An Inclusive Environment That Supports Wellbeing with Hollen Spatz
Hollen is the VP of People and Operations at ClassPass. ClassPass is the world’s largest fitness and wellness network. In her role, Hollen oversees the global HR, recruiting, and internal operations functions. In previous roles at ClassPass, Hollen was responsible for growing and scaling the Customer Experience team. Hollen brings more than 15 years of leadership experience in marketing and customer experience strategy.
Hollen and her team are committed to creating the optimal employee experience. No matter where employees are, they make sure working at ClassPass is a consistent experience from the moment someone is potentially looking to work there and until they retire.
Talking to the employees is the best action to start change
Hollen understands that communication is essential during an adaptive process, and this is why all efforts at ClassPass are guided by talking to colleagues and the employees in general. They look to understand what people need at any specific moment in time.
Flexibility has been a significant piece of the puzzle. Surveys at ClassPass show that flexibility is what employees want and need, so Hollen is keen to implement initiatives that offer employees more flexible hours and continue learning what is working and what they need to improve the support system for everyone.
In early 2020, Hollen identified that employees needed access to certain items that allow them to have a home setup. Everyone was figuring out how to work from a laptop for long periods, potentially on a couch or somewhere that isn’t set up or conducive for the best work. So, they granted everyone a flat budget to allow them purchase an ergonomic chair, a computer monitor, or whatever helped them work best at home. This is a practice they keep even for new hires, allowing everyone to access a comfortable workspace at home.
Abundant lines of communication make the difference
Since the pandemic forced us to work from home, many of the social aspects of work changed. We no longer encounter people in the halls, the office kitchen, or other common spaces. This situation brings the need to open effective communication channels to compensate for the lack of social interaction. At ClassPass, Slack is used to keep everyone connected.
There are, of course, channels for ongoing projects and company announcements. Still, there are also many social channels where people can share everyday experiences, like the Dog Parents channel or the Bikers at ClassPass channel. The goal is to create fun and easy ways for people to connect as they jump in and jump out of these channels depending on their own engagement level.
A diverse company where everyone has a voice
ClassPass is proud to have a diverse workforce, and as part of their effort to make everyone feel comfortable and heard, they created resource groups. There is a group focused around LGBTQ teammates, and there is a black employee network, one for ClassPass moms, women at engineering, and a bunch of other groups.
The company assigns a budget to each of these groups to organise events and potentially bring in speakers. Then they have a way for the leaders of those groups to get together to determine how to improve and work cross-functionally. They have tried and iterated many different social events like zoom happy hours or virtual team workouts.
More recently, they have encouraged deeper connection around critical social issues, including race and social justice. Rather than shying away from these topics, they try to lean in and invite guests, speakers, activists, and external experts to foster dialogue and help teams grow closer while simultaneously giving teams the tools and language to have these conversations in the workplace and beyond.
A fair and inclusive hiring process
Recruiters and hiring managers always need to be thinking about the voices that are missing, ensuring all voices and all backgrounds are included in the process and recognising how important it is to have those voices in the room. That is where true innovation and creativity is going to happen.
At ClassPass, they constantly evaluate their recruiting and hiring practices to ensure that they are creating a fair hiring process and getting roles in front of candidates from different backgrounds and locations. This philosophy even shows up in their About Us page, which got a recent update and now talks about how inclusion is the company’s foundation.
Listen to the entire podcast above or on your preferred podcast platform, and you can watch the video of our conversation through this link.
Go to ClassPass.com to find more about what they do and connect with Hollen or anyone on the team.
About Your Host
Brian Crooke is a wellbeing educator, speaker and adviser, empowering Irish organisations to promote and sustain wellbeing within their workplaces.
He is the founder of The Work Well Institute and the Workplace Wellbeing Ireland community and is Course Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Workplace Wellness at Tangent, Trinity College Dublin. He is the host of The Work Well Podcast.
If you want to bring sustainable wellbeing to your workplace then check out The Work Well Institute’s flagship programme, Developing a Workplace Wellness Programme that Lasts.
In his spare time, Brian is bringing free resistance training to every county and community in Ireland through his parkHIIT social enterprise.
If you have any suggestions for future topics you'd like to hear on the show, email Brian directly, brian@workwellpodcast.com
Competition Time
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Follow @thefruitpeople and @workwellireland
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The weekly competition opens as soon as that week's episode is released (episodes will be released every Wednesday for Season 3). The competition closes the following Monday at 10 pm, and one lucky winner will be announced at lunchtime on Tuesday (we'll be checking each step has been followed).
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Terms and Conditions
Competition is open to residents of ROI only.
This competition consists of 12 weekly giveaways.
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You can enter each week and as often as you wish :)