This episode features an interview with Sophie Hamersley, Manager of Internal Communications at HubSpot. With over a decade of experience under her belt, Sophie has held positions at fully integrated agencies such as RF|Binder and Image Unlimited Communications. Sophie joined HubSpot in 2018 as the Communications Manager of the Culture Team where she helped attract talent through storytelling. In this episode, Sophie and Amanda dive into all things related to company culture. They discuss why HubSpot treats culture like a product, who the best brand ambassadors are, and why communications should be delightful.
This episode features an interview with Sophie Hamersley, Manager of Internal Communications at HubSpot. With over a decade of experience under her belt, Sophie has held positions at fully integrated agencies such as RF|Binder and Image Unlimited Communications. Sophie joined HubSpot in 2018 as the Communications Manager of the Culture Team where she helped attract talent through storytelling.
In this episode, Sophie and Amanda dive into all things related to company culture. They discuss why HubSpot treats culture like a product, who the best brand ambassadors are, and why communications should be delightful.
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“I think at the very foundation of it, you want your employees to feel really proud about where they work. You want employees to feel excited to come to work every day, to feel energized by the hard problems that they’re solving and know exactly how they’re making an impact on the business, on our mission, on the millions of customers that we’re helping to grow better. And so, you want to build a company that people feel really proud to work at, that’s the biggest goal. As part of that, when you are feeling proud to work somewhere, you end up talking a lot about that to other people. [...] Your employees are absolutely your biggest brand ambassadors and the more that they feel proud and excited to work somewhere, the more they’re going to talk about that to other people. And so, at the very core foundation, you want to build a culture that enables people to do that.” – Sophie Hamersley
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Episode Timestamps:
*(01:57): Sophie’s current role at HubSpot
*(03:36): Segment: Storytime
*(06:41): Why HubSpot treats culture like a product
*(10:19): How Sophie is building an internal comms function around transparency
*(19:53): Why employees are the biggest brand ambassadors
*(21:49): Segment: Seat at the Table
*(22:01): Advice for internal comms folks struggling to get buy-in on employer brand
*(26:40): Delightful communications
*(28:30): Segment: Asking for a Friend
*(30:36): Challenges internal comms will face in the future
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Links:
Connect with Sophie on LinkedIn
‘Internal Communications Has a Communication Problem’ by Sophie Hamersley
Amanda Berry: Well, Sophie, thanks for joining me today. How are you?
Sophie Hamersley: I'm good. How are you?
Amanda Berry:I'm doing really well. Thanks for asking. I want to start off. I know I've been really excited to have you hear him talk about HubSpot and culture and all the things you've been working on, but if you would start off by telling us a little bit about your current role as internal communications manager at HubSpot.
Sophie Hamersley: Yeah, absolutely. I'm super excited to talk to you today. So at a very high level, my team is actually a combination of both internal and external communications and that's intentional. And because today, definitely that line between internal and external is very blurred. Talking about leaked memos. Um, but it's really important to be transparent on both sides of the company.
Sophie Hamersley: And so our internal side and that team is really focused on optimizing our value of transparency and how HubSpot. Give and get information. And so we're kind of focused on a few core buckets. The first is crisis communications. So we handle the employee facing communications and scenario planning as a very transparent company.
Sophie Hamersley: We really default to updating employees on situations very early and then often. And so crisis comms is a big part of our role. The second is executive and leadership communication. So we support our leadership teams on company-wide announcements, making sure that people are seeing them it's in the right places.
Sophie Hamersley: We help with drafting of those. And then the last piece is really collab, enablement, and really empowering. To find and share information across the organization with some self-serve resources of how to promote something internally, how to make sure that people are seeing the right information and that it's really impactful and effective.
Sophie Hamersley: So that kind of gives you an overview of the team and the internal side and what we're focused on. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: I bet those crisis communication plans and skills came in handy over the past couple of years. I want to move into our first segments called Storytime.
Amanda Berry: Like I said before, I've been super excited to have you here with your background and employer, brand and culture. I want to start back and move back to step one for listeners who may not have a grounding in those, those are such big buzz words right now, the employee experience company culture, employer brand.
Amanda Berry: I wonder if you would just start off talking about what each of those means and how they intersects with what you do.
Sophie Hamersley: They absolutely intersect. So employer brand is really the story that you're telling externally about your company and what it's like to work there. So that is everything from managing our HubSpot life social channels, to our careers page, to where we're showing up in awards and really managing that on an external site.
Sophie Hamersley: The important piece of that is that everything that you're saying externally should really match internally and what the culture actually is. Right? You want people to join the company and have a really good understanding about your culture before they even get there, but also have that match once they do arrive.
Sophie Hamersley: But, and so company culture is incredibly important at HubSpot. Our co-founder released the culture code in 2013, which really paints a picture of our values, who we aspire to be. What's really important to us and what we really rely heavily on of characteristics that we hope our employees embody. And those are hearts.
Sophie Hamersley: So humble, empathetic, adaptable, remarkable, and transparent. And so company culture is incredibly important on the internal com side of things. How you communicate to your employees is one piece of that. The other piece is how employees are communicating and collaborating with each other. We're a hybrid company.
Sophie Hamersley: We decided to do that in 2020. And so we are truly a distributed global. Team of nearly 6,000 employees. And so, as you can imagine, communications is critical for people to do their best work for us to reach our mission, our business goals, and truly just how people feel connected to the culture and communications can really make or break that.
Sophie Hamersley: And so it all kind of melds together. Into one big really important goal, which is really talking about your company. And what's important both internally to employees and externally to candidates, customers, partners, and that audience is kind of the same.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I really loved thinking about the work you've done.
Amanda Berry: When I was learning about HubSpot reading more about this culture coach. I want to talk about, there's always been this thought of there's internal and then there's external, and now they're the Twain shall meet. Internals goal and extra gold to kind of get together and collaborate and make sure you're singing from the same book.
Amanda Berry: But I love this idea of you have employees who are really representing your brand. I want to talk about brand ambassadors and your thoughts on that. That really is the beginning of the employee experience. It's based in culture, how your leaders interact with them, that transparency, all this stuff you're talking about.
Amanda Berry: Just the importance of there's an external component. Now that's really ingrained in internal communications building that culture. So when your employees are. At a restaurant talking to the parents, they're talking about the brand that is the product of employment there. I want to touch on that, that culture code, right?
Amanda Berry: Outlines how you're building a treating culture, like a product. I mean that that's basically what you're doing there. Where did this idea come from?
Sophie Hamersley: At the very beginning when Brian and Dharmesh or two co-founders created HubSpot, they decided to make two products, one for customers and one for employees.
Sophie Hamersley: And so the customer product is obviously our suite in our platform. The employee product is our culture and culture has been incredibly important from day one. And the reason why Dharmesh created the culture code was to be incredibly transparent with everyone about what we value, who we aspire to be.
Sophie Hamersley: And that was really important for not only a business side and customer side, to make sure that customers align very closely with our values and what we believe in, but also to make sure that people know before they even get an interview before they even apply to HubSpot, they know whether it's a place that they're going to.
Sophie Hamersley: So do their best work in, and it's very, very clear of how we work and why we do that as in a certain way. And so it was really important to make that external and available to everyone. And it has truly transcended and Penn scaled with us since 2013. And all of those things still are. Near and dear to our hearts today and something that we continue to work on every single day, it made my job as a culture PR manager, incredibly easy, right.
Sophie Hamersley: People knew about our culture and it was just amplifying that, which was phenomenal as someone coming into the team. But the culture code is really something that is really our north star of how we work and what we value.
Amanda Berry: How was it received and how are you getting everyone to really live those values?
Amanda Berry: Live the culture, live the mission, live the values. You can go on a company website and see here's the culture we're trying to create, but it kind of stops there. It seems as if, you know, just reading about HubSpot and the employee experience and what people, what the employees are saying about it, it's really positive.
Amanda Berry: So what are you doing internally to get people to live into that?
Sophie Hamersley: There are a few ways you do that. And it's really about breathing those values across everything that you do, both your operating system as a business, how you communicate, how leaders lead from the front. We talk about our values, um, a lot and about being transparent.
Sophie Hamersley: Being remarkable and what it means to be empathetic. And those kind of key words are used in a lot of communications. There's also some key ways that we've infused those heart values into how we reward people. For example, our quarterly company meeting, each time we have the heart awards. Awards a recipient who has gone above and beyond, and their job has really exemplified the values of heart and it has made a great impact on the business.
Sophie Hamersley: So that's one way that we really make sure that people are reminded our values. We also have an annual week in February where we celebrate those values. We just had it back in March and it's heart week. And it's each day is talking about. Value and what it means and how it is displayed and work every single day.
Sophie Hamersley: And so it's really making sure that they're clear examples of how you can live and breathe those values every single day, regardless of what level you're at, what your tenure is at HubSpot, I think is really important that consistency always talking about it, referring back to it and making sure that people have clear examples of what that looks like.
Amanda Berry: Helping tie employee behavior, any change initiative to those values. I'm sure it is a super important to getting people, to see, see them in action, right? Values and practice. I want to focus a little bit more on the work you're doing to build the internal communications function specifically around building a culture of transparency, right?
Amanda Berry: All of these important values can become difficult when we've got a remote or a hybrid workforce. Some peoples in some people working in the office and people are not been transparency and trust are really critical components and the employee experience and building a good, strong employee culture.
Amanda Berry: Can you talk a little bit about how you got to the decision to make internal communications, a big focus? And was this something that you had to sort of pivot from something else? And just talk a little bit about that. The good
Sophie Hamersley: news is that HubSpot has historically been remarkably and radically transparent.
Sophie Hamersley: So our intranet has over a million pages and blog posts, and that really showcases how people are sharing everything with the company, anything from strategy to business results, to our financial performance, to. Culture programming to my first 50 days at HubSpot, that is all shared internally for everyone to see from intern to co up to a senior leader.
Sophie Hamersley: And that is really the core foundation of transparent communications is having that ability to share across the org. And so that was a great kind of foundation of internal comms. And in 2020, it kind of came all to a head. And a few things became incredibly clear between COVID-19 lockdowns to having to communicate to all different types of locations and what the guard rails and rules and restrictions were to black lives matter.
Sophie Hamersley: There were a few things that really came to a head and that was the first is internal coms can really make or break an employee's ability to do their job. And if they feel included in a company's culture from day one, And both of those are really key ingredients to a high performing company. The second was we have a very strong culture of transparency, but scaling that transparency in a big, fast, and increasingly remote world will really require some structure.
Sophie Hamersley: And then in light of COVID-19 and black lives matter, employees are really looking to their companies and leadership teams for timely, trusted information, more than ever. And so we decided to really pull together a more formal internal community. Structured to kind of help with some of those things. And we decided to really focus our attention on filling those gaps that we saw.
Sophie Hamersley: I think from my perspective, there's a myth that internal comms is often dry, robotic, boring. And so the opportunity for us is to really make internal communications, a competitive advantage to create impactful creative human communications. And that's what really we're striving to do. Best set up people to do their best work.
Sophie Hamersley: And that really starts from where do you get the information? Do you know where to get the information? And then how is it communicated to you in the most simple, clear, concise way you said we went to a more formal
Amanda Berry: structure. Can you talk about what that means? What were you before? And then what does that formal structure
Sophie Hamersley: look like?
Sophie Hamersley: So before 2020, we didn't have an internal comms team. And really that was because we were so transparent and people were just sharing. Communications left and right. I think the challenge that we see and why we decided to create something a little bit more formal is because it's often can be a fire hose of information coming at you when everything is shared across the company.
Sophie Hamersley: And so we realized if we're going to be a hybrid company, We need a little bit more structure of how we communicate in a hybrid world. What are the norms? Where are the places that you should go to to get company-wide information? What can you expect? And when can you expect to hear from senior leaders on certain things, and then how as a team, can you communicate and set up your team operating system so that you're connected in the lines, regardless of work preference, regardless of where you're working from.
Sophie Hamersley: And that was really important and really the ultimate goal of why we created the formal function. And so there was no formal team before and until 2020. And my role was also completely different before I came in and joined HubSpot as a culture PR manager. And so my job was really to tell the story about HubSpot's culture externally to attract top talent around the world.
Sophie Hamersley: Through storytelling. And naturally I worked with our CPO incredibly closely. And when COVID happened, it was just us of handling crisis comes and communicating to employees the best way we could. And we came out of that realizing, okay, wow, we need a little bit more structure and a formal team to help support this.
Sophie Hamersley: If we're going to make it work. And if we're going to win on hybrid. I read
Amanda Berry: this great article you wrote is on LinkedIn. I highly recommend it to people who are listening to this. It's incredibly insightful and succinct, right? You really get to the heart of some really good guiding principles about internal communications.
Amanda Berry: And one of them you're talking about a remote culture, a hybrid culture you say in there creating a remote first communication strategy. Well, help create more even playing field for all employees, whether they're in the office fully remote or a hybrid. I love to hear your ideas on a remote first strategy that helps level the playing field.
Amanda Berry: I'm a remote employee. And when I think about if I worked for a company or everyone's back in the office and I'm with a handful of people who are remote, it wouldn't be a level playing field. So what are you doing internally to help level that playing field, help the remote folks build a good culture, feel included and be a part of.
Amanda Berry: Company
Sophie Hamersley: I'll start off by prefacing that while remote work, certainly isn't new for HubSpot. We've entered a new era where remote employees make up the majority of our population and nearly every single team at HubSpot is hybrid. 88% of HubSpot is choosing to work from home. At least some of the time in 2022.
Sophie Hamersley: And these numbers aren't necessarily unique to HubSpot or the pandemic. This is a trend that we're going to continue to see in the future. And so one thing that we're trying to do and drive from the internal comms team is really creating those norms for communicating in a hybrid world. Things like appropriate response to.
Sophie Hamersley: When do you slack versus email, how do you slack statuses to be transparent? How you can communicate to your team on a weekly basis. That's a little bit more transparent into what you're thinking as a leader and how you should use the different tools available to you at HubSpot to do that. And so I think it's really creating a general operating system for your entire company to really follow so that everyone is on the same page of here's where I can get the information.
Sophie Hamersley: It is not just spoken. And the holes of an office, it is written down, it is documented. And these are the places that you can find the important company-wide information. And putting that out there and being really, really clear. One of the things that our hybrid enablement manager, she talks about how you need to be crystal clear in your communication and over-communicate than you would in a normal.
Sophie Hamersley: Office setting and in-person, but you have to over-communicate in hybrid, even those small, simple things that you think that everyone knows, and it's kind of second nature. Those are the things you have to talk about and you have to place some where, so that your employees know where to go for that information.
Sophie Hamersley: So that's kind of what we're trying to do is really drive those norms that will help us scale in a hybrid world and enable growth for our employees and for our business. And
Amanda Berry: how's that going? So you set up a new function. You're you're thinking about these new norms. You have guiding principles adding to them.
Amanda Berry: How's it going? How are you gauging employee's feelings along the way? Is this working? Do they like this new policy? How are you gauging that to see what's working and what's not. In
Sophie Hamersley: terms of how it's going. I think the last few years on internal comms, we try to do all the things. And this was absolutely an, a noble idea, but ultimately an impossible task.
Sophie Hamersley: And so for 2022, we're really focused on investing heavily in making our senior leaders at HubSpot Greek communicators so that they lead from the. And hopefully their teams follow. So that includes continuing to manage our company meetings. Our monthly, ask me anything sessions with our executive team, ensuring leaders have the right resources and know what it actually looks like to be great communicators and create communications that are relevant global first in nature.
Sophie Hamersley: In terms of how we get a sense of what's working and what's not, we have a quarterly employee, net promoter score survey. So we survey employees every single quarter to get a pulse on what's working and what's not across the company. And as part of that, we get a sense of. What are people wanting to see more of and continue to do from HubSpot and leadership and where the friction and pain points are.
Sophie Hamersley: And so there's both a score that's broken down by question, but also an area of just raw comments and people can provide suggestions, feedback, et cetera. I kind of go through that with a fine tooth comb and really pull out, okay, we tried this this quarter. For an example, we changed our, ask me anything sessions to be a little bit more focused on theme.
Sophie Hamersley: So we had a product engineering theme for January and seeing that in the comments of that's going really well and people want to see more of that and more concentrated, ask me anything sessions. That's a great piece of feedback. And then where are the opportunities and what else do we need to do more?
Sophie Hamersley: That's not really resonating with people yet. And so that's a really great gauge of just how our employees are feeling about our communication.
Amanda Berry: That all really bubbles back to that idea of employee brand, right? How are they feeling is really changing and shaping how they feel about the employer brand that you're working on, creating I've read in that article, that your employees are your biggest brand ambassadors.
Amanda Berry: Can you just help people understand the importance of that? I talked about all of the beginning, but what that really means to you, your employees being brand ambassadors.
Sophie Hamersley: I think that the, the very foundation of it, you want your employees to feel really proud about where they work. You want employees to feel excited to come to work every day, to feel energized by the hard problems that they're solving and to know exactly how they're making an impact on the business, on our mission, on the millions of customers that we're helping to grow better.
Sophie Hamersley: And so you want to build a company that people feel really proud to work at. That's the biggest goal as part of that, when you are feeling really proud to work for somewhere, you end up talking a lot about that to other people. And so the goal is for. To show up at Thanksgiving and want to share with grandma what they've done in the last six months to help our customers grow better or how they felt included and comfortable to be their authentic selves and talk about mental health and their journey, or share a piece of feedback that they got from their managers.
Sophie Hamersley: And how they're helping them grow as a better leader. Those are the types of stories that really matter to people. And that matters to us as a company. Your employees are absolutely your biggest brand ambassadors and the more that they feel proud and excited to work somewhere, they're more, they're going to talk about that to other people.
Sophie Hamersley: And so at the very core foundation, you want to build a culture that enables people to do that. Absolutely.
Amanda Berry: I can even think of companies where I friends working and they say, oh, I love working there. It's so awesome. Here's why I love it. And it makes a huge difference. Thinking about like glass door reviews when you're going to research to apply somewhere.
Amanda Berry: Right. All of that matters. You've got to coming from the employee's mouth is what it's like to work with. I'm going to move on to our next segment is called seat at the table,
Producer: the table, the table at the table.
Amanda Berry: What advice would you give to an IC leader? Who's struggling to get buy-in from executives on their employment.
Sophie Hamersley: I would say gather data. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have this big, fancy process in place to gather data points that is simply gathering feedback from across the org.
Sophie Hamersley: There is nothing more impactful than being able to go to a meeting and say, Here's why I think we should update our intranet. And it is because X, Y, and Z people can't find information. They're spending an average of five hours a day to get to that right information. And they still don't know where to go to get the right.
Sophie Hamersley: Information and resources to do their job. Being able to say that to a senior leader that should be automatic of, okay, this is affecting our business. This is affecting our customers and people to do their jobs. This is a no brainer of why we should change X, Y, and Z or improve. So gathering that data is incredibly important.
Sophie Hamersley: Something that I do before, any kind of big company-wide launch of our tools, or, you know, an internal communications guide is sending it to a handful of people across teams, across org, across tenure to get their feedback. And they really are my beta testers. They are great champions of great internal communications.
Sophie Hamersley: And so I know that I can trust them and I go to them and say, Is this helpful for you? Will this make a difference? How often will you use this in your role and what suggestions or feedback do you have that I might not be seeing? I think it's also incredibly important as internal comms professionals. We live and breathe this every single day.
Sophie Hamersley: And so what could be really just simple for us and a no brainer. Is not necessarily something that everyone else thinks about. And so gathering that feedback to understand my, seeing this in the right way, is this actually helpful? This feels like it should be under everyone's ability to do, is that right?
Sophie Hamersley: And asking those questions is really, really important. And so I think gathering feedback and data and being able to bring that to a senior leader goes a really long way.
Amanda Berry: Th this is great, that there's a lot of dues I'm hearing. What are some common mistakes you see that people make when trying to build the culture, focus on employer brand.
Amanda Berry: What are some do not do this that we can take away from what you've learned? I think
Sophie Hamersley: that one of the things that companies trying to do is to your earlier point of talk about their culture externally, and it doesn't match internally. So. Something that we really believe strongly in at HubSpot is anything that we're doing.
Sophie Hamersley: Feel really confident that we're doing well internally for our employees before we even talk about it externally. And that's something that we take incredibly seriously as if we're going to talk about how we are improving the experience for underrepresented communities. We want to feel really good about the programs in place.
Sophie Hamersley: We want to make sure that they're working and that those people feel like we are really putting that we are really walking the walk on that. That is super important. And I think that's relatable across whether it's internal communications, a company culture employer, brand that you really need to start on the inside before you go external.
Sophie Hamersley: And I think companies jumped to that external and just want us to talk about things we really want to walk the walk, not just talk the talk on what we're doing. And so I think companies kind of often make those mistakes. The second thing that I would say is I think. Companies and granted, I haven't been in internal communications at another company, but something that I could see often happening is not being as authentic in the communications.
Sophie Hamersley: I think that employee. Really value strong internal communications and comes from leaders, but it also needs to be authentic. It needs to feel real. It needs to feel like humans are having conversations with humans. And I think that companies sometimes get really stuck on the, either logistics of it or making sure that it is in the right places and not actually looking at the communications themselves and asking.
Sophie Hamersley: Does this resonate with people? Is it empathetic? Does it show personality? Are people going to want to read this opposed to just trying to get the information out there? And so I think people don't spend as much on the actual communications and making them delightful as much as making sure that they're getting to the right people.
Sophie Hamersley: It really needs to be a balance of both. I love
Amanda Berry: this idea of delightful communications. What does that mean to you?
Sophie Hamersley: That means to me, that communications should be enjoyable. You should want to read an email from your CEO. You should feel a certain way after you read an email for your, from your CEO, you should feel confident, inspired, engage, proud to work at your company, and to be working for a great leader.
Sophie Hamersley: Delightful communications is just that it should really transcend someone's personality. It should be incredibly empathetic and transparent. It also should be fun to read. So something that we're trying at HubSpot is an internal podcast from our CEO. So we've decided that we're going to do an episode monthly, a Hubspotter we'll interview, our CEO.
Sophie Hamersley: It's a great opportunity for. To meet her and to talk to her one-on-one and then we're sharing that audio clip across the org. It's short, it's snappy, it's 15 minutes. It gets to the bottom of how she's thinking about certain things. And it is fun questions. It's not just, how do you think about HubSpot's business performance?
Sophie Hamersley: It is. Hey, how are drum lessons going? Anything that you've learned recently, or what was the feedback that you got in your performance review from the board? Those are the types of things that people are really looking for. And that's a great example of delightful communications that keep people engaged, inspired, and really connected to leaders, regardless of where they're located.
Sophie Hamersley: And regardless of their work preference.
Amanda Berry: I love that idea. Just getting to know leaders, even on a personal level. Right. It makes, it gives you that connection. Like, oh, I also take drum lessons and then you see that lead in the hallway. How is that going? Right. It helps build that, that human authentic connection that you've been talking about.
Amanda Berry: That's fantastic. I'm going to move into our last segment is called asking for a friend, a friend,
Producer: asking for
Amanda Berry: You have an amazing role. You've done a great job. Your thought leadership that's out is really insightful. I'd love to hear what advice you would give to someone who's just starting out in a career in internal communication. I
Sophie Hamersley: would say don't get stuck in the traditional path of internal communications.
Sophie Hamersley: And I think this goes for just comms folks in general is if you love storytelling, if you love creating communications that are hard to miss the opportunity. So, and less, and companies really need people who are passionate about that, especially now. And so find those gaps and kind of shoot your shot, my path to internal communications at HubSpot, certainly isn't linear, but there's always been one common denominator, which is storytelling.
Sophie Hamersley: And so I think at the end of the day, make sure that you are focused on what the things are that really will make those communications great and impactful, and really lean into that. And don't be afraid to. Steer the ship back to what's important and what you want to work on and what you think will really matter.
Sophie Hamersley: Because I think often we can get wrapped up in what's the latest memo that needs to go out and it can feel very robotic and HR driven, internal communications should be delightful. And I truly believe that. And so I think don't be afraid to think of internal communications in a new light. And I think now is our time as comms professionals to write.
Sophie Hamersley: Show that because companies need it more now, more than that. Yeah,
Amanda Berry: this is the time, the whole paradigm, how we've been doing things. And internal comps has changed, right? Gone are the days where we all sit in an auditorium, you know, listen to the CEO, speak about the percentages and numbers. Right? We've got to really think about this differently.
Amanda Berry: We've got some people at home, some people in the office, some people in a different country, different time zone. That's fantastic. But I'm wondering what you think are going to be some other big challenges that might appear in internal communications in the future. I
Sophie Hamersley: think a challenge that's going to arise in the future as in near future is when offices actually start to open up and people start to work there.
Sophie Hamersley: How communications stay consistent and equitable will be incredibly important. So. For example, HubSpot has been a hybrid company since 2020. We haven't actually been operating as a hybrid company because a lot of our offices have been closed. They've closed, they've reopened, et cetera. 2022 is going to be the first year that I think we're going to be truly a hybrid company.
Sophie Hamersley: And so we're going to have to be really mindful to be aware of how communications have changed. If we decide to host our company, meeting in person, what that experience is like for people all over the world, who aren't in an office. I think those that's going to be challenging for a lot of companies.
Sophie Hamersley: And I think that we really need to make sure that we are being equitable in our communications, adapting, where it is important, but really making sure that everyone is. Same information, regardless of where they're located. It can be really easy to just default back to pre pandemic and how we communicated, collaborated how we chatted and connected with people.
Sophie Hamersley: I think that the challenges we see it is to not default back to that and to really forge ahead and create a new normal that's incredibly equitable meets people where they are, is super transparent and is really empathetic of what's happening in the world and where people are at. And I think that's going to be a challenge for companies and truthfully, it's a challenge that I'm actually really excited about.
Sophie Hamersley: Like I'm excited to see how. Change and ebb and flow based on the office openings and people really settling into their work preferences. And so I'm excited about that challenge, but I do think that's going to be a tough one. Yeah. That
Amanda Berry: is going to be tough. I know, like I mentioned earlier, it's something that crosses my mind.
Amanda Berry: What's it going to be like. When it was pre pandemic, we used to sort of jump in and call that the haves and the have-nots right. People who are in the office versus people who weren't, who just got a call, a number and can listen to meetings. Really couldn't even see anything. Couldn't ask questions, couldn't engage.
Amanda Berry: They were just there. That's right on where we're gonna end up and what to see where it goes. Well, to look forward to more information from you, hopefully you'll keep writing on LinkedIn and even get a podcast.
Sophie Hamersley: I hope so. Keep sharing the highs, the lows, the challenges, the things that I completely flopped on.
Sophie Hamersley: I'm all here for it.
Amanda Berry: I've read that in something you wrote. I don't have it verbatim, but the importance of talking about when you don't have the answers, right? The importance of calling it out, I think it's so important that people see, Hey, I tried this and it didn't work now. Here's how I'm going to try to move forward in a different way.
Amanda Berry: Do you have any thoughts on.
Sophie Hamersley: The idea of failure is actually incredibly important at HubSpot and we encourage it. We encourage people to ship code, to make decisions, to try something new because that's the only way that we're going to grow is trying something, seeing if it worked or not tweaking it and evolving.
Sophie Hamersley: Kind of our whole business is based on that and really just trying new experiences. And so for internal comms, part of that delightful goal is to experiment with different things. One example is we have a. Manage your series of events for how to support managers leading in a hybrid world. And the topics are all different, creating psychological safety on your team.
Sophie Hamersley: The latest one was on asynchronous communications and we decided to do it async. And so we recorded the panel beforehand. We're going to play the recording. Through a streaming service that we use for people to watch and kind of a group live together so that they can still get that interaction. But that recording will not be live.
Sophie Hamersley: That's a new experiment for us. People may love it. People may hate it. We're going to see and really take that feedback and evolve it in the future. But I think in order to communicate best in a hybrid world, you're going to have to try new things. It's completely different than it was before. COVID. And before everyone was in an office.
Sophie Hamersley: And so part of that is learning to fail along the way and how to just adjust what you're doing in the future to make sure that you're learning from it. But I think that's our core part of our job is just trying and experimenting and really learning from it and gathering feedback along the way. I know that HubSpot is incredibly encouraging of those experiments and trying things and not being afraid to fail.
Sophie Hamersley: And that is incredibly encouraging. And my job.
Amanda Berry: Absolutely. It's like what you said earlier, just talking about how this is the time to try it four years ago. If you want to try something new, you'd have to look at the data that something you were doing currently, wasn't working to really help justify it.
Amanda Berry: And now, while if someone says, well, that's not how we've always done it, you can just sort of gesture wildly around you and go that. Nothing is how we it's so
Sophie Hamersley: true. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: That's a really good point. Yeah. So this has been a lot of fun before I let you go tell people where they can find you, if they want to reach.
Amanda Berry: You
Sophie Hamersley: can find me on LinkedIn, Sophie Hamersley. You can also send me a note S hamersley@hubspot.com. I'm always open to talking to comms folks, learning from others, sharing our failures and flops along the way. I truly believe that if we're going to be great communicators, we have to lean on each other through this.
Sophie Hamersley: Please, please reach out. If you ever want to talk about internal communications, branding, culture, PR, anything. Yeah, the
Amanda Berry: internal communications I have found is an incredible network of great human beings who are always willing to share. So thank you so much for that, of course. And thank you for joining me today.
Amanda Berry: Sophie, this has been great.
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