The Remote Work Revolution: Rod Hughes of Kimball Hughes Public Relations On Building Strong Cultures in a Digital World
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Be kind and be flexible. In the world of remote and hybrid work, everyone finds their personal lives intruding on the workday. And it’s important for leadership, in these instances, to remember the times when their business priorities have intruded on the personal lives of their employees.
The remote work revolution has transformed how we think about work, but it has also raised important questions about maintaining culture and connection in a virtual world. To explore this important topic, we are interviewing Rod Hughes
Rod Hughes leads the national boutique public relations firm of Kimball Hughes Public Relations. He began his career in the 1990s as a journalist before turning to the dark side and becoming a PR professional in 2003. Today Hughes leads a team of highly experienced communications professionals who represent many of the industries he covered as a journalist, including insurance, law, franchising and other professional services.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
I had been working as a journalist for about 10 years and thinking about what my future might look like when one of the publications I was freelancing for had to let me go due to budget cuts. I started dabbling in public relations to pay the bills, supporting local businesses and one local Pennsylvania Assembly candidate running for office when I discovered I had a knack for the work. At that point I started looking for a full-time public relations position and landed one that, at the time, represented a large, global law firm. Since I had been covering the legal industry as a journalist, it was a logical fit. The rest, as they say, is history.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began working with remote or hybrid teams?
As both a PR professional and a business owner, what I discovered was the wealth of opportunities available in the world of remote work. I had worked remotely in the early 2000s, and it was completely different and very isolating. The technology available today, coupled with the crash-course so many businesses received in remote work during the pandemic really changed the entire remote work paradigm. What I find most interesting about working remotely is talent is no longer limited by geography. We’ve hired team members in Chicago, Boston, Austin and elsewhere who, in the old days of having a physical office, we would not have pursued because of our in-office work model. We’re also engaging quite a bit more with our clients, most of whom are not based in my home state of Pennsylvania. Before 2020, I either had to fly to in-person client meetings or suffer through regular status calls via speakerphone. Now we get to see one another on video calls whether the client is in London, Salt Lake City or San Diego. That alone has been a wonderful experience that helps to bond our team to those of our clients. And, finally, as a business owner, I love that I can take the significant dollars we were spending on renting office space and put that back into the business by applying those dollars to bonuses and salaries to help us recruit and retain great communications professionals.
You are a successful leader in the remote work space. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
The character traits that are most instrumental in our successful management of a remote workforce are less about my character traits and more about the traits of those we hire.
First, I look for individuals who aren’t shy about taking ownership of the work they are tasked with performing. We hire experienced public relations professionals who come primarily from other agencies. Our leadership team works hard to listen to their experiences, ideas and suggestions to do what we do better. When people feel they have an opportunity to shape both the work and the work environment (remote or otherwise), they become more invested. I encourage our people to consider our clients as their clients, and to act accordingly.
Second, we look for serious professionals with a track record. It’s important for our clients, in some cases multi-national corporations as well as smaller start-ups, to know we are not training our people on their dime. That means having agency experience is a must for our hiring purposes. We need people who think critically about what we do to ensure getting our clients’ messaging into the world and the media. But I also recognize our chosen field can be challenging. In PR, you are often valued based on your most recent success, and every failure is a threat to the business and livelihoods of everyone in public relations. So not taking oneself too seriously, bringing a bit of levity to our work and our interactions with clients, is also important. Humor can help mitigate issues of burnout. It helps to put things in context. And it simply makes the day go a little faster, and often a little better.
Finally, we look for individuals who are rarely satisfied with good, who instead strive for greatness. That pursuit of greatness can apply to their own skill building, securing amazing opportunities for our clients or contributing to supporting and improving our own remote work culture, which I have to say, is 10-times as important of an issue as it might have been back in the in-office days. As for my own character, what I’ll say is this: I like to give my colleagues the room to act as the professionals they are and empower them to take great care of our clients. If they prove they can handle that, any other character traits of import are theirs and not mine.
Let’s now dive into the focus of our interview. When the shift to remote work became widespread, what was the biggest challenge you faced in maintaining a strong workplace culture? How did you address it?
When we went fully remote, what I heard from our team and worried about myself was missing those water-cooler moments as well as those “Do you have a minute” pop-ins to one another’s offices. These were the moments when we shared successes and frustrations, conducted very informal troubleshooting and simply bonded with one another, sharing jokes, stories about our families or how we spent our weekends, etc. In those early days as a fully-remote company, we did what everyone else did — virtual happy hours, hiring virtual trivia hosts, sending Grubhub gift cards to help organize virtual lunches, etc. A lot of it felt forced and very much not aligned with our company culture. We are, after all, communicators, and we maintain a pretty casual vibe among one another. So, we opted to lean into that culture. Instead of forced events, as part of our daily virtual team meetings at the start of each day, we make sure to simply be human. We ask about one another’s weekends. We share funny stories about things like odd-interpersonal dynamics at the local grocery store. We complain about the lack of good shows across the dozen-plus streaming apps we each have and try to win converts over to our individual favorite shows. Team members talk about what’s happening with their kids, their pets or fun travel plans. We do everything we can to make those morning video calls as much like standing around in the office kitchen as we can. Yes, we run through our daily to-dos and priorities. We offer help each other where needed. So far, our efforts to date seem to be working. Last year we added a company-wide retreat to the mix. It wasn’t all business. Yes, we toured an NPR affiliate and met with one of their reporters, but our time together included an awards dinner where our team took home an award for our crisis communications work as well as a nice lunch the next day … and we all tried to keep shop talk to a minimum. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and we kept it short enough to not be burdensome. We’ll be getting together again at the end of 2025 for a second, and I hope annual, retreat that everyone can enjoy.
What are some of the unique challenges that remote or hybrid teams face when it comes to creating a sense of connection and belonging?
I think the challenges to connecting and fostering a sense of belonging among remote and hybrid teams are exactly the ones we faced in the early days of being fully remote. The culture that our team found so attractive pre-pandemic had to survive and thrive in a post-pandemic remote environment. People need to feel they can still pop in to talk with colleagues. The nuances of interpersonal communication have to thrive. In a remote or hybrid environment, there is a tendency to get down to business and focus exclusively on the task at hand. But when you cut out the human or social element, you force your employees to always be on and always focused exclusively on deliverables. That is not how human beings function in the world, and it is a recipe for burnout, especially for those with more social personalities or sensibilities.
What tools or technologies have you found most effective in fostering communication, collaboration, and team alignment in a remote setting?
Like everyone else, we use all the standard video conferencing platforms. We have a 30- to 45-minute Teams video call every morning to run through our priorities for the day, offering help or brainstorming and sharing of information about the journalists we work with, media interests or trends to consider, etc. And, as I noted before, we try to include a little natural socializing on these calls as well. We work from the Microsoft 365 SaaS platform which allows for easy team collaboration. We’ve provided each team member with a VOIP desk phone that runs off of wifi so we can easily pick up the phone to chat with one another as well as make calls to clients and the media from our office line, avoiding asking people to use their cell phones and data plans to support the agency. Beyond those fundamentals, it really is just about keeping the lines of communication open and ensuring everyone at the agency feels comfortable reaching out to talk about challenges, opportunities, concerns or simply to ask questions in a judgement-free zone.
What role does leadership play in building and sustaining a strong company culture in a remote or hybrid work environment?
I believe leadership sets the tone, but the company culture lives through the contributions of each member of the team. If leadership is aloof or takes a top-down approach to culture, it quickly becomes a façade that everyone follows along with simply to placate management. But if leadership is open to suggestion — and change — as well as empowering employees to contribute and lead on matters of culture within the agency, I think you have a much better chance of enhancing a positive culture everyone can embrace. So, yes, leadership is important for tone and ground rules, but the culture is and should be driven by the collective team.
What advice would you give to leaders who are struggling to maintain employee engagement and motivation in a fully remote workforce?
Listen more and talk less. As managers or business leaders, many of us default to trying to fix things, and this includes employee engagement. That can be helpful, but only if we are open to feedback and, sometimes, hard truths. If, as a leader, you have created an environment where the good professionals who work for you are afraid or resistant to telling — constructively — leadership that something is wrong, especially if leadership is wrong, then you you will struggle with employee engagement and motivation. So, listening and being open to constructive criticism is the first step to ensuring your organization can properly address issues of remote staff in terms of engagement and motivation. In my opinion, the idea of being a thoughtful listener is of paramount importance with a remote or hybrid workforce.
Ok, let’s explore actionable insights. Based on your experience, can you share “5 Strategies to Build a Strong Workplace Culture in a Remote Work Environment”? If you can, please include examples or stories for each.
1. Listen more and talk less. As I mentioned, we tried some virtual events in the early stages of our fully remote environment. When I checked in with the team about what they thought, a few shared that it felt forced and not a cultural fit. We were trying to force people to bond to one another in a way that was awkward and disconnected from how we worked together in person. So, we listened and stopped those events. Instead, we made room for natural — not scheduled — water cooler moments. I think just seeing their feedback put into action helped people to recognize we were trying to be more responsive to create a remote environment where they could better connect and communicate.
2. All work and no play is the wrong approach. People are social creatures. Create space for human interaction that isn’t limited purely to work. It can be as simple as leading off meetings by asking about or sharing weekend plans, asking if anyone is watching a show or series that you’re into or commenting on news within your industry that is helpful to create awareness. It doesn’t need to be forced like asking everyone to share a favorite childhood memory, etc. You don’t want to put people on the spot, but you do need to create room for them to bring their authentic selves into the work environment, and that includes a little water-cooler talk where and when possible.
3. Be transparent. I worked for a company once where workers had no insight into how the business was doing. Were we making money? Were we on the verge of bankruptcy? That uncertainty fueled gossip, workplace politics and a general sense that employees were not invested in the success — or failure — of the business. In a remote or hybrid environment, these sensitivities can be amplified. Talk to your employees. You don’t have to share bank statements from the company accounts. Let them know how the business is doing with some frequency, share goals and strategies, hold a state-of-the-business meeting once or twice a year and ask for input. Allowing employees to feel invested in the business that they only see across the desk or table in their bedrooms or basements can go a long way in fostering a sense of ownership, responsibility and care among your team members.
4. Seek input. Business leaders need to remember it’s likely been awhile since they last worked for another company. Best practices, trends and operational styles vary, and your best source for what some of the latest and greatest on some of these things rests with your newest employees. Ask them to evaluate your processes and practices and encourage them to offer constructive feedback without judgement for doing so. The people doing the work that drives your business — whether they have been with you for 2 years or 20 — often have the best ideas and insights for how to make the workplace operate better, including with remote and hybrid teams. And seek out those who seem like they may be struggling or frustrated and ask for their help and suggestions to make improvements. If you can empower and win-over the naysayers, there is a good chance you can make improvements to your remote or hybrid work cultures that everyone will appreciate.
5. Be kind and be flexible. In the world of remote and hybrid work, everyone finds their personal lives intruding on the workday. And it’s important for leadership, in these instances, to remember the times when their business priorities have intruded on the personal lives of their employees. This new mode of working requires flexibility. There is an ebb and flow to it. Cars need to be taken in for oil changes during work hours. Kids get sick and need to be picked up from school early. Sometimes you can only get caught up on laundry between Zoom calls. That’s our new normal. So instead of judging employees based on screen time tethered to a desk, let’s evaluate them on output and deliverables. If your employees are productive, successful and clients or customers are happy, let them do some laundry or take 10 minutes to decompress with funny cat videos on TikTok. These little breaks can help them recharge, improve creativity and come back to the work more energized and sometimes with new ideas. And when employees fail, and sometimes they will, consider how you respond. You can be kind and constructive — it’s a choice. The worst a manager can do is rip into a remote or hybrid employee and then log out of Zoom, leaving them alone and worried about whether they will have a job next week. Be kind, tactful and specific in your constructive criticism and do your best to make sure you leave them at the end of the conversation in a good place and not worried about whether or not the sky is falling in on them. These little things are appreciated, and they help motivate employees to do better and avoid repeating mistakes. In fact, course correcting properly with an employee who has errored can, in some cases, motivate them to appreciate the kinder approach to providing feedback and engender both loyalty and greater productivity.
How do you address potential feelings of isolation or disconnection that employees may experience in a remote work environment?
Again, it goes back to communication. We keep lines of communication open. If folks are struggling, set up a series of brief calls with them to trouble shoot, brainstorm or just make a human connection with them. If remote or hybrid employees continue to struggle after you have made sincere efforts to help and support them, you may have to consider whether the remote or hybrid work environment is best situation for that employee. Those who continue to struggle despite your best efforts should either be brought back into the office in the case of a hybrid model or, if you are fully remote, they might do better working for another organization.
Can you share an example of a remote work initiative, policy, or program that you implemented which had a significant positive impact on your team?
One of the new realities we have found in the past 2 or 3 years is that many businesses have instituted either no-meeting Fridays or offer their workers the flexibility to work either half-days or not at all on some or most Fridays. This results in a lot of voicemails or out of office messages from those we work with on more than a few Fridays. So, we introduced on-call Fridays. What this means is our team is still required to be highly responsive to clients — they should hear back from us (via email or phone) within 30- to 45-minutes of reaching out. But it also means leadership does not expect our remote team to be tied to their computers for 8 or 9 hours straight on a Friday. The understanding is that you need to be able to be in front of your computer within 60 minutes of a client need or request. This allows our team to schedule doctors’ appointments, run to the grocery store, attend school events for their kids, etc. Clients never lose access to our team. The media have a ready resource for connecting with valuable sources and our employees can get a little jumpstart on their weekend — and sometimes on household chores — in a way that adds some flexibility and appreciation to their perception of our company.
How do you strike the balance between flexibility (one of the main benefits of remote work) and ensuring accountability and productivity?
First and foremost, it’s responsiveness. I believe in being flexible on the work side so people feel they have some autonomy over their day and can integrate their work into their personal lives and vice versa. But being responsive — to leadership as well as clients and the media — is paramount. Again, during the work week, our team needs to respond to inquiries within 30- to 45-minutes. That doesn’t mean drop everything and start working. Sometimes it can be as simple as responding to an email to confirm receipt and asking if the matter at hand can be discussed the next day or following week if it isn’t urgent. And, at least for us as a public relations agency, the proof is in the pudding. Especially being fully remote, it becomes very clear very quickly when someone isn’t pulling their weight. Leadership sees it in reduced communications, fewer deliverables and we can jump in to address these situations extremely fast before they become a bigger problem.
What trends or innovations in remote work are you most excited about, and how do you see them shaping the future of workplace culture?
I love that recruitment in a remote world of work opens us up to tremendous talent that is no longer limited by geography. Some of our best employees live a good distance from where our former office location used to be, and we would have missed out on their many contributions had we not gone fully remote. This trend, by itself, is going to reshape how we think about workplace satisfaction, employee benefits (no more jeans Fridays or office pizza parties as rewards!), recruitment and retention. For me, the broadening of the talent pool is the best and most exciting trend I see in remote work and I could not be more excited about it.
In your opinion, how does building a strong culture in a remote work environment impact not just employees, but also customers, clients, and the company’s overall performance?
My business philosophy has always been to hire talented professionals and treat them as such unless or until they demonstrate they cannot be professional. If you take good care of good employees, they will take incredible care of your customers, clients and even the bottom line of your business.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people through better remote work cultures, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Apply the Golden Rule to how you manage your workforce. This means treating your employees as you would want to be treated if you were in their roles. No one enjoys being yelled at, and frankly it’s neither professional nor productive. Show people a bit of grace when mistakes are made … and mistakes will be made. Praise your employees loudly and publicly when they perform incredible work or go above and beyond the call of duty. Hold your employees to account for the job they signed up for, but make sure you give them the resources and information they need to be successful. At the end of the day, we’re all adults and we’re all professionals. We need to act accordingly and remember that a bit of kindness goes a very long way in this life.
How can our readers further follow you online?
Kimball Hughes Public Relations publishes a weekly LinkedIn newsletter called PR Matters. You can find it through our Company LinkedIn page here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kimballpr. Our newsletter offers good insights on the convergence of business and communications, along with practical tips and advice you can apply to your small business or nonprofit. You can also check us out at www.kimballpr.com.
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
The Remote Work Revolution: Rod Hughes of Kimball Hughes Public Relations On Building Strong… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.