In this lively episode of the Remotely One podcast, hosts Rick Haney and Kaleem Clarkson chat with Sacha Connor, founder of Virtual Work Insider and a seasoned expert in remote work. Get ready for some valuable insights as Sacha takes us through her professional journey, marked by her pioneering role in remote work long before it became mainstream. Her story, deeply influenced by her Philadelphia roots, is one of resilience, innovation, and a commitment to redefining work in a distributed environment.
Sacha's career took off in brand marketing after she graduated from Lehigh University. She worked at various advertising agencies, including the prestigious Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. But her desire to get closer to the products she was marketing led her to The Clorox Company in Oakland, California, where she managed iconic brands like Hidden Valley Ranch, Kingsford Charcoal, and Brita Water Filters!
A pivotal moment came when Sacha decided to relocate to Philadelphia after the birth of her first child. Not wanting to leave her role at Clorox, she boldly asked to work remotely from the opposite coast—a groundbreaking idea in 2010, long before remote work was widely accepted. Clorox agreed but with significant caveats. However, despite these limitations, Sacha embraced the challenge and became one of the early pioneers of remote work, navigating the steep learning curve during a time when the tools and technologies we now take for granted were still in their infancy.
As Sacha's remote work experiment at Clorox evolved, she effectively led distributed hybrid teams. Initially, the company viewed her remote work arrangement as a temporary experiment with strict boundaries. Still, Sacha's success eventually paved the way for a broader acceptance of remote work within the company.
Turning 40 became another turning point in Sacha's life. Contemplating the next stage of her career, she decided to establish Virtual Work Insider. Virtual Work Insider offers training programs aimed at developing virtual leadership skills and equipping leaders with the tools they need to manage hybrid, remote, or geographically distributed teams.
They also assist organizations in developing "team working agreements" or "team charters," which are foundational documents that clearly define how teams will operate in a distributed work environment. These agreements cover aspects like meeting times, communication norms, and how to accommodate team members in different time zones, helping to overcome some of the challenges that come with flexible work arrangements.
Sacha’s experiences and insights provide a valuable perspective on the ongoing evolution of work in a post-pandemic world. As companies continue to navigate the complexities of hybrid work, clear communication, effective coordination, and strong leadership skills are becoming more critical than ever. Through Virtual Work Insider, Sacha is helping shape the future of work by providing the tools and training necessary for teams to thrive, no matter where they are located!
Learn more about Sacha:
- Sacha on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachaconnor/
- Learn more about Virtual Work Insider’s training programs and speaking engagements: https://virtualworkinsider.com/
More about us:
- Remotely One’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/remotelyone
- Remotely One’s Webpage: https://www.remotelyone.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kaleem (00:00):
Where are you originally from?
Sacha (00:01):
I'm from a suburb of Philadelphia, Western suburb.
So, very close to where I amright
Rick (00:06):
Philadelphia born and raised.
Sacha (00:08):
Okay.
Chillin out, maxin relaxin allcool.
Kaleem (00:16):
shooting some b ball.
Yes! Oh, the Fresh Prince! Ican't, that was, that was pretty
good!
Sacha (00:26):
I, have never rapped on a podcast before, I can tell you
that.
Rick (00:30):
I can assure you I have not either.
So, I didn't even get it right.
I thought I got it right, but Ididn't.
Kaleem (00:36):
mom got scared.
And she said, I
Rick (00:39):
Moving with your
Sacha (00:40):
with your uncle and auntie in Bel Air.
Kaleem (00:42):
Yes, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, you know every verse.
I know you do.
I can
Rick (00:47):
We're gonna get famous.
Kaleem (00:48):
Oh my gosh.
Rick (00:55):
Welcome back, everyone, to Remotely One.
I am one of two fabulous cohosts in this amazing program.
Rick Haney is my name.
He is Kaleem Clarkson.
What's going on, brother?
Kaleem (01:07):
Hi, you are fabulous.
Rick (01:09):
I feel fabulous.
Kaleem (01:10):
You look fab too, sir.
You look
Rick (01:12):
fab.
Thank you.
it takes a lot of work to bethis faB.
I will say, you know, we strivefor excellence on this show.
Kaleem (01:20):
How you been, man?
no complaints at all, man.
Things are great.
Sunny blue skies here inCharlotte.
mean, what can we say?
What can we, what can we say?
You know, it's better thanPhilly.
Rick (01:33):
Well, I don't know about that.
We're going to, we're going tohear a lot about the benefits of
Philly today.
Kaleem (01:37):
I don't know.
I
Rick (01:39):
Hey everybody, since you know how to find us, do us a
huge favor and go toratethispodcast.
com forward slash remotely oneand leave us a review.
Not a big deal.
Not a huge ask.
Take it maybe five seconds.
Again, ratethispodcast.
com forward slash remotely one.
If you could do that.
That would be amazing, and we'dlove you for it.
Since 2015, Remotely One is oneof the largest communities of
(02:03):
remote work professionals, withover 3, 500 Slack members and 5,
000 email subscribers.
Five! It's 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 guest.
Kaleem (02:21):
know, Rick, today I was really nervous, Rick, for
today's guest.
Like, like I, I'm nervous everyweek.
Every time we have a guest, butlike the more guests we get on
when you see their accolades andyou start reading stuff.
I even bought a new shirt,right?
This new shirt right here, bro.
Rick (02:40):
He's been to TJ Maxx, folks.
He's been to TJ
Kaleem (02:42):
damn it.
That's exactly where I got theshirt from guy.
Rick (02:46):
That's totally a TJ Max
Kaleem (02:48):
me.
Stop calling me out on that.
But I got a new one because Iwanted to look right.
And, also.
Our guest is tough, you know,like punch me right in the mouth
if I was looking wrong becauseRick our guest You know where
our guest is from
Rick (03:01):
Where?
Kaleem (03:02):
Philly, you know, you heard of rocky, right?
Rick (03:05):
Oh yeah.
Little feel.
Yeah.
You get this, uh, show on theroad here.
Kaleem (03:11):
But see, Rick, our guests, they're originally from
Philly, okay, and they'recurrently a resident.
They had a quick pit stop in SanFrancisco, which we're going to
have to ask them about.
But, our guest, Rick, prettysmart, as we'd say up in New
England, dude, pretty smart,wicked smart, dude.
Graduate from Lehigh.
Lehigh now.
(03:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now I thought maybe I had achance to go to Lehigh until,
you know, they saw my gradesuntil I didn't, until they saw
my, they don't, I got the denialletter.
I think I still got itsomewhere.
While she was at Lehigh, she gotan internship at GE right off
the bat.
Just a tiny little company, justa tiny little company, a little
internship.
(03:52):
But for some reason, and I don'tknow why, and guests, you're
definitely going to have to talka little bit more about this.
Our guest has a challenge.
They have a challenge and ahabit of putting this shirt on
backwards, bro.
Like crisscross.
Remember that crisscross willmake you jump, jump.
(04:13):
Yes.
We're going all the way back somuch in this episode to nineties
rap.
I can't even help it, but
Rick (04:18):
It's so nostalgic.
Kaleem (04:20):
it is great.
Her shirt is on correctly todaythough.
Cause we did check
Rick (04:24):
Yeah, we had a wardrobe check.
No,
Kaleem (04:26):
And it's not inside out.
So I don't know.
It's something that I guess doesfor some reason, they have no
idea why.
Our guest has been featured incharm, wall street journal
Forbes, just a couple.
And she was also, you know,featured in a book, but I'm not
going to say what book it is,Liam.
I'm not going to say what bookit is.
You've already been on the show.
We've already hyped your bookup, but she's always, she's
(04:49):
already been in the book.
Our guest has been a brandmanager for Clorox, but listen
to how many different brandsthat our guest has been a part
of.
This is why I'm so nervous.
Okay.
So while they worked at Clorox,they worked with hidden Valley.
Is that the salad dressing?
Hidden Valley, Costco.
(05:09):
Actually wait, I think this is aCostco shirt, son.
I think this might be a Costcoshirt.
Sam's club BJ's home DepotLowe's family, family dollar,
family dollar and dollargeneral.
Why do they always mix those?
I never understood why thosenames guests, do you have an
idea of why they were calledfamily dollar and dollar general
guests?
I mean, like, why, what is upwith that?
(05:30):
Is there, is there a fit?
Is there a special explanationfor why their family dollar and
dollar
Sacha (05:35):
It's all about the Dollar right?
So they were trying, at thetime, at the time, they could
sell things a dollar and below.
These days, right, you've gotthe five below, right?
That's us dating me back to the,when a dollar would go pretty
far.
Kaleem (05:49):
Okay, not a dollar billio.
Okay.
I get that.
I get that.
Our guest Rick has also been aLinkedIn top voice for remote
work.
They are the founder and CEO ofvirtual work.
Insider listeners and viewers,please give a warm welcome to
Sasha.
(06:10):
Come with
Rick (06:16):
yo!
Kaleem (06:19):
me.
If you want to live, come withme.
If you want to live.
Oh my gosh.
So great.
Sacha (06:28):
Now everybody's gonna start calling me Sarah.
Kaleem (06:32):
sorry.
I can't help it.
Thank you Sasha so much forcoming on the show.
Listeners, viewers, audience,another guest where if you need
to book them, you better bookthem ahead of time because this
guest is busy.
Rick (06:44):
Calendar is filling up.
Kaleem (06:46):
Yes, the calendar's filling up, but thank you for
finally connecting.
I appreciate it.
Sacha (06:50):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
It's great to be on with the twoOf you and let's have some fun.
Rick (06:54):
Well, we'll see how you feel about that at the end of
the
Kaleem (06:56):
Yeah.
Rick (07:02):
this any more awkward?
Sure I can.
So Sasha, first of all, again,thank you for being a part of
this.
You have such an impressiveresume and, a really great
background.
at what point did you decidethat remote work was your path?
And what was it that kind of ledyou there?
Sacha (07:19):
Yeah, this, this story is kind of interesting in that it
was something that was reallynever on my radar.
So Kaleem, you went all the wayback to my time at Lehigh
University and, you know, got methinking about, what did I do at
Lehigh?
I was a marketing major there,right?
So I wanted to really get intobrand marketing and started out
at advertising agencies first.
And I worked for a small adagency in the Philly suburbs,
(07:42):
and then I moved to a muchlarger agency in San Francisco.
So you, you mentioned that pitstop in San Francisco.
So what brought me out to SanFrancisco originally was to work
for Goodby Silverstein andPartners, which is a world
renowned creative agency where Iworked in account management to
begin with.
So, while I was, while I wasworking there, I was in San
Francisco, but I realized Iwanted to be on the client side,
(08:06):
so, so, you know, when you'reworking agency side, you're
working with a bunch ofdifferent clients, but I really
wanted to go and work clientside.
And the Clorox company, which isa 7 billion company.
is located in, what did you say?
Kaleem (08:19):
Tiny.
Sacha (08:19):
Tiny.
right?
Tiny.
But they were located inOakland, California.
So Just across the bridge fromwhere I was working in San
Francisco.
And I was able to, to workthere.
And I was super excited to moveinto a company that's so many
different brands that youwouldn't expect.
So Kaleem, you mentioned HiddenValley Ranch Dressing.
They have KC MasterpieceBarbecue Sauce, Kingsford
(08:42):
Charcoal, Brita Water Filters.
Like, I worked on all of thesebusinesses.
Kaleem (08:46):
cool.
It's so cool.
Sacha (08:48):
While I was there and I was working from the
headquarters for six years whenmy husband and I had our first
child, my daughter, Nevin, andwe wanted her to live and grow
up around her extended family,which was in the Philly area.
So, Kaleem, you brought upPhilly earlier.
Kaleem (09:06):
Down eagles.
I'm a Bears fan.
Down eagles, but I get it.
I get it.
Keep
Sacha (09:10):
So we, we wanted to move back to Philly and at first I
thought that meant that I had toleave Clorox and I loved my job
at Clorox.
I was learning so much.
The marketing programs I wasresponsible for were so fun.
I was working on new productinnovation as well.
I was working with sales teamsand I, so I asked the question.
(09:31):
Which at the time felt prettybold, which was to say, like,
could I keep my job with Cloroxbut move 3, 000 miles away?
And that was back in 2010.
Kaleem (09:41):
Yes, Sasha.
2010.
Oh, gee.
We have.
Oh, geez.
Remote work.
Oh, geez.
On this show.
Okay.
That's why we have the show.
Sacha (09:50):
2010, you know, so I, the good news was I had a good
relationship with the chiefmarketing officer and he said,
okay, like you can be anexperiment.
Let's see if you can do your joband lead your teams from the
opposite coast of the UnitedStates.
And that, Rick, to get to yourquestion, that's what started my
journey on learning how to workacross distance.
Rick (10:14):
So you took a chance.
I mean, you had no idea if thiswas gonna work or not, and the
company believed enough in youto say, Let's try it.
Sacha (10:22):
Let's try it.
And it was a steep learningcurve.
I mean, he's going from, youknow,
Kaleem (10:26):
not trip.
Let's not trip, Sasha.
Rick (10:29):
You had it under control.
Kaleem (10:30):
You perform at a very and I think a lot of people need
to hear this too because a lotof people like well Sasha's i'm
doing it You perform at a veryhigh level for six years like
you're being modest.
You're a very modest person Iknow you pretty well like like
not super super well but likei've talked to you before like
you don't like to gloat aboutyour skills, but you're really
nasty at everything.
Sacha (10:50):
Well, I work hard.
I work hard.
It doesn't all come reallynaturally, but my superpower is
hard work and focus.
Kaleem (10:57):
So you had already performed for these brands.
So when you brought up thequestion, they weren't going to
say no.
Sacha (11:06):
Well, at the time, you know, it was about retention.
It was about how do we retainyou and also use this as an
experiment to see how this canwork.
But it did come with somecaveats.
So I was told, you know, Okay.
you can, you can move and do, dothe job from Philly, but you'll
never get promoted to directorlevel and above.
Kaleem (11:27):
Right away.
Sacha (11:28):
Yes, I mean, because they wanted to be clear.
I mean, the part that I lovedabout Clorox was that.
they were super clear withexpectations, right?
They wanted to be upfront andnot change an expectation on me,
but so they said, you know,you'll never get promoted to
director level or above becauseyou have to be here at
headquarters for that Right.
Back 2010 again, Right.
We're talking about a while, along time ago, they said, you
(11:49):
will never get to work on somebusinesses or in some roles
because those roles must be hereat headquarters.
Kaleem (11:55):
Okay.
Okay.
Sacha (11:57):
you're going to move from being a high potential employee,
hypo, to low potential employee.
So that's how, some largeenterprises, they look at
succession planning, they lookat, they provide long term
compensation that's based onpotential, not just performance.
Kaleem (12:12):
Oh, you mean like stock options, stuff like that?
You're saying,
Rick (12:15):
Wow.
Sacha (12:16):
So, You know, in my head I was just going like, just get
me back to Philly, but I'll showyou, I'll show you that?
I can get promoted, that I canrun those types of businesses
and those types of roles.
I don't know how I'm going to dothat, but I'll show you.
Kaleem (12:30):
that's that Philly.
That's that Philly, Rick.
That's that Philly.
Oh, really?
Really?
We'll see.
We'll see about that, son.
Sacha (12:38):
I think it was actually a real motivator for me because I
felt like so many weights on myshoulder around, you know, being
one of the first in brandmarketing to go remote that if I
didn't make it work, then theyweren't going to let other
people do it.
And so I took it really, reallyseriously.
Rick (12:54):
Well, in that line of thought, I mean, this is a huge
company.
I mean, world renowned.
It's very recognizable brands.
What has the evolution been likein your eyes?
Like you've seen them kind ofevolve as you have as a remote
worker um, you know, especiallysince the pandemic, how has that
company Embraced or maybe notembraced remote work.
Kaleem (13:17):
Yeah,
Sacha (13:17):
I can talk.
more specifically about kind ofthe year.
So I was remote for eight yearsthen working for them.
So I then led distributed hybridteams while I was fully remote
for eight years.
So I can talk a little bit abouthow that transition went.
Can't talk as much specificallyabout today, but we, can talk
about that a little bit sinceit's been now five years since
(13:38):
I've been gone.
But, when I did first go remotelike I said before, it was a
huge learning curve.
Especially if you think back to2010, a lot of the technology
tools that we take for grantedright now actually Weren't in
existence.
Exactly.
And so there was a real big techcomponent to this in terms of
(14:00):
how do I stay connected?
How do I stay top Of mind?
How do I do my job every daywhen I'm three time zones and
3000 miles away?
And so, like, small things,like, my laptop wasn't even
really set up to do the videoconferencing that they had just
started to experiment with.
(14:20):
So, what was funny was we Didn'twhen I first went remote, they
didn't have all, like, the inconference room,
Kaleem (14:26):
cameras.
Sacha (14:27):
and big screens and things like that.
So if I wanted to present to aleadership team, one of my
direct reports would, like,carry me around on a laptop.
Like, do you remember Mac'sHeadroom?
Like, that's, right?
Like, that's, right?
Kaleem (14:40):
max, max,
Sacha (14:41):
Like, on a, on a laptop and put me in front of the
general manager.
And I would be presentingthrough the computer, but my
laptop would start to likewhirl, and like, I would think I
would smell smoke, and then I'dbe mid sentence, and the laptop
would turn off because itcouldn't handle
Rick (14:59):
b b b buh bye.
Buh bye.
Kaleem (15:03):
Holy crap, I haven't heard the phrase, I can't get
Max Hedgeham out of my mind,it's been so long.
This is the best episode ever,by the way.
I'm just having so muchnostalgia.
So you had to, They walked youaround even on man.
And then the laptops weren'tgreat either.
Cause I mean, like you said,they probably didn't even have
the embedded cameras yet in the
Sacha (15:24):
Oh, right, right.
I can't even remember about thecamera thing.
Kaleem (15:27):
Yeah.
Wow.
Sacha (15:29):
But then they started to put the cameras in the rooms at
the Clorox headquarters, and soI started to befriend a lot of
the IT people because I waslike, how do I link into that?
Because for me to overcome whatI now know is called distance
bias at the time, I didn't, Ifelt this unconscious bias, but
didn't realize that it wasactually like a unconscious bias
(15:51):
that we have around proximitybias.
And so I guess this idea of,Right, this idea of our brain's
natural tendency to put morevalue on The people and things
that are closer to us than thosethat are farther away.
And I felt this on a dailybasis, but I knew that if I
could get my face on the wall inthe rooms that I was bouncing
between, then I'd have a betterchance of staying top of mind,
(16:14):
influencing conversations.
And so the IT team, they IPaddresses.
That's And I, we had somethingcalled Movi, which was a Cisco
product that is before WebEx.
And I would have to enter in theIP address, like 5, 1 point.
And then I would just show up inthe room.
(16:36):
Nobody had to touch a button.
So I could bounce between roomsand people be like, how'd you do
that?
Kaleem (16:42):
That's kind of, that's super innovative, actually.
You think about it now, I mean,I don't even think you, like,
right now, I don't, jumping inon screen, like, instantly,
probably a lot of people don'tdo that.
So that's,
Sacha (16:53):
Well, it probably was a bad idea because that meant no
security, Right, So like I couldhave actually jumped into the
executive suite rooms if I hadwanted to without anybody
actually saying enter.
Kaleem (17:07):
So you're working with this different technology.
At what point did you startsaying, Hey, I, I want to lead a
team.
So like, at what point did yourexperiment start spreading a
little bit through the companyor did it?
Sacha (17:25):
Yes.
So what was happening?
So I was already leading teams.
I was leading at the time I wasworking on new product
innovation team.
So it would seemcounterintuitive that they would
say, Oh, some of the roles thatyou can be on, you can't work
on, unless you're atheadquarters.
Are these kind of like businessfacing, like products that are
already out in the market.
(17:45):
But as a remote worker, youcan't.
You can work on new productinnovation, which in a consumer
packaged goods company is verytangible products.
So like, what is the new pinesalt scent?
What is the new packagingdevelopment for
Kaleem (17:59):
You gotta, You gotta, actually smell it or
Sacha (18:01):
Smell it, feel it, touch it Right.
And I'm 3000 miles away.
So I was leading new productinnovation strategy for the home
cleaning division andcommercialization of new
products.
And I was finding pockets ofpeople in the company that were
also fully remote in otherfunctions.
And also there was a brandmarketer, her name is Kira, and
(18:22):
she went remote in brandmarketing around the same time
as me.
So we kept communicating.
It's conversing about how areyou doing this?
How are you?
How are you meeting with youradvertising agencies to give
feedback on creative remotely,right?
Because that was a wholedifferent process.
How are you giving feedback onpackaging graphics when you
can't be in the building withthe graphic designers?
(18:43):
Things like that.
And so we started to meet on aregular basis, this small group
across different functions thatwere fully remote to share best
practices and learn and what wethen had an epiphany that we
should formalize it as anemployee resource group.
So are you familiar at all withERGs?
Kaleem (19:01):
Yeah.
ERGs.
Yep.
Sacha (19:03):
Yeah.
We'll be right back after thesewords.
2020 was no joke.
It changed the game foreveryone.
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(19:24):
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(19:44):
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(20:06):
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(20:26):
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(20:47):
Alright, well that's a bit much,but for you, I'll do it.
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I'll tell your story the way youwant it told.
Follow along at RemotelyWeAreOneor visit my website at
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me for more information.
(21:10):
And now, back to the show.
so Clorox already had different ERGs.
but we said, you know, we havethis idea of bringing together
people who are, at the time, wethought it was just bringing
together like the 5 percent offully remote people at Clorox.
And we started an ERG, we calledit ORBIT.
The acronym stood for OfficesRemote But Integral Teammates.
(21:32):
That was
Kaleem (21:33):
What?
Okay.
Acronyms are, you know, we loveacronyms and companies.
That's a good one.
Orbit Well
Sacha (21:38):
ORBIT.
And so we thought it was just,you know, a small group of
people that was going to build.
We became the largest.
and fastest growing ERG atClorox.
And I couldn't understand whyall of these people who were
based out of headquarters, outof our technical centers, out of
our sales offices were signingup for the ERG.
(21:59):
And I said, why are you joining?
And they said, well, we'reworking with people who are in
other offices and we need tolearn How to collaborate with
them.
And that's when I had my bigepiphany.
I was like, Oh my gosh,everything I've been learning is
applicable to 95 percent of thisworkforce here.
It's not just the remote People
Rick (22:20):
Wow.
Kaleem (22:21):
in satellite offices that have to collaborate
location independent.
We're distant.
We're not together
Sacha (22:27):
It's about distance.
It's about, we're just workingacross distance because the
Clorox headquarters was a 30minute drive from the Clorox
technical center.
And so a lot of the teams wereworking just across that short
distance, but that's distance.
And that's when like my brainwould just like lit up around
like, wow, there's so much thatwe as the employee resource
(22:50):
group can now do to teach theteams how to work better
together across distance.
And in the back of my head, Iwas like, there's a business
idea here for myself, but youknow, that, that happened, you
know, much later when I launchedvirtual work insider.
Kaleem (23:06):
So now we have to ask you about virtual work insider,
of course, because.
Your experience now, now you'releading this or part of this ERG
of all of these remote employeesand you're noticing, Oh wow,
there's something that we canteach people on how to work
better with distance at whatpoint did you start thinking,
(23:29):
Hmm, I think I can help othercompanies besides Clorox.
So how did the concept of thatpercolate?
And can you just kind of tell usa little bit about the story and
what it is that you all do?
Sacha (23:44):
Yes.
So because of my time working inbrand marketing and leading new
product innovation teams, likeI've trained as an innovator, so
I'm trained to kind of see wherethere's trends and where there
are unmet needs.
And I started to see that I wasbeing asked to speak at external
conferences about Orbit, theemployee resource group.
I started to see that I wasbeing asked within Clorox to
(24:07):
come speak at differentleadership teams that were
distributed leadership teams Istarted to see that there was a
pull for this, and then with theresearch I was doing, I was
realizing that within teachingleadership skills, a lot of
those leadership skill trainingcourses were done under the
premise of being co located withyour manager, being co located
(24:30):
with your team members.
That, that lens of how to dothis across distance was never.
Integrated into the trainingcurriculum.
And so I started to really liketake note of all of the ways in
which I had to change mybehaviors to be able to lead my
teams when I wasn't sitting nextto them and thinking like, this
could be a really?
(24:51):
Cool.
curriculum.
To help others.
And so that's when I started tothink about, you know, when it,
when might be the right time forme to start my own business,
which was a super scary idea.
Cause I'm pretty risk averse andI loved my job at Clorox, but I
got to the point where I said,well, if I'm going to do it now,
(25:11):
now's the best time.
And So that was back in 2018when I decided to finally leave
Clorox and start Virtual WorkInsider.
Kaleem (25:22):
before the pandemic, you had already been working
remotely for eight years.
The ERG group you're presenting,you're doing all these cool
things.
What was the thing that said,I'm going to do this.
Had you worked with some clientson the side first to kind of see
(25:43):
how it was going to work.
And what specifically doesvirtual inside of do what
virtual work inside of do?
Like, how do you help people?
Sacha (25:51):
Yeah, so what specifically was turning 40 and
saying, like, really, like, whatdo I want for the next stage of
my career?
And kind of reevaluating thosethings and my husband being
really supportive of taking arisk and trying this.
And I, I knew that I had areally great network of people I
had worked with at Clorox thathad moved to other, uh,
(26:14):
companies that were interestedin, in me helping them work in
their distributed teams.
you.
know, it's never been about justhelping with fully remote teams
or fully remote team members.
It's always been about how do wehelp teams work across distance,
whatever distance means forthem.
Whether that's geographicallydistributed, hybrid, remote,
whatever that means for them.
So, I knew that I had, you know,a network to kind of fall back
(26:37):
on to, to try out some of thiscurriculum.
And so what we do is we providetraining programs to teach
virtual leadership skills.
So how to lead teams when you'rein a hybrid, remote, or
distributed work environment.
And we teach skills like how tocommunicate, collaborate, build
culture, influence, in thosedistributed work environments.
Kaleem (27:03):
Hmm.
Of
Rick (27:04):
So what is your, I mean, you've, you've been around this
a long time and you've seen howthe pandemic changed everything.
People are really anxious to getback to normal.
What are your thoughts on thispushback, uh, the push to return
to the office?
You know, what are people sayingand what is your reaction to it?
Sacha (27:25):
So when the pandemic hit and everyone had to move into
emergency rapid remote work, Iknew that that was going to be
short term.
I didn't know how long thepandemic was going to last, but
I knew once that subsided, themost large enterprises were
going to come back to some sortof Now we call it hybrid, but
hybrid situation where they weregoing to ask people to come back
(27:47):
into an office.
I just knew that that, thatChange management curve for a
large enterprise, and we workmainly with large enterprises.
It's a really hard one, to gofrom something that's super
office centric to begin with, tothen saying, like, we're going
to, we're going to decide to govirtual first ongoing.
So I, I knew that there wasgoing to be this journey of
(28:09):
experimentation, and I thinkwe're still in this journey of
experimentation, and it's hardbecause I know there's so many
headlines about return tooffice, and there's so much
judgment about these decisionsthat these companies are making
about, is it three days?
Is it four days?
Is it now five days back in theoffice, but I know that those
decisions are really complexdecisions, and each company, I
(28:31):
think, should have the freedomand flexibility to look at it.
What type of work do we do?
What is our, what are ourvalues?
What do our employees want?
What is our real estatefootprint?
There's so many differentaspects to this that each
company needs to make thedecision that's best for their
situation.
And I think it's really hardfrom the outside to, to be able
(28:53):
to judge that accurately.
So, when I work with companies,I usually come in after they've
decided what their workforce orworkplace strategy is because my
goal is enablement, and it'senabling the employees and the
team leaders to be able to gettheir work done effectively in
whatever that workplace andworkforce strategy is, in
(29:14):
whatever distance means to them,whether that's three days in the
office, two days in the office,or just working across different
office types.
Kaleem (29:23):
Right.
Right.
So, enablement.
That's interesting.
I like that word there and thequestion that kind of popped up
to me in my mind is like, okay,you know, I love your answer.
Your answer is, you know.
a professional politiciananswer, political science
definitely was probably your submajor.
You didn't pick a side.
Well done.
(29:43):
I like that.
You know, it's like, Hey, it'swhatever you want, baby.
It's good.
It's good.
It's good.
You know, we can figure it out.
But my question to you is whathas been some of the biggest or
the most common challenges whenyou're talking about, enabling
this type of change.
So everybody wants.
Everyone says they want to dothis.
(30:04):
Like we, we get that all thetime.
Oh yeah, we're this.
And we can't wait to, you know,do all these wonderful things.
But then when you start kind ofgetting into it, you know,
change is difficult.
And, you know, you havedifferent emotions, motivations
are involved with it, powerstruggles are involved with it.
What are the most commonchallenges for you when you're
(30:26):
trying to implement This new wayof working after they've already
made the decision to, to go thatway.
What are some of the things thatkind of stick out for you?
Sacha (30:35):
I, think everyone wants to allow some, some type of
flexibility.
And I really like what thefuture forum talks about in
terms of the data that they'veseen that people want
flexibility when they work evenmore than flexibility for where
they work.
So there, those two types offlexibility are really
important.
And from what I see is that whenyou allow that flexibility, what
(30:56):
comes with it though, is a lotof complexity in terms of how do
we coordinate the work whenwe're Across different time
zones now when we're ondifferent hybrid schedules,
because, you know, for someorganizations that do have some
sort of hybrid structure, theymight say marketing has three
days in the office Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, but R and D
(31:19):
only comes in.
Monday and Wednesday, right?
So they're not always on thesame same schedules.
And we also see that from thepandemic, the number of
meetings, the synchronousmeetings went through the roof.
A lot of that still remains.
So people are in back to backmeetings all day long.
And now they're across timezones.
So they're in back to backmeetings all day long out even
(31:42):
outside of their own time zonewindows.
Right.
And so Mhm.
With that again, that puts aconstraint on the flexibility of
when I work, Right.
If I'm, if I'm in back to backmeetings all day long now,
spanning from Pacific Coast timeto East Coast time, I've taken
away some of that freedom andflexibility of when I work.
(32:02):
So this piece, this piece ofhelping to coordinate within the
complexity is where my team hasreally been helping
organizations and teams todevelop their team working
agreements to get really clearon how are we going to work and
operate when we're in thisdistributed work environment.
Kaleem (32:21):
Love that.
Team Work agreement.
Arrangements.
Agreements.
Sacha (32:25):
Team, team working agreement.
So it's like, like Brian Elliotttalks about in his, in the
future forum book.
He calls them team levelagreement.
Sometimes we call them teamcharters, but even starting with
teams like super foundational,you're going to laugh because
you're going to say like, howhas nobody actually done this
before?
But when we work with teams, weactually plot out a map for them
(32:45):
of where their team members arelocated.
And this Is normally crossfunctional teams I'm talking
about.
Yeah.
And they don't even realize thatsometimes that they're that they
have people in a different timezone, and so they have meetings
scheduled at times that makeszero sense for some of the
people who are on the team.
But those people haven't feltlike they could speak up and ask
(33:08):
for the time of the meeting tobe changed.
Kaleem (33:11):
So the complexities of when and how we work are really
the kind of the big things thatpop up when people are trying to
implement a flexible modelbecause it's interesting how you
just you paraphrased it that waybecause it's um, You know, now
I'm kind of thinking about, Oh,asynchronous.
(33:32):
Now you got to train everybodyhow to be asynchronous and
implement more, you know, thingswhere people can do things on
their own time, or else thatfreedom that you talked about is
taken away.
I did.
That was something interestingtoo that you said, like, I never
thought about remote workactually being more constrained
than flexible.
Sacha (33:53):
Well, the distributed nature of it Right.
Yeah, it can.
It
Kaleem (33:56):
I might be able to live wherever.
I might be able to live whereverbut like I'm on calls from 8
until 10 o'clock at night so nowI'm not I can't even enjoy the
flexibility.
Yeah, I can't enjoy the freedomthat I have because I'm stuck.
That's really reallyinteresting.
Well
Sacha (34:13):
And that's, so That's one area I see a lot of need for
help with enablement is at thatteam level and helping them to
design how they're going to worktogether.
And then I also see from apeople manager perspective that
they haven't been taught theskills for how to coach and
connect with and createinclusive environments.
With their direct reports whenthey can't be with them in the
(34:35):
same office side by side everyday.
And so we actually recentlylaunched a program with Udemy,
which is a cohorted programcalled the Invested Leader
Program.
And it provides a six weekprogram with live and on demand
components to help peoplemanagers to learn these skills.
Rick (34:54):
Mm.
That's great.
Kaleem (34:56):
Good
Rick (34:57):
Sasha, can you tell us about a comical or inspiring
moment you may have had whileworking remotely?
Kaleem (35:02):
Ooh! Richie Rich just throwing out the good questions.
That's what it is.
Sacha (35:09):
Yeah, well, all sorts of things, especially when I was
first going remote, just tryingto figure things out.
But as I mentioned before, Iwent remote in 2010.
So we moved from San Franciscoto Philadelphia.
And while my husband and I werelooking for a house for our
family, my grandmother said thatwe could live with her.
So I, my first remote homeoffice was on her all weather
(35:32):
patio.
At her house and my grandma wasin her I think late 80s when we
moved in with her And so shelike really didn't have an
understanding of like what was Idoing out on that patio on the
computer all day long?
And so I would post a big notefor her on the door saying like
in Meetings because I was doingthe video conferencing meetings
even back then in meetings don'tdisturb But she, she would still
(35:56):
open that door and she'd shoutin like, hi, honey.
Like, do you want some chickensoup?
And I'd be in these leadershipteam conversations, Right.
Again, I'm the only one who'sremote.
So this is not usual.
Kaleem (36:09):
all sitting there suited up in the meeting room.
Sacha (36:12):
And I'd be like I'd be like waving her off.
Rick (36:16):
Yeah.
Kaleem (36:18):
You're like, she's like, do you have any of that Kent's
ranch that we liked?
You have any like Kent's ranchsalad dress is so much better
than Hidden Valley.
All right.
And you're like, no, no grandma,no
Sacha (36:29):
do that.
Kaleem (36:31):
I can't do that.
Sacha (36:33):
And flash forward, you know, pandemic remote work.
Everybody, it's normal to haveyour family in the frame or your
dog or your pet.
But at the time.
for me, I had to be so buttonedup, Right.
Everything had to be as if I wasin that building.
I couldn't afford to have any ofthat seen as a distraction.
Kaleem (36:50):
Right, right.
So were you suited up too?
Like, I mean, like the dress,did you take ultra serious as
well?
Like how you were, I mean, didyou put your suit on out inside
out?
I
Sacha (37:01):
Well, the good news is by the time I was at Clorox, they
weren't wearing actual suits andties anymore.
Thank goodness.
They were just starting tointegrate jeans on Fridays
during the summer only,
Kaleem (37:12):
big deal.
Friday jeans.
All you people
Rick (37:16):
Love it.
Kaleem (37:17):
what work used to be like.
Sacha (37:18):
right?
No, Friday.
jeans during summer only too,right?
summer only.
And then it moved to full timeyear round jeans on Fridays.
Kaleem (37:29):
Crazy.
Rick (37:31):
The
Kaleem (37:31):
Grandma, Grandma, thank you for putting up that office
because if she didn't let youhave that office there we
wouldn't be here today.
Sacha (37:39):
That's
Rick (37:39):
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Sasha Connor, so much forjoining us.
Where can our listeners andviewers find
Sacha (37:47):
Well, on LinkedIn is the best way to find my content.
So just Sasha, S A C H A,Connor, C O N N O R on LinkedIn.
And then virtualworkinsider.
com.
That's where you?
can find out more about theservices that we offer,
including that investor leaderprogram I mentioned.
Rick (38:04):
Well, leader is a key word.
You are definitely an awesomeleader.
We thank you for
Kaleem (38:09):
Alpha
Rick (38:10):
skills.
Kaleem (38:11):
loser.
Take that alpha leader.
Rick (38:13):
yes, yes.
You are an outstanding member ofthis community and we value your
leadership and thank you for allthat you're doing.
It's great.
Sacha (38:21):
Well, thanks for having me today.
Kaleem (38:23):
Appreciate you.
Talk to you later.
Peace
Where are you originally from?
Sacha (00:01):
I'm from a suburb of Philadelphia, Western suburb.
So, very close to where I amright
Rick (00:06):
Philadelphia born and raised.
Sacha (00:08):
Okay.
Chillin out, maxin relaxin allcool.
Kaleem (00:16):
shooting some b ball.
Yes! Oh, the Fresh Prince! Ican't, that was, that was pretty
good!
Sacha (00:26):
I, have never rapped on a podcast before, I can tell you
that.
Rick (00:30):
I can assure you I have not either.
So, I didn't even get it right.
I thought I got it right, but Ididn't.
Kaleem (00:36):
mom got scared.
And she said, I
Rick (00:39):
Moving with your
Sacha (00:40):
with your uncle and auntie in Bel Air.
Kaleem (00:42):
Yes, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, you know every verse.
I know you do.
I can
Rick (00:47):
We're gonna get famous.
Kaleem (00:48):
Oh my gosh.
Rick (00:55):
Welcome back, everyone, to Remotely One.
I am one of two fabulous cohosts in this amazing program.
Rick Haney is my name.
He is Kaleem Clarkson.
What's going on, brother?
Kaleem (01:07):
Hi, you are fabulous.
Rick (01:09):
I feel fabulous.
Kaleem (01:10):
You look fab too, sir.
You look
Rick (01:12):
fab.
Thank you.
it takes a lot of work to bethis faB.
I will say, you know, we strivefor excellence on this show.
Kaleem (01:20):
How you been, man?
no complaints at all, man.
Things are great.
Sunny blue skies here inCharlotte.
mean, what can we say?
What can we, what can we say?
You know, it's better thanPhilly.
Rick (01:33):
Well, I don't know about that.
We're going to, we're going tohear a lot about the benefits of
Philly today.
Kaleem (01:37):
I don't know.
I
Rick (01:39):
Hey everybody, since you know how to find us, do us a
huge favor and go toratethispodcast.
com forward slash remotely oneand leave us a review.
Not a big deal.
Not a huge ask.
Take it maybe five seconds.
Again, ratethispodcast.
com forward slash remotely one.
If you could do that.
That would be amazing, and we'dlove you for it.
Since 2015, Remotely One is oneof the largest communities of
(02:03):
remote work professionals, withover 3, 500 Slack members and 5,
000 email subscribers.
Five! It's 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 guest.
Kaleem (02:21):
know, Rick, today I was really nervous, Rick, for
today's guest.
Like, like I, I'm nervous everyweek.
Every time we have a guest, butlike the more guests we get on
when you see their accolades andyou start reading stuff.
I even bought a new shirt,right?
This new shirt right here, bro.
Rick (02:40):
He's been to TJ Maxx, folks.
He's been to TJ
Kaleem (02:42):
damn it.
That's exactly where I got theshirt from guy.
Rick (02:46):
That's totally a TJ Max
Kaleem (02:48):
me.
Stop calling me out on that.
But I got a new one because Iwanted to look right.
And, also.
Our guest is tough, you know,like punch me right in the mouth
if I was looking wrong becauseRick our guest You know where
our guest is from
Rick (03:01):
Where?
Kaleem (03:02):
Philly, you know, you heard of rocky, right?
Rick (03:05):
Oh yeah.
Little feel.
Yeah.
You get this, uh, show on theroad here.
Kaleem (03:11):
But see, Rick, our guests, they're originally from
Philly, okay, and they'recurrently a resident.
They had a quick pit stop in SanFrancisco, which we're going to
have to ask them about.
But, our guest, Rick, prettysmart, as we'd say up in New
England, dude, pretty smart,wicked smart, dude.
Graduate from Lehigh.
Lehigh now.
(03:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now I thought maybe I had achance to go to Lehigh until,
you know, they saw my gradesuntil I didn't, until they saw
my, they don't, I got the denialletter.
I think I still got itsomewhere.
While she was at Lehigh, she gotan internship at GE right off
the bat.
Just a tiny little company, justa tiny little company, a little
internship.
(03:52):
But for some reason, and I don'tknow why, and guests, you're
definitely going to have to talka little bit more about this.
Our guest has a challenge.
They have a challenge and ahabit of putting this shirt on
backwards, bro.
Like crisscross.
Remember that crisscross willmake you jump, jump.
(04:13):
Yes.
We're going all the way back somuch in this episode to nineties
rap.
I can't even help it, but
Rick (04:18):
It's so nostalgic.
Kaleem (04:20):
it is great.
Her shirt is on correctly todaythough.
Cause we did check
Rick (04:24):
Yeah, we had a wardrobe check.
No,
Kaleem (04:26):
And it's not inside out.
So I don't know.
It's something that I guess doesfor some reason, they have no
idea why.
Our guest has been featured incharm, wall street journal
Forbes, just a couple.
And she was also, you know,featured in a book, but I'm not
going to say what book it is,Liam.
I'm not going to say what bookit is.
You've already been on the show.
We've already hyped your bookup, but she's always, she's
(04:49):
already been in the book.
Our guest has been a brandmanager for Clorox, but listen
to how many different brandsthat our guest has been a part
of.
This is why I'm so nervous.
Okay.
So while they worked at Clorox,they worked with hidden Valley.
Is that the salad dressing?
Hidden Valley, Costco.
(05:09):
Actually wait, I think this is aCostco shirt, son.
I think this might be a Costcoshirt.
Sam's club BJ's home DepotLowe's family, family dollar,
family dollar and dollargeneral.
Why do they always mix those?
I never understood why thosenames guests, do you have an
idea of why they were calledfamily dollar and dollar general
guests?
I mean, like, why, what is upwith that?
(05:30):
Is there, is there a fit?
Is there a special explanationfor why their family dollar and
dollar
Sacha (05:35):
It's all about the Dollar right?
So they were trying, at thetime, at the time, they could
sell things a dollar and below.
These days, right, you've gotthe five below, right?
That's us dating me back to the,when a dollar would go pretty
far.
Kaleem (05:49):
Okay, not a dollar billio.
Okay.
I get that.
I get that.
Our guest Rick has also been aLinkedIn top voice for remote
work.
They are the founder and CEO ofvirtual work.
Insider listeners and viewers,please give a warm welcome to
Sasha.
(06:10):
Come with
Rick (06:16):
yo!
Kaleem (06:19):
me.
If you want to live, come withme.
If you want to live.
Oh my gosh.
So great.
Sacha (06:28):
Now everybody's gonna start calling me Sarah.
Kaleem (06:32):
sorry.
I can't help it.
Thank you Sasha so much forcoming on the show.
Listeners, viewers, audience,another guest where if you need
to book them, you better bookthem ahead of time because this
guest is busy.
Rick (06:44):
Calendar is filling up.
Kaleem (06:46):
Yes, the calendar's filling up, but thank you for
finally connecting.
I appreciate it.
Sacha (06:50):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
It's great to be on with the twoOf you and let's have some fun.
Rick (06:54):
Well, we'll see how you feel about that at the end of
the
Kaleem (06:56):
Yeah.
Rick (07:02):
this any more awkward?
Sure I can.
So Sasha, first of all, again,thank you for being a part of
this.
You have such an impressiveresume and, a really great
background.
at what point did you decidethat remote work was your path?
And what was it that kind of ledyou there?
Sacha (07:19):
Yeah, this, this story is kind of interesting in that it
was something that was reallynever on my radar.
So Kaleem, you went all the wayback to my time at Lehigh
University and, you know, got methinking about, what did I do at
Lehigh?
I was a marketing major there,right?
So I wanted to really get intobrand marketing and started out
at advertising agencies first.
And I worked for a small adagency in the Philly suburbs,
(07:42):
and then I moved to a muchlarger agency in San Francisco.
So you, you mentioned that pitstop in San Francisco.
So what brought me out to SanFrancisco originally was to work
for Goodby Silverstein andPartners, which is a world
renowned creative agency where Iworked in account management to
begin with.
So, while I was, while I wasworking there, I was in San
Francisco, but I realized Iwanted to be on the client side,
(08:06):
so, so, you know, when you'reworking agency side, you're
working with a bunch ofdifferent clients, but I really
wanted to go and work clientside.
And the Clorox company, which isa 7 billion company.
is located in, what did you say?
Kaleem (08:19):
Tiny.
Sacha (08:19):
Tiny.
right?
Tiny.
But they were located inOakland, California.
So Just across the bridge fromwhere I was working in San
Francisco.
And I was able to, to workthere.
And I was super excited to moveinto a company that's so many
different brands that youwouldn't expect.
So Kaleem, you mentioned HiddenValley Ranch Dressing.
They have KC MasterpieceBarbecue Sauce, Kingsford
(08:42):
Charcoal, Brita Water Filters.
Like, I worked on all of thesebusinesses.
Kaleem (08:46):
cool.
It's so cool.
Sacha (08:48):
While I was there and I was working from the
headquarters for six years whenmy husband and I had our first
child, my daughter, Nevin, andwe wanted her to live and grow
up around her extended family,which was in the Philly area.
So, Kaleem, you brought upPhilly earlier.
Kaleem (09:06):
Down eagles.
I'm a Bears fan.
Down eagles, but I get it.
I get it.
Keep
Sacha (09:10):
So we, we wanted to move back to Philly and at first I
thought that meant that I had toleave Clorox and I loved my job
at Clorox.
I was learning so much.
The marketing programs I wasresponsible for were so fun.
I was working on new productinnovation as well.
I was working with sales teamsand I, so I asked the question.
(09:31):
Which at the time felt prettybold, which was to say, like,
could I keep my job with Cloroxbut move 3, 000 miles away?
And that was back in 2010.
Kaleem (09:41):
Yes, Sasha.
2010.
Oh, gee.
We have.
Oh, geez.
Remote work.
Oh, geez.
On this show.
Okay.
That's why we have the show.
Sacha (09:50):
2010, you know, so I, the good news was I had a good
relationship with the chiefmarketing officer and he said,
okay, like you can be anexperiment.
Let's see if you can do your joband lead your teams from the
opposite coast of the UnitedStates.
And that, Rick, to get to yourquestion, that's what started my
journey on learning how to workacross distance.
Rick (10:14):
So you took a chance.
I mean, you had no idea if thiswas gonna work or not, and the
company believed enough in youto say, Let's try it.
Sacha (10:22):
Let's try it.
And it was a steep learningcurve.
I mean, he's going from, youknow,
Kaleem (10:26):
not trip.
Let's not trip, Sasha.
Rick (10:29):
You had it under control.
Kaleem (10:30):
You perform at a very and I think a lot of people need
to hear this too because a lotof people like well Sasha's i'm
doing it You perform at a veryhigh level for six years like
you're being modest.
You're a very modest person Iknow you pretty well like like
not super super well but likei've talked to you before like
you don't like to gloat aboutyour skills, but you're really
nasty at everything.
Sacha (10:50):
Well, I work hard.
I work hard.
It doesn't all come reallynaturally, but my superpower is
hard work and focus.
Kaleem (10:57):
So you had already performed for these brands.
So when you brought up thequestion, they weren't going to
say no.
Sacha (11:06):
Well, at the time, you know, it was about retention.
It was about how do we retainyou and also use this as an
experiment to see how this canwork.
But it did come with somecaveats.
So I was told, you know, Okay.
you can, you can move and do, dothe job from Philly, but you'll
never get promoted to directorlevel and above.
Kaleem (11:27):
Right away.
Sacha (11:28):
Yes, I mean, because they wanted to be clear.
I mean, the part that I lovedabout Clorox was that.
they were super clear withexpectations, right?
They wanted to be upfront andnot change an expectation on me,
but so they said, you know,you'll never get promoted to
director level or above becauseyou have to be here at
headquarters for that Right.
Back 2010 again, Right.
We're talking about a while, along time ago, they said, you
(11:49):
will never get to work on somebusinesses or in some roles
because those roles must be hereat headquarters.
Kaleem (11:55):
Okay.
Okay.
Sacha (11:57):
you're going to move from being a high potential employee,
hypo, to low potential employee.
So that's how, some largeenterprises, they look at
succession planning, they lookat, they provide long term
compensation that's based onpotential, not just performance.
Kaleem (12:12):
Oh, you mean like stock options, stuff like that?
You're saying,
Rick (12:15):
Wow.
Sacha (12:16):
So, You know, in my head I was just going like, just get
me back to Philly, but I'll showyou, I'll show you that?
I can get promoted, that I canrun those types of businesses
and those types of roles.
I don't know how I'm going to dothat, but I'll show you.
Kaleem (12:30):
that's that Philly.
That's that Philly, Rick.
That's that Philly.
Oh, really?
Really?
We'll see.
We'll see about that, son.
Sacha (12:38):
I think it was actually a real motivator for me because I
felt like so many weights on myshoulder around, you know, being
one of the first in brandmarketing to go remote that if I
didn't make it work, then theyweren't going to let other
people do it.
And so I took it really, reallyseriously.
Rick (12:54):
Well, in that line of thought, I mean, this is a huge
company.
I mean, world renowned.
It's very recognizable brands.
What has the evolution been likein your eyes?
Like you've seen them kind ofevolve as you have as a remote
worker um, you know, especiallysince the pandemic, how has that
company Embraced or maybe notembraced remote work.
Kaleem (13:17):
Yeah,
Sacha (13:17):
I can talk.
more specifically about kind ofthe year.
So I was remote for eight yearsthen working for them.
So I then led distributed hybridteams while I was fully remote
for eight years.
So I can talk a little bit abouthow that transition went.
Can't talk as much specificallyabout today, but we, can talk
about that a little bit sinceit's been now five years since
(13:38):
I've been gone.
But, when I did first go remotelike I said before, it was a
huge learning curve.
Especially if you think back to2010, a lot of the technology
tools that we take for grantedright now actually Weren't in
existence.
Exactly.
And so there was a real big techcomponent to this in terms of
(14:00):
how do I stay connected?
How do I stay top Of mind?
How do I do my job every daywhen I'm three time zones and
3000 miles away?
And so, like, small things,like, my laptop wasn't even
really set up to do the videoconferencing that they had just
started to experiment with.
(14:20):
So, what was funny was we Didn'twhen I first went remote, they
didn't have all, like, the inconference room,
Kaleem (14:26):
cameras.
Sacha (14:27):
and big screens and things like that.
So if I wanted to present to aleadership team, one of my
direct reports would, like,carry me around on a laptop.
Like, do you remember Mac'sHeadroom?
Like, that's, right?
Like, that's, right?
Kaleem (14:40):
max, max,
Sacha (14:41):
Like, on a, on a laptop and put me in front of the
general manager.
And I would be presentingthrough the computer, but my
laptop would start to likewhirl, and like, I would think I
would smell smoke, and then I'dbe mid sentence, and the laptop
would turn off because itcouldn't handle
Rick (14:59):
b b b buh bye.
Buh bye.
Kaleem (15:03):
Holy crap, I haven't heard the phrase, I can't get
Max Hedgeham out of my mind,it's been so long.
This is the best episode ever,by the way.
I'm just having so muchnostalgia.
So you had to, They walked youaround even on man.
And then the laptops weren'tgreat either.
Cause I mean, like you said,they probably didn't even have
the embedded cameras yet in the
Sacha (15:24):
Oh, right, right.
I can't even remember about thecamera thing.
Kaleem (15:27):
Yeah.
Wow.
Sacha (15:29):
But then they started to put the cameras in the rooms at
the Clorox headquarters, and soI started to befriend a lot of
the IT people because I waslike, how do I link into that?
Because for me to overcome whatI now know is called distance
bias at the time, I didn't, Ifelt this unconscious bias, but
didn't realize that it wasactually like a unconscious bias
(15:51):
that we have around proximitybias.
And so I guess this idea of,Right, this idea of our brain's
natural tendency to put morevalue on The people and things
that are closer to us than thosethat are farther away.
And I felt this on a dailybasis, but I knew that if I
could get my face on the wall inthe rooms that I was bouncing
between, then I'd have a betterchance of staying top of mind,
(16:14):
influencing conversations.
And so the IT team, they IPaddresses.
That's And I, we had somethingcalled Movi, which was a Cisco
product that is before WebEx.
And I would have to enter in theIP address, like 5, 1 point.
And then I would just show up inthe room.
(16:36):
Nobody had to touch a button.
So I could bounce between roomsand people be like, how'd you do
that?
Kaleem (16:42):
That's kind of, that's super innovative, actually.
You think about it now, I mean,I don't even think you, like,
right now, I don't, jumping inon screen, like, instantly,
probably a lot of people don'tdo that.
So that's,
Sacha (16:53):
Well, it probably was a bad idea because that meant no
security, Right, So like I couldhave actually jumped into the
executive suite rooms if I hadwanted to without anybody
actually saying enter.
Kaleem (17:07):
So you're working with this different technology.
At what point did you startsaying, Hey, I, I want to lead a
team.
So like, at what point did yourexperiment start spreading a
little bit through the companyor did it?
Sacha (17:25):
Yes.
So what was happening?
So I was already leading teams.
I was leading at the time I wasworking on new product
innovation team.
So it would seemcounterintuitive that they would
say, Oh, some of the roles thatyou can be on, you can't work
on, unless you're atheadquarters.
Are these kind of like businessfacing, like products that are
already out in the market.
(17:45):
But as a remote worker, youcan't.
You can work on new productinnovation, which in a consumer
packaged goods company is verytangible products.
So like, what is the new pinesalt scent?
What is the new packagingdevelopment for
Kaleem (17:59):
You gotta, You gotta, actually smell it or
Sacha (18:01):
Smell it, feel it, touch it Right.
And I'm 3000 miles away.
So I was leading new productinnovation strategy for the home
cleaning division andcommercialization of new
products.
And I was finding pockets ofpeople in the company that were
also fully remote in otherfunctions.
And also there was a brandmarketer, her name is Kira, and
(18:22):
she went remote in brandmarketing around the same time
as me.
So we kept communicating.
It's conversing about how areyou doing this?
How are you?
How are you meeting with youradvertising agencies to give
feedback on creative remotely,right?
Because that was a wholedifferent process.
How are you giving feedback onpackaging graphics when you
can't be in the building withthe graphic designers?
(18:43):
Things like that.
And so we started to meet on aregular basis, this small group
across different functions thatwere fully remote to share best
practices and learn and what wethen had an epiphany that we
should formalize it as anemployee resource group.
So are you familiar at all withERGs?
Kaleem (19:01):
Yeah.
ERGs.
Yep.
Sacha (19:03):
Yeah.
We'll be right back after thesewords.
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(21:10):
And now, back to the show.
so Clorox already had different ERGs.
but we said, you know, we havethis idea of bringing together
people who are, at the time, wethought it was just bringing
together like the 5 percent offully remote people at Clorox.
And we started an ERG, we calledit ORBIT.
The acronym stood for OfficesRemote But Integral Teammates.
(21:32):
That was
Kaleem (21:33):
What?
Okay.
Acronyms are, you know, we loveacronyms and companies.
That's a good one.
Orbit Well
Sacha (21:38):
ORBIT.
And so we thought it was just,you know, a small group of
people that was going to build.
We became the largest.
and fastest growing ERG atClorox.
And I couldn't understand whyall of these people who were
based out of headquarters, outof our technical centers, out of
our sales offices were signingup for the ERG.
(21:59):
And I said, why are you joining?
And they said, well, we'reworking with people who are in
other offices and we need tolearn How to collaborate with
them.
And that's when I had my bigepiphany.
I was like, Oh my gosh,everything I've been learning is
applicable to 95 percent of thisworkforce here.
It's not just the remote People
Rick (22:20):
Wow.
Kaleem (22:21):
in satellite offices that have to collaborate
location independent.
We're distant.
We're not together
Sacha (22:27):
It's about distance.
It's about, we're just workingacross distance because the
Clorox headquarters was a 30minute drive from the Clorox
technical center.
And so a lot of the teams wereworking just across that short
distance, but that's distance.
And that's when like my brainwould just like lit up around
like, wow, there's so much thatwe as the employee resource
(22:50):
group can now do to teach theteams how to work better
together across distance.
And in the back of my head, Iwas like, there's a business
idea here for myself, but youknow, that, that happened, you
know, much later when I launchedvirtual work insider.
Kaleem (23:06):
So now we have to ask you about virtual work insider,
of course, because.
Your experience now, now you'releading this or part of this ERG
of all of these remote employeesand you're noticing, Oh wow,
there's something that we canteach people on how to work
better with distance at whatpoint did you start thinking,
(23:29):
Hmm, I think I can help othercompanies besides Clorox.
So how did the concept of thatpercolate?
And can you just kind of tell usa little bit about the story and
what it is that you all do?
Sacha (23:44):
Yes.
So because of my time working inbrand marketing and leading new
product innovation teams, likeI've trained as an innovator, so
I'm trained to kind of see wherethere's trends and where there
are unmet needs.
And I started to see that I wasbeing asked to speak at external
conferences about Orbit, theemployee resource group.
I started to see that I wasbeing asked within Clorox to
(24:07):
come speak at differentleadership teams that were
distributed leadership teams Istarted to see that there was a
pull for this, and then with theresearch I was doing, I was
realizing that within teachingleadership skills, a lot of
those leadership skill trainingcourses were done under the
premise of being co located withyour manager, being co located
(24:30):
with your team members.
That, that lens of how to dothis across distance was never.
Integrated into the trainingcurriculum.
And so I started to really liketake note of all of the ways in
which I had to change mybehaviors to be able to lead my
teams when I wasn't sitting nextto them and thinking like, this
could be a really?
(24:51):
Cool.
curriculum.
To help others.
And so that's when I started tothink about, you know, when it,
when might be the right time forme to start my own business,
which was a super scary idea.
Cause I'm pretty risk averse andI loved my job at Clorox, but I
got to the point where I said,well, if I'm going to do it now,
(25:11):
now's the best time.
And So that was back in 2018when I decided to finally leave
Clorox and start Virtual WorkInsider.
Kaleem (25:22):
before the pandemic, you had already been working
remotely for eight years.
The ERG group you're presenting,you're doing all these cool
things.
What was the thing that said,I'm going to do this.
Had you worked with some clientson the side first to kind of see
(25:43):
how it was going to work.
And what specifically doesvirtual inside of do what
virtual work inside of do?
Like, how do you help people?
Sacha (25:51):
Yeah, so what specifically was turning 40 and
saying, like, really, like, whatdo I want for the next stage of
my career?
And kind of reevaluating thosethings and my husband being
really supportive of taking arisk and trying this.
And I, I knew that I had areally great network of people I
had worked with at Clorox thathad moved to other, uh,
(26:14):
companies that were interestedin, in me helping them work in
their distributed teams.
you.
know, it's never been about justhelping with fully remote teams
or fully remote team members.
It's always been about how do wehelp teams work across distance,
whatever distance means forthem.
Whether that's geographicallydistributed, hybrid, remote,
whatever that means for them.
So, I knew that I had, you know,a network to kind of fall back
(26:37):
on to, to try out some of thiscurriculum.
And so what we do is we providetraining programs to teach
virtual leadership skills.
So how to lead teams when you'rein a hybrid, remote, or
distributed work environment.
And we teach skills like how tocommunicate, collaborate, build
culture, influence, in thosedistributed work environments.
Kaleem (27:03):
Hmm.
Of
Rick (27:04):
So what is your, I mean, you've, you've been around this
a long time and you've seen howthe pandemic changed everything.
People are really anxious to getback to normal.
What are your thoughts on thispushback, uh, the push to return
to the office?
You know, what are people sayingand what is your reaction to it?
Sacha (27:25):
So when the pandemic hit and everyone had to move into
emergency rapid remote work, Iknew that that was going to be
short term.
I didn't know how long thepandemic was going to last, but
I knew once that subsided, themost large enterprises were
going to come back to some sortof Now we call it hybrid, but
hybrid situation where they weregoing to ask people to come back
(27:47):
into an office.
I just knew that that, thatChange management curve for a
large enterprise, and we workmainly with large enterprises.
It's a really hard one, to gofrom something that's super
office centric to begin with, tothen saying, like, we're going
to, we're going to decide to govirtual first ongoing.
So I, I knew that there wasgoing to be this journey of
(28:09):
experimentation, and I thinkwe're still in this journey of
experimentation, and it's hardbecause I know there's so many
headlines about return tooffice, and there's so much
judgment about these decisionsthat these companies are making
about, is it three days?
Is it four days?
Is it now five days back in theoffice, but I know that those
decisions are really complexdecisions, and each company, I
(28:31):
think, should have the freedomand flexibility to look at it.
What type of work do we do?
What is our, what are ourvalues?
What do our employees want?
What is our real estatefootprint?
There's so many differentaspects to this that each
company needs to make thedecision that's best for their
situation.
And I think it's really hardfrom the outside to, to be able
(28:53):
to judge that accurately.
So, when I work with companies,I usually come in after they've
decided what their workforce orworkplace strategy is because my
goal is enablement, and it'senabling the employees and the
team leaders to be able to gettheir work done effectively in
whatever that workplace andworkforce strategy is, in
(29:14):
whatever distance means to them,whether that's three days in the
office, two days in the office,or just working across different
office types.
Kaleem (29:23):
Right.
Right.
So, enablement.
That's interesting.
I like that word there and thequestion that kind of popped up
to me in my mind is like, okay,you know, I love your answer.
Your answer is, you know.
a professional politiciananswer, political science
definitely was probably your submajor.
You didn't pick a side.
Well done.
(29:43):
I like that.
You know, it's like, Hey, it'swhatever you want, baby.
It's good.
It's good.
It's good.
You know, we can figure it out.
But my question to you is whathas been some of the biggest or
the most common challenges whenyou're talking about, enabling
this type of change.
So everybody wants.
Everyone says they want to dothis.
(30:04):
Like we, we get that all thetime.
Oh yeah, we're this.
And we can't wait to, you know,do all these wonderful things.
But then when you start kind ofgetting into it, you know,
change is difficult.
And, you know, you havedifferent emotions, motivations
are involved with it, powerstruggles are involved with it.
What are the most commonchallenges for you when you're
(30:26):
trying to implement This new wayof working after they've already
made the decision to, to go thatway.
What are some of the things thatkind of stick out for you?
Sacha (30:35):
I, think everyone wants to allow some, some type of
flexibility.
And I really like what thefuture forum talks about in
terms of the data that they'veseen that people want
flexibility when they work evenmore than flexibility for where
they work.
So there, those two types offlexibility are really
important.
And from what I see is that whenyou allow that flexibility, what
(30:56):
comes with it though, is a lotof complexity in terms of how do
we coordinate the work whenwe're Across different time
zones now when we're ondifferent hybrid schedules,
because, you know, for someorganizations that do have some
sort of hybrid structure, theymight say marketing has three
days in the office Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, but R and D
(31:19):
only comes in.
Monday and Wednesday, right?
So they're not always on thesame same schedules.
And we also see that from thepandemic, the number of
meetings, the synchronousmeetings went through the roof.
A lot of that still remains.
So people are in back to backmeetings all day long.
And now they're across timezones.
So they're in back to backmeetings all day long out even
(31:42):
outside of their own time zonewindows.
Right.
And so Mhm.
With that again, that puts aconstraint on the flexibility of
when I work, Right.
If I'm, if I'm in back to backmeetings all day long now,
spanning from Pacific Coast timeto East Coast time, I've taken
away some of that freedom andflexibility of when I work.
(32:02):
So this piece, this piece ofhelping to coordinate within the
complexity is where my team hasreally been helping
organizations and teams todevelop their team working
agreements to get really clearon how are we going to work and
operate when we're in thisdistributed work environment.
Kaleem (32:21):
Love that.
Team Work agreement.
Arrangements.
Agreements.
Sacha (32:25):
Team, team working agreement.
So it's like, like Brian Elliotttalks about in his, in the
future forum book.
He calls them team levelagreement.
Sometimes we call them teamcharters, but even starting with
teams like super foundational,you're going to laugh because
you're going to say like, howhas nobody actually done this
before?
But when we work with teams, weactually plot out a map for them
(32:45):
of where their team members arelocated.
And this Is normally crossfunctional teams I'm talking
about.
Yeah.
And they don't even realize thatsometimes that they're that they
have people in a different timezone, and so they have meetings
scheduled at times that makeszero sense for some of the
people who are on the team.
But those people haven't feltlike they could speak up and ask
(33:08):
for the time of the meeting tobe changed.
Kaleem (33:11):
So the complexities of when and how we work are really
the kind of the big things thatpop up when people are trying to
implement a flexible modelbecause it's interesting how you
just you paraphrased it that waybecause it's um, You know, now
I'm kind of thinking about, Oh,asynchronous.
(33:32):
Now you got to train everybodyhow to be asynchronous and
implement more, you know, thingswhere people can do things on
their own time, or else thatfreedom that you talked about is
taken away.
I did.
That was something interestingtoo that you said, like, I never
thought about remote workactually being more constrained
than flexible.
Sacha (33:53):
Well, the distributed nature of it Right.
Yeah, it can.
It
Kaleem (33:56):
I might be able to live wherever.
I might be able to live whereverbut like I'm on calls from 8
until 10 o'clock at night so nowI'm not I can't even enjoy the
flexibility.
Yeah, I can't enjoy the freedomthat I have because I'm stuck.
That's really reallyinteresting.
Well
Sacha (34:13):
And that's, so That's one area I see a lot of need for
help with enablement is at thatteam level and helping them to
design how they're going to worktogether.
And then I also see from apeople manager perspective that
they haven't been taught theskills for how to coach and
connect with and createinclusive environments.
With their direct reports whenthey can't be with them in the
(34:35):
same office side by side everyday.
And so we actually recentlylaunched a program with Udemy,
which is a cohorted programcalled the Invested Leader
Program.
And it provides a six weekprogram with live and on demand
components to help peoplemanagers to learn these skills.
Rick (34:54):
Mm.
That's great.
Kaleem (34:56):
Good
Rick (34:57):
Sasha, can you tell us about a comical or inspiring
moment you may have had whileworking remotely?
Kaleem (35:02):
Ooh! Richie Rich just throwing out the good questions.
That's what it is.
Sacha (35:09):
Yeah, well, all sorts of things, especially when I was
first going remote, just tryingto figure things out.
But as I mentioned before, Iwent remote in 2010.
So we moved from San Franciscoto Philadelphia.
And while my husband and I werelooking for a house for our
family, my grandmother said thatwe could live with her.
So I, my first remote homeoffice was on her all weather
(35:32):
patio.
At her house and my grandma wasin her I think late 80s when we
moved in with her And so shelike really didn't have an
understanding of like what was Idoing out on that patio on the
computer all day long?
And so I would post a big notefor her on the door saying like
in Meetings because I was doingthe video conferencing meetings
even back then in meetings don'tdisturb But she, she would still
(35:56):
open that door and she'd shoutin like, hi, honey.
Like, do you want some chickensoup?
And I'd be in these leadershipteam conversations, Right.
Again, I'm the only one who'sremote.
So this is not usual.
Kaleem (36:09):
all sitting there suited up in the meeting room.
Sacha (36:12):
And I'd be like I'd be like waving her off.
Rick (36:16):
Yeah.
Kaleem (36:18):
You're like, she's like, do you have any of that Kent's
ranch that we liked?
You have any like Kent's ranchsalad dress is so much better
than Hidden Valley.
All right.
And you're like, no, no grandma,no
Sacha (36:29):
do that.
Kaleem (36:31):
I can't do that.
Sacha (36:33):
And flash forward, you know, pandemic remote work.
Everybody, it's normal to haveyour family in the frame or your
dog or your pet.
But at the time.
for me, I had to be so buttonedup, Right.
Everything had to be as if I wasin that building.
I couldn't afford to have any ofthat seen as a distraction.
Kaleem (36:50):
Right, right.
So were you suited up too?
Like, I mean, like the dress,did you take ultra serious as
well?
Like how you were, I mean, didyou put your suit on out inside
out?
I
Sacha (37:01):
Well, the good news is by the time I was at Clorox, they
weren't wearing actual suits andties anymore.
Thank goodness.
They were just starting tointegrate jeans on Fridays
during the summer only,
Kaleem (37:12):
big deal.
Friday jeans.
All you people
Rick (37:16):
Love it.
Kaleem (37:17):
what work used to be like.
Sacha (37:18):
right?
No, Friday.
jeans during summer only too,right?
summer only.
And then it moved to full timeyear round jeans on Fridays.
Kaleem (37:29):
Crazy.
Rick (37:31):
The
Kaleem (37:31):
Grandma, Grandma, thank you for putting up that office
because if she didn't let youhave that office there we
wouldn't be here today.
Sacha (37:39):
That's
Rick (37:39):
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Sasha Connor, so much forjoining us.
Where can our listeners andviewers find
Sacha (37:47):
Well, on LinkedIn is the best way to find my content.
So just Sasha, S A C H A,Connor, C O N N O R on LinkedIn.
And then virtualworkinsider.
com.
That's where you?
can find out more about theservices that we offer,
including that investor leaderprogram I mentioned.
Rick (38:04):
Well, leader is a key word.
You are definitely an awesomeleader.
We thank you for
Kaleem (38:09):
Alpha
Rick (38:10):
skills.
Kaleem (38:11):
loser.
Take that alpha leader.
Rick (38:13):
yes, yes.
You are an outstanding member ofthis community and we value your
leadership and thank you for allthat you're doing.
It's great.
Sacha (38:21):
Well, thanks for having me today.
Kaleem (38:23):
Appreciate you.
Talk to you later.
Peace
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