. You said you're working with cities. And what I gathered was working with cities to attract remote workers. Um, and even, uh, I think it was Amy who had mentioned earlier on, uh, you know, this return to office strategy, these mandates, this push back to like, you know, the brick and mortar leasehold.

Like when that seems to be the more popular priority for businesses, like what are cities doing and what are you helping cities to do to incentivize companies to have remote workers in those cities? Or am I misunderstanding what [00:39:00] you're doing?

[00:39:00] Darcy: No, that's okay. So I don't wouldn't necessarily, it's kind of a tiered structure, right?

Like I wouldn't necessarily say it's in incentivizing companies to have for more, more, more remote workers, right? Like it's, it's about incentivizing individuals who already work remotely to go experience this city because there's So for example, Tulsa remote, there's 3000 remote workers who have moved to Tulsa over the past five years.

They've seen 500 million in economic development from it. They've completely diversified their economy. And so if you're a remote worker and you're saying, cool, I've been living in Nebraska most of my life and now I work remotely and maybe I want to try something new, maybe I want. Like a smaller city or maybe you've been living in New York for a long time, but I want a smaller city, but I still want access to music and art and all of these things.

Well, here's this attraction strategy where the city is saying we want to diversify our economy. [00:40:00] So I'm just going to use Tulsa as the example here, traditionally oil and steel. So there's not a lot outside of that. So in order to diversify the economy, we've got to bring in brains that are outside the oil and steel industry.

And we can do that via remote work. And there's a lot of other cities that started to do this on a global level as well.

[00:40:20] Galen: That's really cool.

[00:40:21] Darcy: But what's cool is like, it is sort of a three pronged approach though, because when there's enough remote workers in that space, companies get interested and they say, okay, what are these people struggling with?

How do we learn how to be better at remote work? How do we maybe do off sites where we're learning how to be better than remote work in these destinations? So it's a slow roll, but I think it's, it's all connected.

[00:40:46] David: So, um, You met, Galen mentioned Amy there, and I remembered that she put in the chat earlier, she was interested in hearing some stuff about kind of like RTO mandates and their effect on attrition, and [00:41:00] I, we've covered this quite a bit on the website as well, done a few stories on it, and for organizations that are sort of investing a lot of energy into these policies, what I, do you think that they're doing it for the wrong reasons, essentially, like, what is the remote alternative to achieving the in part, Like the in person productivity and vibe and why isn't it more popular?

[00:41:24] Darcy: I'm so sorry. I was reading, uh, Fred's quote or his thing in here. Will you repeat the question?

[00:41:32] David: No worries. Uh, no, it was just, it was talking about the remote, uh, return to office, sorry, the mandates that are coming out and sort of these, these, these, Organizations that are investing a lot of energy into these return to office policies.

And are they kind of potentially doing that for the wrong reasons? You know, what is the remote sort of alternative to achieving the in person productivity and vibe? And kind of why isn't it more popular amongst these companies that are forcing people back [00:42:00] into being co located?

[00:42:01] Darcy: Short answer, because it's hard.

It's really fucking hard. Like, it is. It is. That's a reality. Like, it's I think I used this example, David, on the podcast recently. It's like, okay, you want to get abs, but you just are gonna eat. hamburgers every day and like not go to the gym, like good luck to you. And I've worked with a lot of teams that will hire me and say, we want to be remote first and we don't want to go RTO.

And I'm like, okay, great. We'll do an audit. Here's all the things you're going to need to do over the next three to five years in order to really transition this culture to remote first. And they kind of look at it and they're like, Wow, that seems really hard. Like, it is! And like, you either want it or you don't.

And I think that, but, at the same time, like, I do have a lot of grace for the companies that are going RTO. Like, there is a reality, a very big reality of companies that have a codified, in person [00:43:00] culture, it is just going to be ten times more difficult to change Behavior changed thousands of people like that's a reality.

And so I don't think I can answer. Are they doing for the wrong reasons? I think that they're doing it for their own reasons. Um, I can't say if there's a right or wrong, but I also think there's sort of a beauty in that which allows individuals to self select in or self select out to the culture that they're putting the stake in the ground saying that they have.

[00:43:28] David: Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I mean, if you're willing to accept sort of the attrition that might come along with it and it's, you know, that's, you know, is I think some companies are kind of like, well, we're still a good place to work and, you know, This is what it is. And, uh, hey,

[00:43:49] Darcy: For that great job making a fucking decision,

[00:43:53] David: right?

[00:43:53] Darcy: Yeah.

[00:43:54] David: Dilly dallying or Heartedly like leaders get a lot of [00:44:00] credit for that too in the

[00:44:01] Darcy: 100 percent like I may not agree with it all the time but it's it's it's a lot better than having no idea where and when you're allowed to work like i'd rather be Want to be really in alignment with the goals and the needs of the company because I'm, I'm there for that.

And I'm, I'm there for my team. Yeah,

[00:44:19] David: absolutely. There are, there are companies that are doing both, right? They're doing remote employees. They're doing hybrid employees. They're doing in person only employees. In some of those cases, though, in person employees seem to be getting paid more than remote employees.

And I'm wondering how you feel about that. Is that sort of a normal thing? And maybe we just didn't notice it. Before or is this something that you know is coming out of this return to office movement and Kind of how does that play?

[00:44:46] Darcy: I don't think I can answer that question because Where, I mean, I guess the question is, where is that data coming from?

And like, how is this happening? Like, it's so unique to every company. My personal philosophy on the fact is that there should be global salary bans [00:45:00] based on the job that people are doing. So that's, that's my philosophy. Around that. So I don't necessarily feel like I can answer that question directly.

[00:45:08] David: Okay. Um, we're kind of shifting it back onto you a little bit. Uh, you've created the shift system. Uh, talk to us a little bit about that. What made you start that? And how does it, you know, tell us, give us a little detail about it.

[00:45:22] Darcy: Yeah. So when I started as kind CastingWords First HR employee experience culture person at a fully remote company, it was pre pandemic.

There were no resources or hardly any resources out there except for, with the exception of running remote in a handful of, you know, 2025. Fully remote companies that I basically found the leaders of on LinkedIn. And I basically wrote the handbook I wish I would have had, um, that would have made things a lot easier for me.

Um, as somebody who was trying to manage all of the employee [00:46:00] experience going from 25 to. 300 people hiring people, of course, through that time to take on other responsibilities, but to really codify that culture foundation to make sure that the culture was going to stay strong. Um, and so the shift system is basically my knowledge over the past about seven to 10 years of the five pillars that I've recognized.

any company with any remote capacity, like the consistencies that need to be codified and focused on in order to see success in the remote environment. And that's S is setting clear expectations. H is harnessing the tools. I is inspiring engagement. F is foster well being. And T is training your own brain.

Um, and so those five things are very flexible and it's built for different cultures to be able to build their own cultures within it. So what, that's what I love about it is like, I think people are like, well, how do [00:47:00] we do remote work? And I'm like, I don't know what's your culture. There's no one blueprint for this.

And that's the beauty of what I think the shift system is. It allows people to fit their unique cultures into the principles that are going to be the same for everybody.

[00:47:15] David: Awesome. So you, you know, we, as we mentioned that your, your future of work, always thinking about it, right? So what's on the horizon for future of work that no one is talking about right now, in your opinion?

[00:47:29] Darcy: I mean, in my opinion, it's economic development. It really is. It's looking at how we create a better world and a better ecosystem through the vessel of flexible work. And I think that companies that offer, offer or don't offer remote work may not yet realize how powerful, purposeful, and impactful remote work [00:48:00] can be.

If done in a way that is holistically supported from a community perspective, from a consciousness perspective, from an environmental perspective, I'm really surprised there aren't more B corps that are, uh, harnessing remote work, to be honest with you. Um, but yeah, I think I think really economic development is the next huge.

burst where companies are like, Oh, I, we can actually be making so much more of an impact versus just the product that we're creating. We have enough products in the world. Like, that's fine. That's great. Everybody's creating products, but like, what is the purpose underneath that? And how is your company contributing to a better society?

All

[00:48:46] David: right. Well, folks, if you all have questions for Darcy, please pop them in the chat. I, uh, I'm gonna just. We talked a little bit about in previous conversations you and I have had [00:49:00] about mental health and sort of different approaches that you've taken in your remote work life, right? Like just what are some of the things that really have helped you stay grounded, stay connected to people, and just be able to bring your best self every day?

[00:49:15] Darcy: For me, I mean, I mentioned it before is I have a really strong mental health routine every morning. Um, I do at least 10 minutes of breath work. I have some exercises I do and then I go to a yoga class every morning. And so really just setting myself up for success. Um, I also don't love working from my house.

We live in 400 square feet. I'm literally working on a Murphy desk right now. Uh, my husband built into our wall cause we don't have a lot of space and he used to live in his truck. So, uh, we don't have a dishwasher as you can tell we were minimalists. Um, and so I have an office space actually in a surf shop, uh, down the street.

So it's really important for me to be around people. I'm a really, although I, I have a lot of. Kind of neurodivergent pieces of me. I also am a pretty social [00:50:00] person when I want to be. And so being around other people and energy is important for me. And it took me two years to learn that. Right. And, but I love, I don't love going to coworking space.

I like having a desk. I like knowing the internet's going to work. I like knowing consistency that I can get my work done. And so I make sure to design my week in a way where I have my morning routines. And then most of the time I will go to my office. Cause I know I just get a lot more done around other people.

[00:50:25] David: Awesome. Yeah, it's, uh, co working spaces is one of those things, like we have a colleague who's a digital nomad, and it's always funny to see where he's working from this day, because he'll be popping up in these different work, uh, like co working spaces, and the environments, he'll be like in Colombia, and it'll just be radically different from the one in Peru, you know, like, they just make me laugh, like, so he was showing me one the other day, and they have this like huge tree that grew indoors, and I was like, I would just be, like, mesmerized by the spaces, I don't

[00:50:56] Darcy: know.

Ooh, shiny things! Yeah, exactly. [00:51:00] Yeah, I call myself a slow mad, because I, like, I can, I'm no mad for sure, but I need to, like, have found my co working space a month before I go. I need to know that I have a desk there, that, like, things are gonna be consistent.

[00:51:14] David: Absolutely. Um, Fred asks, Any suggestions for where to start if we are interested in learning more about remote work and or learning to advocate for ourselves as remote workers?

[00:51:26] Darcy: I mean, there's thousands of resources. Obviously, you can always ping me. I'm always here to help. I mean, It's a huge passion of mine to help people advocate for themselves as well as just help people more unlock the power of remote work. Um, I would say running remote is a really good group and conference to join.

LinkedIn is really where I see the, the moat, the kind of the broadness of this conversation. There's also a great, uh, LinkedIn group called Remote Workers Worldwide that's a LinkedIn and a Circle group, which has like 100, 000 members in [00:52:00] it. So I think maybe those are some good places to start.

[00:52:04] David: Excellent.

All right. Well, I'm going to give it another minute here. So, oh, here we go. Galen popped the, uh, the link in the chat there to Darcy's, uh, LinkedIn profile. So be sure to check that out if you haven't already. Um, yeah, I'm just gonna give it another minute here. See if anybody has any other questions and, oh, uh, someone wants to know, are you a dog or a cat person?

[00:52:27] Darcy: Dog. Y'all, my parents refused to get me a dog growing up and I was like, but I like came out of a womb, like. Obsessed with dogs. And so for almost like four months, when I was nine, I was like, fine, if you're not going to get me a dog, I'm going to be a dog. And so I demanded my dinner on the floor. And I used to wear socks under a hat.

So like I had ears. And we finally got a dog. So um, yeah, dog person. I'm not a, I'm not a cat girlie.

[00:52:57] David: Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm the same way that I [00:53:00] remember, like, my sister moved in with me, like, this was like 2010 or something, and she moved in with me for a little while and she brought her cats. And I grew to sort of like cats, but this one that I was closest to, she took off for like three weeks at a time.

And I was like, what kind of thing is this to have? Like, who, who has this thing, like, that just leaves you for three weeks at a time? You don't know whether it's dead or alive. It can't call you.

[00:53:23] Cory: You're worrying me! Like, earn your keep, kid! Like

[00:53:30] David: Yeah, no, it was pretty crazy. So, uh, Oh, it's somebody, Corey asked, does your dog try to eat your chickens?

[00:53:38] Cory: I'm asking Michael. Oh, Michael. Because our boss at

[00:53:43] Darcy: BWC, his dog attacked his chicken and it was very traumatic.

[00:53:48] Michael: Yeah, let's do it. No, I don't actually have a dog right now. So you

[00:53:51] Darcy: don't have a dog.

[00:53:52] Michael: No,

[00:53:53] Darcy: Michael. Why not?

[00:53:56] Michael: Had a dog[00:54:00]

But I did walk into my backyard the other day and there was a cat out there around my chicken coop I got really upset about it chased it out of my yard

[00:54:10] Darcy: Oh man, I'm on a coyote though.

[00:54:13] Michael: Yeah, actually I'm on Vancouver Island and we do have cougars back there. So, gotta watch for those cougars.

[00:54:19] David: I have a chihuahua and I let him out at night.

And the other night these two black cats were like flanking him. I was like, hey, I had to like run out there and like chase them off. I was like, man, I gotta watch you. You're too small to be out on your own.

[00:54:31] Cory: Yeah,

[00:54:32] Darcy: exactly. So,

[00:54:34] David: uh, Fred wanted to know, do you have any top tips for living in a microspace? I don't know.

[00:54:40] Darcy: Yeah, don't want a lot of stuff. Oh. There's a great book I just read by Leo Babatua called The Power of Less. Um, I really think it's just about the things that you have. Make sure they're things you love and that they're nice and they're going to last a long time. Um, [00:55:00] and just be really mindful of your purchases.

Like, we don't have double of anything anymore. Um, And we just, we do a clean out. I would say a big house clean out twice a year. Um, and being able to live in a microspace is just really about utilizing and looking at space and how do you master space. So like, I'll show you guys actually right now. Um, so like this is my My desk and like this folds up but on the other side of this is actually an art piece and so When it folds up it serves as it just looks like a piece of art on our wall So it's like how do you just create multi use in all of your spaces?

[00:55:39] David: Absolutely. I like that too. That's a it's a cool piece of furniture.

[00:55:42] Darcy: Yeah

[00:55:44] David: So nearly 10 years of remote working, anything you feel like you missed out on or that you regret?

[00:55:49] Darcy: No regrets. Um, no, I don't think so. No regrets. Uh, [00:56:00] I think that when I first started working remotely, I did miss out on, and this was pre pandemic, and so I don't think I, I didn't really know how to work remotely, and I was living in the middle of the mountains in Lake Tahoe, and I really didn't socialize a lot outside of my own home and the work that I was doing.

Partially that was because I was, The director of employee experience and culture remotely. And so like, I was so energized virtually all the time. Cause that was my role. When I moved away from that, I really realized I needed to start relearning how to build relationships outside of remote work. And, and that's something I feel like I missed out a little bit on for probably about four years, but.

I don't regret it.

[00:56:49] David: Good answer. Yeah, no, I, the regret is sort of a waste of time, right? Like, you can't get it back. You just got to move on. I heard

[00:56:57] Darcy: recently, I heard a really good thing recently. It was like, we [00:57:00] don't, I'm going to butcher it, but it was like, we only make regrets in life. You just choose which decision you're going to regret least.

And I was like, Oh, huh. That's interesting. Like, I don't think I'd go around like screaming out from rooftops, but

[00:57:16] Cory: it's interesting. No, yeah.

[00:57:18] David: I mean, I, yeah, I kind of get it. Like, you know, I think about my career and like, I don't regret it, but I could have done something that made a lot more money.

[00:57:29] Darcy: But are you happy?

[00:57:32] David: Yeah, sure. I'm just kidding. Yes, yes. I wouldn't do anything else, really. So I think that is all we have time for today, though. We are at time. So quick plug before we go, though. Do one. Everybody, we do want to let everybody know we're doing another one of these, uh, on our next community events, May 14th.

We have a lean coffee collab session with Liz Lockhart Lance. Those are really cool. Just very casual [00:58:00] conversation. Check that out. And then on May 23rd, we have our next ask me anything session with Elena Agaragamova on building a culture of learning. She's one of our editorial advisory board members, just like Darcy and just a really good person to talk to on all things.

Talent acquisition, talent development. So be sure to join us for that. We're really looking forward to it. So until next time, you know, you can always ditch your dishwasher. That's the lesson we learned today. I can do without the dishwasher.

[00:58:27] Darcy: It's just learn how to wash dishes a little bit better than I do.

[00:58:30] David: There you go.

[00:58:31] Darcy: Or go and have your partner do them for you. Cause you're so bad at it.

[00:58:36] Cory: All right.

[00:58:37] Darcy: Awesome. Nice to see y'all.

[00:58:39] Cory: Thank you.