Holly Grogan of Appspace: Five HR Strategies On How Companies Can Turn A Crisis Into An Opportunity or Advantage
An Interview With Finn Bartram, Editor Of People Managing People
Stay Out In Front. When a crisis comes your way, acknowledge it and talk about it openly and quickly. Hiding from the situation breaks trust and once you have lost the trust, it is almost impossible to gain it back. Don’t let the fear of saying the wrong thing get in your way of communicating. Acknowledge that you may not have all the answers, but you are committed to finding solutions and keeping an open and honest dialogue.
As any HR leader can tell you, crises are an inevitable part of the job. Tough situations pop up, often at the least convenient times, and these situations need to be handled efficiently yet delicately. Whether it’s dealing with a new employee, wages, or internal conflict, there are ways to come out on top. How can companies learn to take a crisis and turn it into an advantage? In this interview series, we are talking to HR leaders who share their strategies about “How Companies Can Turn A Crisis Into An Opportunity or Advantage.” As part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Holly Grogan.
As Chief People Officer of Appspace, Holly Grogan is responsible for driving the company’s growth and profitability through human resources and talent strategies. She has spent most of her career building People & Culture strategies for high-growth companies while creating great places to work environments. Holly is on the Board of Directors of Think Big for Kids, a non-profit helping break the cycle of poverty by providing middle and high school students with career opportunities, mentorship, and job readiness.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to this specific career path?
I grew up in the Atlanta area. Growing up, I wanted to be a nurse because of their people/patient connection. I read somewhere that the nursing profession is ranked as one of the most trusted jobs in America and that’s an admirable and well-deserved recognition. Rather than pursue a career in nursing, I studied sociology in college because of a keen interest in people and culture. My first job post-graduation was in recruiting. I’ve aspired to earn trust and connections in my professional life, which may have led me to my career path.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
The People & Culture team at Appspace is constantly looking at new strategies and projects to keep our team engaged and excited. Our workplace experience platform is all about creating workplaces that employees love by making sure they stay informed on important news and, equally important, they have the technology to stay connected. As a growing, geographically dispersed company, we want to model our mission.
When it comes to specific projects, I’m excited about our ongoing internal communications programs, which we significantly ramped up last year through town halls and all-hands meetings. These regular events give all of our employees an opportunity to hear from our leaders about the state of the company, product vision, and new initiatives that may impact their roles.
We’re also making great strides in rolling out our DE&I programs, specifically recruiting interested team members to connect and help us shape our efforts in this area.
Both of these areas play a key role in employee engagement and collaboration.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
There are so many people who have supported me in my career journey. I’ll give an easy one, Appspace’s CEO, Tony DiBenedetto. I worked for Tony at a previous company and greatly admire his commitment to building team culture. This is obviously important to me as a Chief People Officer, but as a CEO, Tony also understands the connection between strong culture and leadership and business outcomes.
He’s also genuine in his commitment to community involvement, starting a non-profit organization, Think Big for Kids, which I’m equally proud to support.
Fantastic. Thank you for that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview about HR strategies for turning a crisis into an opportunity. Can you share your story of when an organization you’ve worked at entered into a crisis? What happened? What did you do?
I’m a big believer in perspective. So, when I think of crises, I think about the many professions, including healthcare workers, caregivers, and counselors, who can face crises every day. That said, there certainly have been challenging moments in my career. Most HR leaders faced a major challenge when COVID hit. It was unprecedented, and we didn’t have a playbook or crystal ball into how long we’d be in this new way of working. Fortunately, Appspace had embraced flexible work models before the pandemic and understood how to use our own platform to keep everyone connected.
What was your mindset during such a challenging time? Where did you get the drive to keep going when things were so hard?
During the pandemic, my mindset was empathy-first. I strongly believe that as an HR leader, I needed to consider — to the best of my ability — what everyone was experiencing. Team members turned into caregivers. Parents with school-aged children were working while trying to manage their kids’ daily schoolwork. And, team members were, rightly so, worried about getting sick.
Staying connected with team members, listening to their concerns, and finding ways to address them, kept me motivated.
Can you please tell us how you were able to overcome such adversity and how the company ultimately turned the crisis into an opportunity or advantage? What did the next chapter look like?
As a business, Appspace was able to help our customers move to more hybrid and remote workplaces. Internally, we used this time to determine the best ways to communicate with team members and generate feedback on what we need to do better. Our town halls, which we rolled out during COVID, are an excellent example of how we drive engagement and communications with people working from anywhere. We also poll employees regularly to get their feedback on what we can do better.
Here is the main question of our interview: Based on your experience, can you share five actionable pieces of advice for HR leaders about How Companies Can Turn A Crisis Into An Opportunity or Advantage? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Stay Out In Front. When a crisis comes your way, acknowledge it and talk about it openly and quickly. Hiding from the situation breaks trust and once you have lost the trust, it is almost impossible to gain it back. Don’t let the fear of saying the wrong thing get in your way of communicating. Acknowledge that you may not have all the answers, but you are committed to finding solutions and keeping an open and honest dialogue.
- Prepare Leaders. In times of uncertainty, people look to leaders for support and assurance. Equip other leaders with talking points they can use with their teams. This will help them stay on track and prevent unintended mixed messages, which also can break down trust.
- Listen. When COVID hit, it was new to all of us. We assembled a COVID Response Team, made up of employees of all levels around the globe. In the beginning, we had daily stand-ups where we shared the concerns we were hearing from team members. We gave our leaders daily updates on everyone’s concerns to help create understanding and awareness.
- Rally. Banding together during a time of crisis can strengthen the relationships between people and the companies for which they work. If you have stayed out in front, prepared your leaders, and listened well, you have the foundation to weather the storm together. During the early days of COVID, we also had weekly company-wide town halls to share current information. We had doctors join the calls to answer questions and mental health professionals to discuss how employees could care for themselves and one another. We also established a COVID relief fund that team members could contribute to (with a company match) to help anyone who had pandemic-related financial hardships.
- Assess and Adjust. Check in on how the team is responding and adjust the course as needed. Ask leaders to gather feedback in one-on-ones with team members. Quick pulse surveys are a relatively effortless way to provide real-time feedback and are a valuable tool in helping turn a crisis into a growth opportunity.
What are a few of the most common mistakes you see leaders make when their company hits a crisis? What should be done to avoid them?
There are many lessons to be learned from other companies and other leaders who have successfully managed crisis situations. While a company may not take the exact same approach as another, there are strategies and tactics that may be applicable. Not starting from scratch when a crisis hits may help organizations get to the other side faster.
What advice would you give to HR leaders and organizations who have yet to hit their first real crisis?
First, every company should have a crisis management plan to address potential crisis scenarios. Again, most companies didn’t plan for a global pandemic, but there are some more likely situations for which you can prepare.
Having a consistent and calm approach is also key. There’s a saying that chaos begets chaos. No one wants to see that from their leaders.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
This is a tough one because as Chief People Officer, I believe there are a lot of ways to positively impact people. I’ll go back to a previous comment about the importance of empathy. The last two-to-three years have shone a bright light on viewing situations from another person’s perspective. If I could inspire a “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” movement, I think we’d all be more empathetic and compassionate as leaders and co-workers.
How can our readers continue to follow your work online?
Readers can follow Appspace at www.appspace.com. I’m also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollygrogan/
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
About The Interviewer: Finn is the editor of People Managing People, an indie media publication on a mission to help build a better world of work. He’s passionate about growing organizations where people are empowered to continuously improve and feel fulfilled in their role. If not at his desk, you can find him playing sports or enjoying the great outdoors. To learn more about Finn’s work please go to https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/
