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As more people work remotely due to COVID-19, businesses are being challenged to stay productive, engaged, and foster a digital community. In this episode of 'Behind The Experience,' we speak with Verity Bell, the global head of events and engagement at Atlassian, a leading project management software company, about employee engagement strategies during and beyond COVID-19. 

“We spend a lot of time and focus on connection points and where can we add value by connecting Atlassian's together so that they have a lot of those incidental conversations or shared experience and shared memories...”

This episode is a part of our COVID-19 Events & Brand Experience Hub, a selection of resources and insights our team has curated to help your brand navigate your way through events and brand experiences.

Learn more about Verity Bell and Atlassian here:

https://www.atlassian.com/

 

Read the full interview below. 

Mark Bennedick:

Thanks for tuning in to Behind The Experience. I'm your host, Mark Bennedick, co-founder and director of Sense Group here in Sydney. Today's podcast is part of our series dedicated to our COVID toolkit. The toolkit curates global experts, data analytics, and creative ideas to help brands come out the other side of this crisis stronger than ever through the power of brand experiences. So for more information on that, you can visit our website at sensegroup.com.au.

Now, look, for today, today's guest works for one of Australia's most well-known technology industry success stories, Atlassian, co-founded by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar. Atlassian makes products to help teams all over the planet advance humanity through the power of software and their mission is to help unleash the potential of every team. So, their products literally help teams stay connected and manage projects. I really wanted to know how a company like Atlassian manages their own teams in times like this.

I'm really excited today to be talking with Verity Bell, the global head of events and engagement at Atlassian. Verity has over nine years of experience working directly for Atlassian, and is responsible for ensuring the global consistency of events across eight Atlassian offices and offers support to the Sydney experience team and events teams globally. She's also responsible for championing Atlassian values to staff and just simply executing awesome events and experiences. So Verity, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today on the show.

Verity Bell:

Thanks so much for the chat.

Mark Bennedick:

Yeah. Really looking forward to it. And obviously, being a tech company, we have a lot of tech companies in the work that we do particularly. So I'm really interested to see how you guys are doing and hear of some of the interesting things that you have been doing since lockdown has begun.

I think Atlassian is a really well-regarded company in Australia. So, and having that almost, I guess, pressure of having to manage teams remotely and having programs and software that does that, I think a lot of people will be interested to see how a company like yourselves are sort of managing right now. So I guess for people who don't know you, or don't know a lot about Atlassian, do you want to just give us a little bit of a background on yourself and your day-to-day role at the company?

Verity Bell:

Sure. So I am part of the workplace experience team at Atlassian. So our team broadly sort of encompasses everything that Atlassian sort of touch from our buildings and real estate through to guest services, reception, our kitchens. And my part of that puzzle is the events and engagement side. So I produce events and activities and activations for Atlassian staff. And we do that sort of to keep the community together, to help Atlassian's feel at home and find sort of a belonging at work as well, so that they can do the best work with their teams by having sort of strong social connections as well.

Mark Bennedick:

How many teams or how many people are there actually in Atlassian these days? Because it started off, I guess, in Australia, but you're across eight offices.

Verity Bell:

Yeah. So we're still Sydney based and we've got our HQ in Sydney with all our other offices as well. Sydney is still our biggest site at the moment. We're at about two and a half thousand people, I think, and we're heading towards 5,000 globally.

Mark Bennedick:

Wow.

Verity Bell:

So that's sort of where we're steering our ship at the moment is to 5,000 Atlassian's and what that looks like.

Mark Bennedick:

Wow. So you've got 5,000 people with opinions about the kind of stuff that you're doing within the office.

Verity Bell:

Oh, yeah.

Mark Bennedick:

That sounds like a tough gig.

Verity Bell:

Well, one of our key values of our company is open company, no bullshit. And we definitely have an open company and there's not a lot of bullshit with people's opinions sometimes, too.

Mark Bennedick:

Well, that's a good thing. You're getting direct feedback.

Verity Bell:

We get lots of good feedback. Yes, we do.

Mark Bennedick:

I mean, tell me how has the COVID-19, the coronavirus, affected the Atlassian business from your perspective, I guess in terms of the things that you're doing for the team. And I imagine being in the tech industry, there was a certain proportion of your staff that perhaps worked remotely already. But I mean, what's been sort of the key things that has really changed for you guys?

Verity Bell:

I think we were pretty lucky. We were sort of set up for success in a lot more ways than a lot of companies in regards to remote working. We already had a fairly large remote contingency and we are quite a flexible workplace anyway. So even myself personally, I work from home at least once a week and our platform is web-based and made for collaboration. So great. We already had the tools in place and we're used to that. It's still been a big change for us, though, to not have that physical office.

Mark Bennedick:

Yeah.

Verity Bell:

And I think we've had to have a lot of empathy for everybody's unique and sort of individual situation. Everybody's sort of dealing with this larger crisis in different ways. And especially because we're global as well, it's hitting different people in different countries in different ways as well. So we sort of had to adapt to be more flexible, not just in working, but also in our personal life as well.

Mark Bennedick:

Well, that's interesting what you mentioned there about empathy, too. I think that's a really keyword because there's a lot of brands these days talking about coming out the other side and perhaps having that empathetic view of how they market to consumers. But at the same time, I guess, internally having that empathy for your staff and having to understand everyone's individual situations, particularly working from home, some people have kids, some people don't. So everyone's got a unique set of challenges going on. Have you found that that sort of filtered through into some of the systems or initiatives you've had to put in place, like really having to think about the multitude of situations and how you deal with that?

Verity Bell:

Yeah, absolutely. Even just down to sort of, we have a program of events that would normally be on site, workshops, activities, social things. And we found that the sort of topics and things that we're exploring in our workshops and our talks have naturally skewed towards things like resilience and working with your partner from home and sort of how to manage anxiety. So we've been focusing in on that.

There's a week coming up called Resilience Week where we're focusing on helping Atlassian's build resistance, not resistance, sorry, Atlassian's build resilience and cope with all of those sort of stresses and anxieties and things like that. So we're doing webinars and a whole bunch of programs to support Atlassian's in mindfulness and just looking after ourselves and that's coming from the exec level down, which is beautiful. We're very much as a company aware of the increased stress and anxiety on our staff at this time. So a lot of what we've been doing has been honing in on that and sort of helping everybody find that right balance. Yeah.

Mark Bennedick:

And did you do much of that kind of initiatives before as well, or are these sort of totally new?

Verity Bell:

No, we definitely did. They've sort of always been there. We've always had yoga and yoga classes and different health and wellness initiatives that focus around that. But I think it's just a lot more powerful now and there's a larger focus and a larger need. People are sort of reaching out for that type of thing, as well, at the moment so it's very front of mind.

But it has been brilliant being part of the company at this time, in regards to that empathy piece. We've had updates from our founders where their kids have interrupted them in the middle of sort of talking to a few thousand. One said, "You know what? I'm just going to leave that in the cart. This is life." And so I think that gives people, they sort of feel comfortable that if that happens to me, that's okay. I was in a team meeting with our global team yesterday and I think we saw at least three or four kids on that call as they sort of jumped in or people said goodbye to them on their way out to daycare or whatever that happened to be.

Mark Bennedick:

Previously, I remember there was a thing on TV, don't quote me on it, but I think it was ABC or a CNN reporter or someone like that who was doing a live cast from their home and their kid walked in and it went viral because of the kind of crazed reaction that the interviewer had. But then these days I think that same reaction probably wouldn't have happened because it was unique at the time.

Verity Bell:

And now it's just every day. I've been saying like my one-year-old has been on that many conference calls and things that she should know by this point, she feels like she's contributing.

Mark Bennedick:

Definitely, definitely. Well, take me back to the officers. Because I know Atlassian's has a pretty unique culture and you talked about the no bullshit and having experienced that, I think it's a great actual value to have as a company, cuts through the PR speak, in a way. Everyone just says what they think. Take us back to sort of typical Atlassian week to week, what are the kinds of things that you were doing in the office to kind of create that workplace experience for employees before these changes?

Verity Bell:

So we're very conscious of connection points for each other. So for example, we're very lucky to have a lunchroom where we have catered lunches, but we have one area for that. We don't have food and things in our kitchen, it's along the floors of our building to bring people together to that one space, to sort of make sure that we have a community feel.

Mark Bennedick:

Yeah.

Verity Bell:

And events wise, we run workshops, we call them skilleries, but it's sort of everything from knitting to building things or different craft bits and pieces, so Atlassian's with sort of similar interests can sort of find their tribe amongst the wider community and not just the people that they work with. Obviously, we have like a global town hall weekly that streams to the lounge areas or the kitchen areas of each office. So as you spin around the world, you can see all the Atlassian's hanging out, watching that together. But it's just, we spend a lot of time and focus on connection points and where can we add value by connecting Atlassian's together so that they have a lot of those incidental conversations or shared experience and shared memories and that sort of thing.

We've got Friday night drinks, that's often themed and a fun thing where you can bring a friend or your family members, and we'll get to all hang out together. We have some larger events. So we have a large team building day, each year, a holiday party to sort of celebrate our achievements and look back over the year towards the end.

And we have a big friends and family day where we invite all our friends and family to a big carnival that's sort of in the middle of the city at a big park. There's rides and different, exciting things as a thank you to those people near to us who have contributed to Atlassian even if they're not paid by Atlassian, but just by making, when we have a late meeting or covering for us, or just listening to our stresses when we need to vent after a hard day, so sort of a give back to them as well. Lots of opportunity, luckily, to chat with each other and sort of form those bonds that make work enjoyable. Yeah, just sort of a nice place to be because you spend more time at work than anywhere else.

Mark Bennedick:

It's crazy, isn't it? I'm thinking in terms of, while you're saying all of that is that connection points is obviously great for the culture and finding your tribe. Especially in a big company where there's so many people, some people could feel lost within a big company of that sort.

Verity Bell:

Yeah.

Mark Bennedick:

Do you find that it also has helped spur ideas or from a work perspective providing those environments for people to connect has led to things that are business benefits as well, as opposed to, well, not as opposed to, I guess, even just in addition to cultural and relationships and having people sort of find their tribe?

Verity Bell:

Yeah, definitely. I don't know about you, but I have great sessions of sort of creative and problem-solving sessions when I can bounce off people. And that doesn't necessarily work for me when I'm sitting in a meeting room and I have between 12:00 and 12:30 to knock that out.

Mark Bennedick:

Under the pressure, the pressure of having to do it.

Verity Bell:

Exactly, but to have a chat over lunch with food in front of you, where that conversation sort of finds its natural path and discover things that way that you wouldn't necessarily discover in a structured format. Or maybe it is sort of playing table tennis for half an hour and your hands are active, but your mind has the capacity to wander into different places. So I think that's really important, too. It's a different mechanism for problem-solving and finding creative approaches to different things, I think, than necessarily just having time to put post-its on a wall or use Confluence to put points down on a screen. So, yeah, I think just having, and then a lot of it is also about trust and knowing the people that you're working with. You know just...

Mark Bennedick:

Yeah, feeling comfortable to put yourself out there, put your ideas out there.

Verity Bell:

Exactly. Because you know about them and you have a personal connection as well, so there's trust and respect there beyond just, "You're my boss," or "You're my colleague." It's like, "No, you're my friend and you have my back. And I know that you're having a hard time because something's going on in your personal life because we have that banter. That means that I know when to sort of help you out and then you'll reciprocate and help me out when I need it." And there's just sort of a different working dynamic and everything that my team does is about supporting that, as well.

Mark Bennedick:

Yeah. It's very true. How do you think that's going to play out in the next six months, because for ourselves, I guess, as producers of experiences, we're very much on board with the idea of the physical connection and you can't replace that in its entirety online. And a lot of what you previously did, I guess, did rely on that sort of physical connection in the office.

How do you think that's going to play out in the next six months? Because I guess we've been forced to trial some of these online ideas at the moment, which are awesome and having some great success by the sounds of it, but I wonder how the balance will play out, do you think, in the future? Because I've seen a lot of companies out there as well at the moment saying "You're welcome to work at home for forever," or say, at your choice of how much, or they might have only 25% of people back in the office for quite a long time. I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts on how that might play out with yourselves at Atlassian or even if you have a plan at this point, I don't know. It would be interesting to know what your thoughts are on that.

Verity Bell:

It's a hard one, isn't it? And we're sort of navigating that as we go. There's no rule book for this. I think you're right. I think even when we get to a place where it resembles more of what we're used to, that this idea of opening up our events and experiences to remote workers or online or digital, I don't think that's going away. I think that sort of the result of this is that we'll still have a greater presence. So I think there's definitely going to be more of our remote experience as a remote events program in place for us even going forward off the back of this. And just because I think more people would just be working from home more regularly anyway.

Mark Bennedick:

For a while.

Verity Bell:

Yeah. Even if they weren't remote workers as such before this, I think there's a balance, but yeah, it's a hard one. Some things that worked in the office are just not quite resonating in the digital world. And then there are some things that we can do now that we never were able to do when we were defined by our walls and our physical space.

We have access to so much content and so many great creatives and producers of content because now everyone's on an even playing field. You join your Zoom link and it doesn't matter if you're from India or America or wherever, now we have the same access to that as people in those areas do. That's a brilliant opportunity that we can utilize. I think carving deliberate space for this type of experience is really important in the office. You can sort of stumble across things happening or they find an organic sort of way where it builds because someone starts and then someone else joins and it kind of finds its organic. Whereas when we're doing everything virtually, we've got to be a lot more considered in structuring that time to connect and those rituals become really important as well and just ensuring that there's consistency.

Mark Bennedick:

I mean, tell me about that. What are some of the ones that have been working really well online over the last six to eight weeks? Or have there been some that have surprised you where you thought, because I mean, I'm looking at some of the things that you guys have been doing and there's organizing your fridge and freezer. There's knitting. There have been music concerts. There's been, I mean, an awesome array of all sorts of things, a virtual game night. I mean, yeah. What are the ones that have been really surprisingly successful?

Verity Bell:

Well, not surprisingly successful for a tech company, but we did a whole program based on Star Wars for May the fourth. And that was very well received, obviously, because it's Star Wars and a whole heap of people like Star Wars. But what it did was sort of, it was like this really niche kind of topic and conversation starter and people were drawn to that niche. One of the other sort of ones that popped up was we had a music marathon for one of our hackathons called ShipIt. And we put on a whole bunch of artists and different musical acts throughout that 24-hour hackathon. And the killer lineup for that one was actually Disney tunes. But you know what? Hey, I was there. I love Disney tunes.

Mark Bennedick:

You're singing alone and you know what? You surprisingly would know all the words.

Verity Bell:

Absolutely.

Mark Bennedick:

Well, maybe not surprising.

Verity Bell:

It was just a real, strong niche of people who love Disney tunes. So cool, that brought it in. We're sort of used to trying to work quite broadly and try to find themes that appeal to a really large audience. We've actually found, I think, with this online digital offering, that where you may have a smaller group of people watching Disney tunes, but the attraction over that shared passion, over that topic, is really strong. There's lots of banter and conversation. And so for those events that dive into something fairly particular, we get a smaller, but a stronger, more engaged and more interactive band of people. And then we've got a DJ on Friday nights, and that sounds great. She's got a great set up and she plays great music and it's a great end to the week.

But what's happened there is, week over week, we've got a really strong band of people where that's now part of their routine. It's definitely part of mine. And now we know that it's kind of created some stories and some memories and some community around that. Because as the weeks have gone past, well, you know what? Vincent who I have never met him. He's a remote worker normally. I know that he has the best song requests. And now it's a little like in joke for us that Vincent's there on the Friday, basically being DJ number two, right? My daughter loves to get in front of the camera and dance. So now if she doesn't pop up during that session, I'm getting hit up by a message, "Where's the dancing baby? Where is she?" And little in jokes and things that have developed in sort of that group of people who really dig that DJ on a Friday.

Mark Bennedick:

So it's interesting. I mean, so it almost seems like a wider variety of niche ideas that have sort of uncovered some sort of secret passions of people almost, but then also people need a little bit of structure. And that's what I always think of the office environment. It provides that structure in your day or in your headspace where you come into the office and that's the place to work. And I guess when people are at home that those lines are blurred.

Verity Bell:

Yes.

Mark Bennedick:

But this structure, having some of these things booked in in your week probably does help people to sort of try and maintain a little bit of that structure. Otherwise, it's very easy to just wander around and come in and out. And it's hard to, I guess, keep focused in your working day.

Verity Bell:

And our longer form sort of events, like four weeks of learning guitar or six weeks of Spanish lessons, where it's consistent and you're exactly right, that time is carved out and you dedicate it and it becomes part of your routine and your habits. We found a lot of success with that probably and then they find their little community and their little gathering within that sort of subject. Yeah.

It's been interesting. Yeah.

Mark Bennedick:

There's one other thing I do want to touch on, which is the Atlassian summit, which happens in Las Vegas. It's probably one of the bigger events that Atlassian or the biggest event that Atlassian does each year. And that got affected by coronavirus and couldn't take place. And from what I understand you haven't sort of been directly involved with this one in terms of the organization, but it went online, or turned into a webinar series. Is that right? A webinar series?

Verity Bell:

Yeah, that's right. So it was actually on track to be the largest Atlassian event to date. And then sort of the COVID pandemic situation started to ramp up and they had to make a really difficult decision about whether they cancelled that live event or they move it to a digital platform or what they do with it. So they made the decision to keep the program. They kept it on the original program dates but instead of doing the three days that they normally do, they created two days of content. They did a very quick pivot, I think from memory, that was sort of mid, well, maybe late February coming into March or around that time. And then the remote summit was actually on the 1st of April. So they had to completely turn that around on its head.

Mark Bennedick:

And how did it go? Has there been any kind of anecdotal sort of results or success of how that went, like, did many people or more people than perhaps would have normally attended view that online? Or how did that go? Do you know anything about that?

Verity Bell:

Yeah, so they had around close to 30,000 registrations for that event, which is significantly larger than what they were expecting to have at their live sessions in Las Vegas. They had really great conversion rates of how many registrations, actual participants, and they did a lot of sessions so that they did talks, which is sort of traditional summit, as well. But they also kept the chat aspect of it as the sponsor hall, product and practice hubs and things like that. And they had a real success from those as well. So based off sort of industry average view time sessions and stuff, they saw a big increase on that. So overall, it was very well received. Everyone thought the content and the quality was great. And I think people were just really grateful for the effort that was put into changing it and that it-

Mark Bennedick:

Yeah, because it's a huge undertaking to do that at the last minute.

Verity Bell:

Yeah.

Mark Bennedick:

It's a big effort. It's interesting because I've chatted with many clients before, too, about do we have an online component to an event? And a lot of the time there's always been that question in their minds of will people still turn up to the event. And I think those lines are going to be blurred even more so in the future. And people have started to see the online component, but then obviously also starting to understand the shortcomings of online versus face-to-face. And the two of them, I think, can coexist and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive of each other. And they can actually perhaps working together be more beneficial.

Verity Bell:

Yeah. I agree with you. I don't think digital will replace face-to-face. That's sort of an innate human need to find people in that physical way. And you get sort of different things out of it, I think, by dedicating the day to go into the conference or something, and that clears out that space to really dive into that particular information or topic or whatever it is. Whereas, it's harder in a digital world to pull away from all of the notifications and email things and bits and pieces. But then at the same time, by putting it online, you've got the whole world who can access and join you and not just people in this case who can fly to Las Vegas for that exact timeframe. You've suddenly opened up your content and your experience to the world. And that's special in itself.

Mark Bennedick:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, is there anything else, I guess, from all the work that you've been doing, and I congratulate you, I guess, on the quick pivot that you guys have done internally to take everything online, as well, from your day-to-day world. Is there anything, any learnings or any sort of last thoughts that you might have for people that are having to face that similar situation or when perhaps they've come back to the office and have to then deal with remote workers where they're not used to doing that? I mean, are there any sort of last thoughts or learnings that you think are worth making note of?

Verity Bell:

I think the biggest thing that's come out of it is not the success of our events or how popular they were, but how it made people feel just by giving it a go and we haven't always got it right. And some things we try and they bomb. Some things are great and we'll find a spot, but the overwhelming response from Atlassian's for us putting in the effort to do it, is that they feel cared for and they feel valued and they feel looked after. And in a time where everything's sort of so hectic and a bit dangerous, it sort of makes them feel safe and looked after. There's so much more than just how many people are attending. The reach for the efforts are actually much broader than just the number of attendees. And it promotes them feeling like they belong to a really caring community as well.

Mark Bennedick:

I guess you've also got, sorry. I was just going to say, I think you've also got that leniency at the moment, to take a few risks and showing that you actually have empathy and care for your staff and giving them a great experience as best you can is fantastic. And then at the same time, you can have a little bit of fun with it and try out some new things and might even discover some things that you never thought were going to take off.

Verity Bell:

Yeah, I think you're right. Because we have been forced into a world of change, I think we've grown a tolerance for things changing that perhaps would be a little bit harder to maneuver sort of in, I don't know what I need to call it, the real world, the old world?

Mark Bennedick:

The new normal is what everyone's calling it because they can't think of a better way to say it yet. There'll be something that'll come up.

Verity Bell:

So everyone's sort of embracing change because we've been forced to. And so there's a real window of opportunity here to experiment and try different things and make changes. And people are more, I think, accepting of that. And they're going along with the ride because there's an understanding that it has to, and it's going to. So trying to make the most of that opportunity and just try all the things, make all the errors, find the sweet spots while everyone's just sort of very tolerant of that exploring and the experimentation.

Mark Bennedick:

Totally. Well look, Verity, it's been really great talking to you. Thanks for coming on and sharing some of your wisdom and some of your successes... and things that you've done in the last six to eight weeks. I mean, I think it's a tribute to you guys and it's really great to see the way in which people are showing that flexibility and that ability to change. And even if we're being forced to do it, and perhaps even a lot of people don't like change, but I think the long run, I guess, of all of this, is it's going to create innovation and creativity and hopefully lead us through to a more interesting and diverse kind of work-life balance in the future. That's I guess the positive spin, I think, on the whole thing.

Verity Bell:

I totally agree. I'm looking forward to what that looks like. I think we'll land in a better place.

Mark Bennedick:

Exactly. Well, look, thanks again, Verity and look, for everyone out there joining us today, be sure to check out the online resources we're providing to help brands emerge from the crisis stronger than before, via our website, sensegroup.com.au. We've got a great range of articles there, presentations, these COVID series podcasts, and also linking to some of the government websites, especially curated for marketing and experienced design professionals. All the links you can see in the show notes and look, stay safe, stay connected, and we'll see you next time on Behind The Experience.