Remotely One - A remote work podcast
Remotely One - A remote work podcast
Why Transparency Matters: Adam Horne on Building Trust and Authentic Work Environments - ep. 094
In our latest episode, Rick and Kaleem chat with the brilliant Adam Horne, co-founder of Open Org, for a captivating discussion you won’t want to miss. Dive into Adam's remarkable journey, the complexities of today's workplace culture, and the inspiring mission behind Open Org.
Adam, who also was co-founder and Chief People Officer at Scout, has helped over 60 companies hire around 1,500 people. Named a LinkedIn Top Voice in HR communications, his insights are invaluable, especially given his introverted nature and preference for a quiet life outside of work. This intriguing mix of public professional persona and private nature sets the stage for an in-depth exploration of his professional philosophy.
Adam stirred up a buzz with his recent LinkedIn post likening company culture to processed food, coining the term "ultra-processed culture." He explains how companies often present glossy facades to lure talent, much like processed foods use flashy packaging to entice buyers.
This conversation highlights the importance of genuine transparency in company culture. Adam believes open communication and realistic expectations are key. Companies that share handbooks and maintain detailed knowledge bases tend to retain employees better and foster a healthier work environment!
The trio discusses the impact of remote work on company culture. Adam notes that remote companies must excel in communication and transparency, as they can't rely on physical proximity to manage their teams effectively. When it comes to communicating work culture effectively, Adam stresses the importance of honesty and transparency. He suggests that companies provide a balanced view of their work environment, highlighting both positives and challenges. Drawing on insights from Brian Adams, an expert in employer branding, Adam underscores the value of clear and honest messaging about what it's really like to work at a company. This balanced perspective allows candidates to make informed decisions and ensures a better fit between employer and employee.
Adam's insights reflect a profound understanding of evolving workplace dynamics, emphasizing the crucial role of transparency from employers and the necessity for job seekers to be diligent in their research. His focus on clear communication and resource accessibility aligns perfectly with Open Org's mission to support HR and people-focused professionals worldwide. Adam’s advice serves as a comprehensive guide for both job seekers and employers navigating the complexities of modern work environments. Whether you're looking to understand workplace culture better or improve it, especially in the era of remote work, this conversation is a must-listen!
Learn more about Adam:
I've just got a very cheap headphones, very cheap microphone, both from Amazon.
Kaleem:have a man that is like both from Amazon, I like the way Amazon. I like that. That's
Adam:Amazon.
Kaleem:Amazon. sounds way more classy. They should change how they pronounce Amazon. Like Amazon. Sounds like you're in the jungle. Like I'm in the jungle and I'm like, uh, but Amazon, that's classy. They should have thought about that.
Rick:They should have. That's quite the cock up. if I had to say so myself. Heh heh. Heh heh heh.
Kaleem:that we learned that with one of our guests. We, he said, Oh man, what a, what a cock up that was.
Adam:We've got those sorts of sayings, I don't think anyone even really knows what they mean, to be honest. You just grow up saying them without thinking about the meaning. In the UK, there's a lot of people talking about cock ups; someone cocked up at work.
Kaleem:That's way someone cocked up at work. Like, obviously we'd say fucked up, but like, cocked up is just way better.
Rick:It's so much better. Welcome back everyone to Remotely One. I am your co host, Rick Haney, joined by my esteemed colleague, Colleen Clarkson. What's going on, my brother?
Kaleem:Oh, sir. You know, just the normal, normal, nervous as hell as usual, you know, enjoying, enjoying the weather. Things are good, man. How about you, bro? How about you?
Rick:Oh, fantastic, fantastic. always look forward to new episodes, but this one in particular is It's kind of near and dear to my heart. The subject matter is very important to me. So I've got a lot of good questions that I've
Kaleem:Me too. Me too. Nothing like being transparent, baby.
Rick:no, absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, but to our audience and our viewers and listeners, since you know how to find us, please do us a huge favor. Go to ratethispodcast. com forward slash remotely won. Just leave us a review. Again, rate this podcast. com forward slash remotely one. And if you could leave us a review, we would be ever so grateful since 2015. Remotely one is one of the largest communities of remote work professionals with over 3000 Slack members and 5, 000 email subscribers. It's free to join, baby! Free to join. Go check it out at RemotelyOne. com And with that out of the way, Kaleem, Please give us a tease or two about today's esteemed guest.
Kaleem:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another, another, another rockstar, Rick. You know what I'm saying? Like, if you want to talk about trust, you want to talk about company trust, organizational trust our guests today knows about that ish. Let me tell you that our guests, they were born and raised and they're still a resident of the United Kingdom, AKA the UK. All right. Across the pond.
Rick:pond.
Kaleem:Yeah, That's my attempt. I know they hate it when we do that shit, but we have to do it. We have to do it every time.
Rick:Stop being such a stupid bloody American.
Kaleem:you caught that off, didn't you? Um, let's see. Let's see. Our guest today, they were the co founder and chief people officer at Scout, which was a talent consultancy. Yeah, they helped like over 60 companies, hire 1, 500 people across all sorts of different things. So knows what he's doing. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. our guest. Is another LinkedIn top voice, a round of applause, Rick, round of applause. LinkedIn, LinkedIn, top voice. And you know, what's really interesting about that, Rick, our top voice, despite like them talking about how to communicate all day and he's all active and he's a top voice on HR communications. He's an introvert. He's an introvert and he's a huge hermit and doesn't even talk to people outside of work. So we gotta talk to him about that, Rick.
Rick:We'll have to see where he stands at the end of this episode. He might not be an introvert after this show. We might crack that shell.
Kaleem:I haven't felt it though. I haven't felt it.
Rick:not at all. Not at all.
Kaleem:Last but not least our guests today. They are the co founder of open org, which helps companies, okay. Define and maintain healthy levels of communication, Rick, which in
Rick:That's a key
Kaleem:trust. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. So. Well, that said, listeners and viewers, please give a warm welcome to Adam Ho!
Rick:Okay, take a breath. You're gonna pass out. Breathe.
Kaleem:Let's go! Let's go! Settle down. Woo! Settle down
Rick:hey. Take it down a notch,
Kaleem:Settle down people. Sorry, Adam. They get excited.
Rick:This is a professional show. Check one. Check one. Studio audience.
Adam:Way to introduce an introvert there.
Rick:Yes.
Kaleem:try Adam you are the star of today's show you are the champ round one, baby, let's
Rick:Round one. Adam, thank you so much for, uh, for, first of all, not only tolerating us this far, but, uh, agreeing to come on the show and talk to us.
Adam:No worries. My pleasure. It's been, um, yeah, awesome. Awesome to be here.
Rick:Good, good, good. So, diving in right head first, we know that you're laser focused on culture, and you recently compared culture to, processed food on LinkedIn, and I'm, I want to know a little bit more about where you were coming from that regard. I think the term was ultra processed culture. So, can you talk a little bit about that and where you were coming from and what exactly that means?
Adam:I'll try to. So yeah, I'm not a huge food, nut, but, um, you're listening to a podcast a while ago, actually about. The doctor who was talking about processed food and how bad it is for you and health claims that companies throw on it. And I've been that, I've been that guy previously who's, you know, um, bought like the high protein energy bars and stuff, going to the gym and things like that and getting pretty hooked to them because they taste great and thinking that they're good for you. And actually deep down knowing that they're probably not actually that good for you. Anyway, I listened to a podcast a while ago and as I was listening to it. Him talking about companies and how they market food products and how they, it's like a race to get consumers attention in the supermarket. You're fighting for space, you're trying to get people's attention. Shiny wrapping, big labels that say protein, low in fat, that sort of stuff. It started getting me thinking a little bit about the world of employer brand and talent and how that's headed in a very similar direction over the last number of years. Companies. Talk about this war for talent and companies employer brands have become about being a shiny and amazing and, you know, perfect as it possibly can be to try and attract people into their companies. And a lot of the work that we do now is looking at companies career sites and trying to dissect them a little bit beyond some of the words that they put on there around great culture or autonomy or freedom or. diversity and what's behind those words ultimately is a big part of what OpenOrg is trying to achieve. Anyway, this idea around ultra processed food being similar to the world of culture and ultra processed culture is something that's been milling around in my mind for a while. And I saw an article online the other morning, talking about it and finally made me think, yeah, let's post something about it and just see how it resonates. And yeah, it went down quite well, actually. It was some, there was some good, good other comparisons there from other people in the comments.
Kaleem:so let me just understand this. You're also saying kind of like the processed food, like the food business that every company now is just. putting up shiny things and talk saying the right things. Is that really kind of where you're coming from? Cause everybody knows about like, Oh, we enjoy workplace flexibility. And then you get there and they're like, you got to come into the office five days a week. Where are you seeing, employees, where are you seeing like employees and even potential employees, candidates, are you seeing them kind of, Getting through all of that BS or flash. And are people taking that a lot more seriously now?
Adam:There's definitely a recognition of some of what I post about on LinkedIn from people who are looking for roles or in between jobs. There's a lot of support and audience for what we're doing and the topics we're talking about. Candidate experience has been something that's just been on the floor for God knows how long, really, really long time. So this is a huge problem that needs to be fixed. The people are frustrated and it's not just that experience you have during the interview process or pre hire companies really struggle on the whole with. early attrition. So people effectively joining a business and probably leaving within the first 12 months or so. And that quite often, it's not always down purely to culture or mis selling of that, but it's normally misalignment to, to company culture, not fully understanding what you're coming into. So a huge part of what OpenOrg is doing is trying to help companies embrace the idea of being more open and honest about what you're actually going to get here. How do we genuinely work? What do we genuinely, you know, what's a genuine approach to things like meetings and feedback and communication and help people understand whether they'll thrive in an environment or not, so that they don't walk through the door and end up leaving after three or four months because there's the genuine costs to a company's bottom line, and time by having to rehire all the time if people aren't working out. So it's a big problem. And there's a serious problem behind it to people's mental wellbeing as well. It's slightly anecdotal, but I know. Quite a few people who have joined companies under the wrong pretense have had to leave Because they've had completely the wrong manager There could be the wrong working conditions and culture that were actually sold to them in the first place And it's caused them some genuine scarring which is not great
Kaleem:No, it
Rick:not at all, not at all, So, what was the spark or the kind of the aha moment you, you had? The motivation behind creating OpenOrg and how do you specifically help companies.
Adam:Yeah, so and I had pre OpenOrg In 12 years or so of being in that hiring world and hiring for tech startups and scale ups all over the world. And I had the opportunity to hire for some very open, transparent companies. They had like the wikis, the handbooks, all the information you could ever want. And frankly, your job as a recruiter is the easiest thing in the world. You just, very easy to sell to people because they've got the information they need already. You don't have to try and sell but more importantly when they join the business they stay they know what they're getting already They're prepared for it Expectations are managed they thrive but I've also worked for companies that
Kaleem:say Adam real quick, were you saying, the companies that you were hiring for had those handbooks? Were those readily available for people to read even before they applied? Like, I think I missed that part when you said that it was so easy for you to sell the company. Can you
Adam:yeah
Kaleem:little bit about that part?
Adam:Yeah, open handbooks, which I should clarify. Handbooks can mean slightly different things in the U S to the UK. So an employee handbook in the U S quite often is slightly more legally binding document or contract that someone might have to sign. Which is not necessarily the case in the UK. So I refer to it more like a knowledge base or a wiki. So effectively here's an online single source of truth about how we work as a company, like our culture, our values, our behaviors, you know, how we do meetings, how we do this, how we do that, how we communicate. So they're becoming a really, really big thing, particularly remote companies that they're really embracing this idea of having one single central place to. talk about their business and give as much information about their company as possible. But this was a thing going back a few years ago now and having access to one of those things, honestly, was like an best sales tool you could have as a recruiter. You share that with someone during the interview process and they've got all the information they could possibly ever need about the company. And they know all about the interview process is coming up. They know sometimes what questions are going to be asked of them in the interview, what format is going to be, it, it just, it just, um, absolutely sort of. Yes, it's not common practice, as you say, it's not, it's quite rare still, but some companies are starting to actually share those interview questions with people in advance. So there's a heap of like amazing benefits there to things like inclusion and accessibility and diversity because you're not sort of, you know, you're reducing that, that opportunity for bias as well in the process. There's so many great things you can do with these things, but had access to all of these things with some companies and life was easy, but also people thrived when they joined the company. And then I worked for some more secretive companies that weren't evil. I want to say they're evil like that. They weren't intentionally like secretive, but Employees in those businesses couldn't tell you what those company values were. They couldn't tell you what funding stage the company was at. I was having to go around all sorts of people, you know, at leadership level saying, are we series B or series C? And they were like, well, I don't really know. It's not like it's complicated. And so as a recruiter trying to sell that company to someone, being faced with questions, you're like, I can't really tell you this, but come and join us because it will be fun. You can hire people, but. You could see very, very easily that people were leaving just as quickly as they were joining. So long story short, over 12 years, I've had a very clear idea in my mind, at least, of what I think works well, what creates healthy organizations. And I've pulled that into how I've built my own ones as a founder or co founder, and it's worked well. How I set up OpenOrg, I left my last business scout at the end of 2022, and actually didn't want to set up another business. I was pretty fatigued with being a founder after like nine years. So I became a candidate instead for the first time in 12 years. And that was the light bulb moment for me. I was like, this sucks. I like, I can't find out any information on career sites. Job ads suck. Interviews, people can't tell me anything about job, like what's going on, where the company is. And there was a lightbulb moment. I was like, why does this suck? And it was transparency and information and knowledge. And that took me back to all the other stuff. Anyway, I got chatting to my co founder, John. We've been friends for 12 years. Really good friends. Always talk about how work's broken and we'll fix it one day. We don't know how, but we will. And we got chatting, and that, long story short, led to OpenOrg.
Kaleem:Wow. Wow.
Rick:What a great story.
Kaleem:It is. It really is. And what you were saying about trust, and transparency, I'm sure you work with organizations that aren't fully remote or even as flexible as others, but I'm just curious in your opinion, Do you feel like trust and transparency is more important in remote companies versus in person companies? I'm just curious. What are your thoughts on that?
Adam:I, rather than more important, it's definitely healthier. And I think, I can't remember, I lose track of when I post about this stuff, but I posted about this the other day, was, you've got people like Atlassian who have talked about how much they've thrived. fully distributed all over the world and so on and so forth. For me, it's not necessarily the catalyst for that. It's not necessarily the fact that you're remote, but it's about communication. Remote companies by default have to be good at communication. They have to be good at giving their employees access to information all over the world so that they tend to have these central places people can go to, to get things when they need them without asking to across time zones. So. They are very intentional with how they allow people to access information and that for me makes them, I don't want to use the word better, but it makes them better when it comes to communication and how they share things with employees. And then there's the trust element there as well. If you hire someone on the other side of the world, and it could be working completely different times to you when you're asleep, by default, you have to put your trust in them. You have to show them. A certain level of trust, and you show them trust, you will get that back from them as well. So I would suggest as well. There's definitely higher levels of trust, generally speaking, remote organizations who do genuinely operate on a fully remote basis. And to a final point, these stereotypical company that comes to us or that we tend to see when we put, look, finding new wikis or handbooks or knowledge bases that we can put into our ones here. to curate nine times out of ten, it's a fully remote business. So there's a definite trend there. You know, remote companies tend to be the ones that document and share and are more open.
Rick:So in your experience, you've met a lot of different types of people, you've worked with a lot of different personalities, you get a lot of feedback doing what you do. In your experience, where do you feel that people place the most value in, in their communities? Are they looking for more in person events? You know, are they looking for, you know, centralized support resources like forums, different things like that. What are people looking for?
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Adam:I deal very specifically in the sort of HR and people space, from a community point of view. So I'm probably little bit of a bubble there. But there's a, there's a clear theme there in terms of two things really, two core themes. One is access to information and resources. And again, I'm in a bubble here, but the typical persona of person that we work with at OpenOrg tends to be someone in a standalone or very small people team in a startup or scale up so they don't have lots of colleagues around them to bounce ideas off of they often feel lonely and isolated and they don't have much resource around them in terms of budget or finances so that they're doing everything on a shoestring and they often are very very stretched and overworked and they don't know where to go. So. From a community point of view, people want to be able to go somewhere and access information quickly, ask questions, get answers back quickly. So that, that speed of response is huge from a similar sort of network that also work in that space. And then the secondary to that is definitely the community element. I, so many of our calls that we do on our programs with people, whilst they might set out to talk about openness and transparency in what you're doing in your work. They often turn into therapy sessions, which is not great really, but like the HR and people world is in this such a state at the moment where there's so many people are looking at changing careers, moving out of roles, you know, they are, they've been through layoff after layoff, they're, you know, pulled between pillar to post with like CEO to employees and not knowing where to turn and that a lot of them are very burnt out and broken. And, um, that support. Yeah from communities is vital as well, whether that's in person or not, I think it was more like personal preference. I like a little bit of both, but most people tend to be able to thrive on that remote community set up now as well.
Kaleem:Yeah. I mean, people ops has definitely had a tough, the field of people Ops slash HR in the past four years, it's been very difficult, a lot of pressure. That's really cool. Does Open provide any type of, community support for people, ops, people like, like, or is that something that you're just kind of doing on a one on one situation or are you starting to think, starting to see, Hey, maybe these therapy sessions, um, are, are, are valid and, and, and maybe we could start offering these
Adam:Like, yeah, honestly, we've talked about whether we pivot into like an HR therapy, center or something like that. Like it, it's, it's a weird thing to say. Yeah, it's a weird thing to say, like I, I, you don't want to be having these conversations with people, obviously, like it's not a great sign. But it actually feels really satisfying to see people helping each other out, leaning on each other, you know, who have common threads there. And that's something that we see from like a bird's eye view. From our side, we're speaking to lots of different individuals who have these challenges, these troubles, these headaches. And we see other people having exactly the same ones. So you're dealing with like a, you know, a narcissistic CEO, or, you know, like, uh, uh, uh, uh, co co founders who just won't work well together and don't want to communicate with employee. You feel very lonely at times and get sucked into this problem. And what do I do? But we're able to see all these other people who are having similar problems and start connecting them together. And that actually feels really good to be able to do that. So whilst it's not great to be, it's like, it is awesome. And. It's not a core part of what OpenOrg is necessarily doing, but actually it is sort of one half of it is we've got an accreditation we work with companies on to help them drive change around how they communicate and document, etc. But we also run these L& D programs for people leaders to come and do cohorts and boot camps and they become part of our Slack community off the back of that, which is very small at the moment, but growing. That is something that we're continuing to try and build without turning it into like an HR therapy, you know, center,
Kaleem:No, I hear you. no, Congratulations, man. The community is great. And you Guys provide some templates and stuff like that. So you are helping, you know, if I'm stressing out about how do I design, an interview process, you know, like I'm assuming open org helps with providing some templates and you're collecting all this information from all these different groups. So in a weird way, your resources are kind of helping alleviate some of those anxieties when you're a single person. That's how I, as a person who has to do that sometimes, um, that's what I really feel good about open Oregon as a resource. So it's, it's, it's really cool.
Rick:Hmm.
Adam:it's, it's, um, genuinely like blown us away a little bit. We're two, I don't want to say middle aged guys, I'm 34, but, we're two guys in the UK, like. Setting up this business last year, we genuinely thought let's see how we get on picking up some audience and, you know, support in the UK and We have conversations with people all over the world who sort of say, follow you guys on LinkedIn, love it, using, been using your resources for the last few months. They've been, it's been so cool to like speak to people in Australia and you know, Hong Kong and, US and like, you're like, I can't believe it. So the resources that like, lots of them are curated. So I always try and give credit to the companies who actually, we're trying to pull them together for people to make them easier for people to find. We, and we have created our own things as well, which we hope are useful, but it is awesome to be able to sort of pull stuff together, make it easier for people to find and help them through some of the stuff that they're trying to do, even if they can't get involved with us on a slightly deeper level, I suppose.
Kaleem:That's great.
Rick:Fantastic. That's amazing. You know, these days everybody seems to be looking for, feels like the buzz word is flexibility, right? Everybody's looking for a better work life balance. Everybody's looking for a career with as much flexibility as possible. But companies aren't always as flexible as they say they are. So. What are some of the critical things that, that candidates need to be on the lookout for when they're hoping to integrate into, into better flexible positions, you know, what do they have to do to get it right?
Adam:Yeah. It, like, honestly, it's so hard for candidates and applicants, like, to even ask questions. It, before they've even gotten to an interview, like, who do I go and ask a question to, to find this stuff out? You can go and read. Things like Glassdoor and stuff to try and understand it. But you could spend an hour trying to research one company and people having to apply to a thousand jobs at the moment to even get a few interviews. It's tough. And you take things on face value and you see a few words in a job advert. You trust it, sadly. But companies aren't clear enough about particularly that word hybrid. You know, I think you tend to trust fully remote, you know, you tend to trust remote first. And, you know, and you tend to trust on site, and some companies are very, very good at being clear about this, but that word hybrid and, you know, we offer flexibility or we're open to flexible working, however you want to put it, doesn't mean a thing, you know, you go, you, you hit apply, still not knowing whether I'm going to be asked to go into an office once a week or four times a week, and there's a huge difference to that. So things people should be asking for, and it's hard to do it until you're in interview, but, I would encourage people to start really, if they get to that interview stage, really push for some clarity on like, what is your definition of hybrid working? And actually, what is your definition of remote? Because there's a lot of companies who talk about remote and then they're like, Oh yeah, but you do need to come in on, you know, Mondays because that's an important team meeting day.
Kaleem:Right. They don't even consider that hybrid. They don't even they don't even consider that hybrid. They're like, oh, no, no, no, we're fully remote. But you got to come in like, you know, twice a week for like what the hell that's hybrid or whatever.
Rick:Hmm.
Adam:um, so like just pushing for some real clarity and definition of like, what exactly do you mean by this? And something we're trying to encourage companies to do is just be a bit clearer at defining this for people. And one other thing that you can maybe do to take that a little bit further is if a company is talking about being remote or remote first, or leaning more towards that sort of slightly more flexible way of working is just trying to understand if you can find any resources from them around. How they work flexibly and how they work remotely for me, some of the best remote companies on top of what they give you on a job advert, they've got an open knowledge base or wiki or blog article about how we communicate. You know, we default to asynchronous communication and this is how we talk to each other and share information. And this is how you should look after yourself when you're working from home. Companies that. invest time and effort into building out resources, whether that's on a blog, a handbook, a, you know, whatever, a career site, you can take that as a bit of a signal that, okay, this company takes remote working seriously. They've invested in understanding what it means to them and how they can help employees to thrive in that environment rather than I can't see anything. And it just says remote, like that is great. It's remote, but you could also be heading into a business that just does not look after people remotely and remote working doesn't suddenly default to you thriving and, you know, doing really well, it can actually be really hard to do, to, to work well in a remote environment if you're not used to it. So that's the signal.
Kaleem:Yeah, you know, Adam. That's interesting that you said the research researching each company's. It can take you hours and you're absolutely right. And I would say, you know, obviously you can't research a million, a thousand companies if you're applying for a thousand companies. But I would definitely say, I think there was an article that I was quoted in HBR where I talked about this of, of you have to do your own research regardless, like you can't not do the research. So I would say once you get the interview request, I would say that's when you dive real deep, you know, so that you're more prepared in the interview. And I love social media. I, you know, that's what I kind of talked about. Like what you were just saying, if a company is embracing workplace flexibility and they don't have anything at all on their social media, if social justice is important to you and you look at their social media account and go back during George Floyd and there was nothing posted during that time, like. You can kind of feel based on like what you were saying on their content that they're putting out to the world, whether they're fully behind what they're saying. So unfortunately I think you kind of do have to dive deep. I think there are some resources like the flex index I think is starting to put out a lot of good information about how flexible companies are. But you're absolutely right. I think doing research for every company that you're applying for is difficult. But when you get closer, doing some of those things, like you said, like, are they talking about workplace flexibility on their blog? Do they have a good careers page? Like, I think the careers page is a huge, huge, um, you know, it's a huge predictor of whether that company is fully engaged in, in, in attracting the best talent and stuff like that. You know, company has a horrible careers page. Doesn't have anything about what it's like to work there kind of assigned to me personally. that's, I think I agree
Rick:Could be considered a red flag.
Adam:yeah. massive. Like, yeah. But the stereotypical careers page has some like smiley faces of people, thumbs up and saying, this is why it's amazing here, you know, and I get that you're trying to sell to people, but People can see past that now and nine times out of ten, I think people just cycle past those smiley faces and quotes because they're like, it's going to be something smiley and happy and telling me why I should work here. I'd much rather try and understand like, what does a tough day look like? How do we handle failure? How do we, you know, why shouldn't I work here? Like, it might feel negative to some, but actually understanding a little bit more about like, what, what am I coming into? I think is probably one of the most powerful things you can, you can do. So seeing like a really, really. Awesome trend at the moment where companies are starting to embrace a much more balanced view of like sell versus repel to try and help people self select out and think okay, you know, you know what like This is a remote company, but this is how they communicate and actually i'm not going to work well in that environment Like they're remote but i've got to spend Six hours a day in meetings, you know because of it like that does all of a sudden you lose that freedom. So Some clarity around your culture and how you actually work Regardless of whether you remote or on site. I think it's the key thing for me.
Kaleem:Wow. Fascinating. I love that idea, by the way, like a Netflix. We work hard, play hard, but you're going to work 60 hours. Just put that right on your website. Not for me.
Rick:Yep.
Adam:There's a there's an amazing amazing guy Called Brian Adams. Not not not the one everyone's probably thinking of not the musician but He runs an employer branding
Kaleem:with the raspy?
Rick:Yes.
Adam:This the other one runs an employer branding agency and he he did some work with some huge corporate brands. I think he does some work with Apple. So he was telling us a while ago that like, yeah, a lot of work to embrace the idea that Apple's messaging to people is very much like you will, you will get to work with some of the smartest, brightest minds. And that is a big, big pro, but the con is you'll have no social life, you know? So like embracing what the harsh reality of working here is and actually accepting that some people will be okay with that because they want to work with the smartest, brightest minds and build the best products. And they're actually okay with not having a social life. Others are happy to self select out of that. So even big companies can understand and, you know, embrace that.
Kaleem:to Brian Adams, by the way. Everything I do. I do it for you.
Rick:Now it cuts like a knife! But it feels so right. Going way back on that one, folks. Sorry about that.
Kaleem:out, BA. Shout out, BA.
Rick:So, uh, Adam, can you tell us about a comical or inspiring moment you may have had while working remotely?
Adam:Yeah, and yeah, I do have one which was, uh, embarrassing, to say the least. So I, my last company Scout, um, managed to co found it and get it up to like 70 odd people bootstrapped and. hit something like four million, four million revenue in under two years. Um, you know, did, did well. It, it was good. So yeah, I'm like impressed. I'm happy with that, but had a bit of an embarrassing founder moment.
Kaleem:What you're saying. Okay.
Adam:What's that? Sorry.
Kaleem:I was going to say, so there's some pressures, you know, you build up the company, you got to make, you got to do important meetings with more and more important people. Right. That's what I'm trying. I'm trying to get a feel of the seriousness of the situation.
Adam:We're just making it look like you know what you're doing, I suppose, as a founder, I think, is the general, general hope. So, anyway, we, we, we, we were remote, but I would say, like, we were remote first. We did have an office space in London. I was outside of London. People didn't have to come in if they didn't want to, but we got together a couple of times a year for socials and stuff. So, anyway. I was planning the social and logistics, so I spent a lot of time speaking to about 60 or so people about travel arrangements. Please book your train, please, please be an adult, book it, look at times, plan ahead, think carefully about your journey. This is on you and we'll, we'll pay for it, but you've got to book it. So I spent about two weeks telling people they needed to do this. And then I had a trip booked up to London a couple of days later, just, just to go up there and see a few people and so on and so forth. I packed my bags, got to the train station early in the morning and then realized there were train strikes that day in the UK and there were literally zero trains running and they'd been announced weeks, weeks before that everyone had them and no one was at the train station. So I was walking through the train station thinking like, this is quiet this morning. What's going on? This is amazing. Anyway, get to the platform and stand there and like, what is going on? No trains, no nothing. And I'm stood there with my work stuff, my overnight bag. And I jump onto Slack, and I just mess, I had to mess with the team, I was like, I've spent the last two days telling all of you to like, be on top of like, booking your travel, be adults, be, and I'm sitting there thinking I'm, I'm meant to be like, running a, a relatively, you know, good business here, we've done, and I can't even get myself organized, so, yeah, the downside of remote working for me is like, uh, yeah, when you do have to travel, I was completely, the. Unaware of train strikes and travel and when you get so zoned in on like just not having to leave home, you know But anyway, that was embarrassing but comical
Kaleem:that's, a good one. That's good. Do as I say, not as I do.
Adam:this is a test this was a test for all of you
Rick:Right? Never mind this, get back to work.
Kaleem:as soon as I, got that slack and I'm one of your employees, I'm like this motherfucker.
Rick:Ha ha Practice what you preach, man.
Kaleem:I was like, good, good. Don't tell me I would have been like, I would have been like all emojis, like laughing emoji, you know what I mean? Like all sorts of shit. Ha ha ha
Adam:to To jump on Slack and make fun of myself, um, and then walk home again and rebook my journey.
Rick:That's the trick right there, you gotta own it. You owned it well.
Kaleem:That's a quality story, sir. Thank you.
Rick:can our viewers and listeners find you, Adam?
Adam:Yeah, I live my entire life on LinkedIn 24 hours a day pretty much. So find me on LinkedIn, connect with me, drop me a DM. Yeah, always posting and rambling and, you know, always online. That's probably the easiest place to go. Check out OpenOrg. FYI as well, there's a, we talked about it earlier, but there's a resources page on there that's got a heap of free and curated resources for like HR and people folks. Um, so hopefully
Kaleem:amazing. It's amazing. I love it. That's why you're on the show. I got sucked in. I use some of the resources. It's a good thing. So shout out to you. Keep doing what you're doing and really appreciate you coming on the show, bro. Appreciate you.
Adam:Thank you.
Rick:Adam Horn, thank you so much for joining us. It was great to
Adam:No, my pleasure. Thank you.
Kaleem:Awesome, man.
