Recently at Tactile, most of our team who live close to our Philadelphia headquarters gathered in Center City to say goodbye to the offices that have been our home for the past 10 years. Through the magic of technology, other team members were able to join us from all over the country in a hybrid celebration of our current trajectory and of our bright future. Brimming with mementos, murals, and memories, this was the place where we came together under one roof and had the collective experience of getting the work done in real life, in real time.
We are one of the companies that has, in spite of all of the chaos, flourished over the last few years. We've won a bunch of awards, took on some amazing new clients, and have grown significantly in both full-time team members and revenue. So, it was time for a change in our physical place of business.
The transition to our new headquarters is a major pivot for Tactile. We've moved to a new location with a smaller footprint, better amenities, gorgeous art, flexible lease terms, and oh what a view….The pandemic has taught us that we can still work efficiently (maybe even more so) while fully remote. It has taught us that the physical location of our team members should no longer be a top consideration. It has taught us that coming to the office regularly needn’t be a requirement when you have engaged and committed team members.
This pivot is fueled by the realization that the pandemic has forever changed us as people and how we think of place. The pandemic made us face our own mortality and reminded us that life is short. Thoughtful human beings have been taking a hard look at what’s really important. We have been reminded that we have lives, and we are making more time to live them. People want to be physically close to the things that are the most important to them. Folks have left high power, high pressure jobs for opportunities that have allowed them to be closer to family or to start one. And if The Great Resignation isn’t a clear indication that many people have, with intentionality, recalibrated their work / life balance, I don’t know what is.
The most sound business strategy for us has been to lean into the evolving definition of “place of business". Now don’t get me wrong, as founder I can guarantee that we will always be a Philly-based company. Philly is my place. It has a depth of cultural and physical resources most other cities dream of. It is an absolutely amazing place to live. It is also important to me to be based here to contribute to the solutions that move us forward from being the poorest big city in the nation, and to do the work of reducing systemic barriers to opportunities particularly for entrepreneurs of color. However, in order to compete for and retain top talent, Tactile has pivoted to a national search hiring model and a “remote-first” work strategy. Most of the hiring that we’ve done during the pandemic has been from outside of the Philly Metro region.
Where the definition of place gets squishy, therein lies a specific tension. How do you create a place for your team that isn’t completely bound by physical proximity? How do you maintain a team when your team is spread out all over the country? How do you create a place when you could be anyplace?
REDEFINING PLACE
The things that keep us connected as a company are the connections that we have with each other as people. While it’s the people that do the work, it’s the time we spend interacting with one another at work is the glue that holds it all together.
The definition of “place of business” must transcend physical location while ensuring that these interactions can still take place. At Tactile, we’ve been intentional in creating a neighborhood of physical and virtual safe spaces to share ideas and stories, success and failures, triumphs and distress, strengths and vulnerabilities. We’ve created a place where we can collaborate openly and interact asynchronously.
EMPATHTIC CULTURE
We have employed this technology enabled structure in support of our empathic culture. We’ve been intentional in operationalizing empathy in our HR policies, making sure they are fair and repeatable. We are always evaluating our Employee Value Proposition in the light of societal disparities. We’ve been very intentional in maintaining reasonably similar access to resources and professional development opportunities for our entire team.
We communicate a lot. We ensure access to direct communication with management staff across three time zones. We actively and consistently check in with everyone on the team to make sure that our vision of an inclusive culture is the reality that our employees are experiencing, no matter where they happen to be. We pursue work that changes the world for the better. And yes, we still make time to gather in real time.
ALWAYS BE LEARNING
As company, we also know that building place on a shifting landscape is an ever-vigilant task fraught with perpetual pivots, so we never stop learning. For instance, one piece of the puzzle that we’re still working on is building structure around mentorship. The work that our colleagues at Vault Communications are doing with their ATM (Always Think Mentoring) initiative has some great ideas that have real potential for us.
SOMEPLACE FROM ANYPLACE
As our “place” has evolved, our team has transitioned beautifully and appreciates that the freedom of work location does not limiting their career at Tactile or their access to the most important things in their lives. We are proof that, by using technology to create a hybrid place in support an empathetic and inclusive company culture, the challenges of being a geographically dispersed team can be fully addressed and turned into strengths.
What's next? Who knows. COVID is going to do what COVID do. But, one thing is for sure is that the bell of remote work cannot be un-rung. In order to thrive, hybrid workplaces must create a sense of place that can be accessed from anyplace.
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Marc Coleman is the founding President and CEO of The Tactile Group. Tactile develops software for mission aligned public sector and non-profit organizations. They were recently awarded INC. Best Places to Work for the second consecutive year.
