Chief People Officer at Rivian

Helen Russell

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” These words, often attributed to Peter Drucker, are frequently quoted by people and companies who recognize the importance of building and enabling the ‘right’ culture. At Rivian, every detail of the culture we want to create is considered and intentional to ensure congruency to our mission and strategy. As Ken Favaroso aptly states, the most effective and powerful cultures must be operating in concert with strategy.

As a highly mission-driven and innovative company, Rivian exists to support a sustainable planet. That requires first principled thinking, comfort with taking risks, and relentless curiosity. We avoid unnecessary hierarchy and minimize bureaucratic structure, while upholding a deeply held belief that ‘we’ is infinitely better than ‘me’. For our values to remain at the heart of who we are and what we do, we must continue to attract, develop and inspire those who will augment our culture and be passionate about our mission. In return, it is our role to maintain and continue to foster the culture they signed up for.

Nurturing and evolving culture is incredibly challenging, especially during times of significant scale. In 2020 we were presented with a massive undertaking : grow our workforce during a global pandemic. In January of that year—only a couple of months before COVID-19 would make an indelible mark on the world—Rivian stood at 1,000 employees. As people around the world were being asked to either stay at home or socially distance, we were faced with no alternative but to quickly pivot and reset the path to triple our employee count over the next twelve months. Little did we know that COVID-19 would continue to influence 2021 where we once again needed to grow our workforce three-fold. When we paused for breath at the end of 2021, now with 10,500 employees, we realized that over 90 percent of our employees had been hired virtually and 65 percent had only ever worked remotely. We had, unintentionally, built a company with remote first practices, with new ways of working with distributed teams.

Prior to joining Rivian, my team had researched remote work, and specifically what differentiated highly effective remote teams from those less effective. We had discovered that the most effective remote teams—and ultimately companies—were those that had ‘grown up’ remote and with working practices that had been built by and for distributed people and teams. The less effective remote teams and companies had built their practices ‘in office’ and had failed to adequately adaptto reflect their new context.

So, what did we learn?

The power of selection: Hiring individuals who demonstrate the values required to thrive and complement your environment is critical. We focused as much on the ‘how’ as we did the ‘what’ to ensure our employees had the skills, experiences, traits, and drivers that would support and evolve our culture and meet the challenge of our business imperatives. We selected our employees virtually and our employees selected us virtually. It required us to jump in together.

The power of the welcome: Onboarding virtually was the perfect opportunity for us to lead with one voice and provide an equitable onboarding experience. Without the ability for new hires to experience and “feel” our culture in workspaces, we had to bring our culture to life on a screen. As Simon Sinek beautifully captures: “Music is what happens between the notes. Trust is what happens between the meetings.” Without the casual hallway conversations, we doubled down on the importance of belonging, its direct link to health and wellness and its overwhelmingly positive impact on psychological safety and performance.

The power of conversation: We believe in the power of ongoing, honest, and energizing conversations to inspire and elevate performance. To achieve that, we asked that every employee have three core questions answered during their quarterly conversation, or review, as some companies may call them: 1) “How am I doing?” 2) “How can I do better?” 3) “Where should I focus?” We branded our approach as “Recharge”, as we wanted our folks to feel energized by these conversations.

The power of building trust. We checkin with employees quarterly to ensure the conversations are happening and to stay close to their health, well-being, and sense of belonging. We hold focus groups to dig deeper and check that our programs are hitting the mark—we act swiftly when we see risks or issues. We take a strong stance on human rights and do not shy away from debates and difficult discussions in the world around us, creating safe spaces to share and learn. 

The power of communication: Our virtual world demands frequent, formal, and informal lines of communication. This required greater investment in teams and technologies focused on creating open and transparent communication—rhythms and routines that enabled remote and on-site office employees to feel a personal connection. We want (and need) our people to have a voice, and to create moments for dialogue amidst a stream of monologue.

Whilst our mission to keep the world adventurous forever is everlasting, our work to continually evolve our strategy and nurture our culture will remain constant and ever vigilant.