Envoy Spotlight: How Frank Gonzalez of Change.org Keeps 140 People Happy Every Day
At Envoy, we geek out over bringing more efficiency, security, and delight to your office. As such, we’re in awe of the people who work tirelessly, day in and day out, to ensure your offices are shipshape and your employees happy. We’re talking about operations gurus, office managers, receptionists, and everything in between. We’re thrilled to feature these operations wizards and shine a spotlight on the marvelous work they do.
Meet Frank Gonzalez, the office manager at the San Francisco headquarters of Change.org, the world’s largest social change platform with more than 140 million users around the world. Frank has been at Change.org for two years now. Prior to that, he was the Operations Manager for the San Francisco Chronicle’s marketing department.
“I do a bit of everything here,” he said. “You might say that my focus is trying to make 140 people happy — daily.” (And that’s no small task!)
From talking to him, it’s clear that Change.org walks the walk when it comes to internal culture and how much they value their employees.
“It’s a brilliant company to work for,” said Frank. “The people here are not only accomplished in their fields, they are genuinely kind to each other. The culture at Change.org is pretty remarkable.”
What do you enjoy most about your work?
In addition to keeping the office running smoothly (I hope), I get to be someone who can step in to help teams continue to be productive, whether it’s simply providing replacement equipment or boosting morale. For example, there was an announcement recently at SXSW with First Lady Michelle Obama and our Dev Ops team was here at the crack of dawn to make sure everything with our site would be shipshape. My small but appreciated contribution to this effort was bringing them breakfast to keep them going — a way to also say thanks for their awesome work.
Reinforcing our culture by recognizing birthdays and hire date anniversaries is also pretty fun. I post them in Slack for all our offices to share in the celebration and it’s really heartwarming to see the well wishes, emoji explosions and funny gifs that are sent in response.
Gifting new parents with one of our “Change.me” onesies is always rewarding when you see not only their initial reaction to the gift, but also that moment when they realize that they’re not seen as just an employee — they’re part of the Change.org family.
What are your superpowers?
I’m actually pretty good at putting out “fires” quickly. The goal is always to keep it where almost no one is aware of the issue while maintaining your cool. One of our company’s seven core values is “offering solutions,” but I consider it lucky when the solution is a superficial one, like coming in on a recent Monday after a rainy weekend to be informed of a water leak that dripped onto a couple of workstations. Fortunately, the equipment was dirty but undamaged, so a quick clean up was all that was needed — this is a good day. If there was an issue with the equipment, then that’s when you deploy spares while new equipment is procured. Then there’s the conversation with property management about the leak itself.
What’s your approach when it comes to prioritizing your tasks?
I’m a big list maker, I think I’m one of the only people out there that still uses paper to jot everything down on anything at hand: margins of notebooks, random scratch paper, post-its, etc. As soon as it comes into my mind, I just jot it down or else my brain would explode trying to remember everything. And of course, for larger projects there’s Asana.
What traits are crucial to succeed in this type of role?
Keeping a pleasant disposition is pretty key. You need to be approachable so that everyone knows they can come to you with anything. This is always a work in progress for me. I can get frustrated quickly and need to keep that in check. But even if my frustrations bubble to the surface, this is an environment where my colleagues are supportive and always offer to help if they can. “We love and understand” is also a core value at Change.org. Have I mentioned how amazing the culture is here?
How do you measure your own success in this role? How do you judge your performance?
For me, there’s nothing better than drawing a line across a task to mark it complete. If I can check off most of the items on my to do list — and the building didn’t burn down and nobody got hurt — then I’m satisfied with my day’s performance. It may not sound like much, but then again, you haven’t seen some of my lists.
What projects or accomplishments are you most proud of during your time here?
One thing that I hold dear professionally, as well as personally, is when we had our All Team Retreat last year. I was part of the team that welcomed every employee (almost 300 at the time from our 20 global locations) upon their arrival with an enthusiastic and warm welcome that came from a genuine place in our hearts. You finally get to meet in person the folks you’ve been working with remotely and admire so very much. Making sure they start that week with a wonderful experience was very rewarding. I also coordinated the production of our awesome swag bag of branded items that we handed out so I got to feel a bit like Santa Claus (and one of the workshop elves) as well.
Office managers often have tips and tricks of the trade. Any you‘d like to share?
Having a list of trusted vendors is critical. Build on these relationships so that you know when you contact them they can deliver completely, quickly and within budget.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I’ve become an avid gardener since moving to the East Bay six years ago. I am removed both physically and emotionally from the work I do in the city when I’m home and have my hands in the soil. It creates a much needed balance to the nonstop work that most office managers undertake on a daily basis. My backyard is where I find my Zen.
Thanks for chatting with us, Frank! You can find him on LinkedIn.
