Pandemic Silver Linings - Eventbrite, One Year Later

Silver linings from the global pandemic pave the way for a brighter future of work

One year ago we made the swift, but thoughtful transition from in-person to remote work at Eventbrite. As I reflect on the past twelve months, I’m overwhelmed by the broad devastation and loss caused by COVID-19. But I’m also reminded of how the global pandemic shined a spotlight on important workplace issues and accelerated change that should have been made long before it hit. 

We can no longer deny how critical it is to address mental health issues in the workplace

Mental health and wellness were becoming more visible issues in the workplace before COVID-19, but weren’t as openly discussed as they should have been. The pandemic took the cracks in an already fragile foundation and broke them wide open, ruthlessly pushing hundreds of millions of people into unemployment and social isolation, just two contributing factors towards declines in mental health. While the Mental Health Index U.S. Worker Edition pointed to improvements for January 2021, the trauma endured over the last year is expected to have long-term effects on the mental health and wellbeing of not only employees, but their families. The risk of depression is 71% higher; risk of PTSD is 33% higher; and sustained attention is 27% worse than before COVID-19. 

We must prioritize mental health and wellness in the workplace. This starts with making sure no employee ever feels that conversations about it are taboo or stigmatized. Our philosophy at Eventbrite is it’s OK not to be OK; in addition to company-wide initiatives like BriteBreak Fridays, where employees take one Friday off each month to recharge, and weekly No Meeting Blocks, we have doubled our therapy benefit through Modern Health for 2021, and introduced a new leadership training program rooted in focusing on psychological well-being and empathy. We will continue to hold sacred space for open and honest discussion and provide valuable resources and support for our employees and their families. 

A culture of flexibility is now table stakes to attract and retain top talent 

Homes have become everything from offices to classrooms and as a result, the line between professional and personal life has blurred beyond recognition. The only way to create healthy boundaries while still driving continued engagement and productivity, is through flexibility and cultivating an environment of ownership. A flexible work environment isn’t just working remotely; it’s having the opportunity to adjust working hours, care for dependents, and take time away as needed. 

Pre-pandemic, a flexible work environment was consistently linked to improved employee satisfaction, and FlexJobs found in their annual survey for 2019 that 80% of employees said they’d be more loyal to their employer if they offered flexible work options. Yet in a 2018 Harvard Business Review survey of over 1,500 U.S. workers, 96% of employees said they need flexibility, but only 47% reported having access to the types of flexibility they need. 

In the pandemic world, the traditional 9-to-5 is no longer a reality, so we’ve encouraged Britelings to adjust their schedules to attend to their individualized life needs, whether it’s facilitating distance learning via Zoom or other caregiving responsibilities, in an effort to foster more work-life harmony. Moving forward, Eventbrite is shifting to a fully flexible workplace, where employees choose the setup that’s best for them: Hub (work in an Eventbrite office 4-5 days/week); Flex (mix of in-office and virtual work); or Remote (fully remote). This approach is rooted in employee feedback and data, and includes letting employees try a new way of working for up to 90 days before making it official.

These three employee-chosen paths are just one of the ways we're operationalizing flexibility at Eventbrite. We know how valuable time away from work is, but it can feel impossible to take the time if companies don't make that process easy for employees. In addition to our longstanding parental leave and “take the time you need” policies, we also offer a Community Engagement Time Off (CETO) program, geared at making it easier to step away and meaningfully engage with our communities. We also recently joined PL+US (Paid Leave for the United States), a national campaign to win high-quality paid family and medical leave for everyone by 2022. 

A success that wasn’t in “the plan” deserves just as much celebration 

I can say pretty confidently that nothing went “as planned” over the past year, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t achieve success. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Despite working apart, Britelings around the world continued to come together in amazing ways, supporting each other and in service of our global creator community. 

We found ourselves transplanted into a virtual workspace, but continued to welcome new team members. For those Britelings who never stepped foot in an office, and for all of us yearning to get back to the office cooler conversations, we knew we needed to find a way to introduce each other to faces across the company. It's from this inspiration that “Meet the Briteling” was born. The program is an internal content series aimed at making it easy for employees to learn more about their co-workers. We interview a different Briteling every other week and ask a series of questions that showcase the importance of their role, impact on creators, and life outside of the Briteland. Another way employees have fostered connection is through the BritePhoto challenge, where someone will post to Slack prompting everyone to submit a photo tied to a specific theme of the day. This has given employees a more intimate peek into each other’s lives outside the office and grown to be a bright spot for employees around the world. These are just a couple examples of some of my favorite new traditions that will live on in Eventbrite culture, post-pandemic. 

What’s become clear through this pandemic is that our global team of Britelings is comprised of many people who embody a “Make it Happen” spirit. A clear culture of ownership has emerged as we’ve all banded together through the many challenges and transitions the past 12 months have dealt us, and come out on the other side with a greater sense of purpose and connection to our mission. Time and time again we’ve seen Britelings identify problems that they feel inspired to solve (even if it’s not explicitly detailed on their job description) and jump in and move a solution forward.  All of this hard work resulted in a large upswing in the company morale to end the year - 14 points improvement in one quarter. We are all in this together and I’ve never seen a more supportive crew. We are all building, growing, and steering this ship together. 

The team is working in service of our creators, whose resilience and ingenuity was nothing short of inspirational as they pivoted to virtual experiences and brought together nearly 75 million people for more than one million online events in 2020. Most recently, we’ve seen the power of the Eventbrite platform come to life through the enablement of nearly half a million vaccine registrations. This effort was not planned, but has presented an incredible opportunity to be part of the solution against this public health crisis. 

We’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel grow brighter, and despite a tumultuous year, have built a strong foundation for better work-life harmony, increased productivity, and engaged employees. 

The collective wisdom of our community continues to help me feel connected and grounded through the many ups and downs the past year has presented, so I’d love to hear from you on ways you’re helping care for your teams (and yourselves) while staying focused on customers and business priorities. What silver linings have you found?