From Maine, With Love - An Allagash Brewing Podcast

S2 Episode 9: Diving Deep on Company Culture

• Allagash Brewing Company • Season 2 • Episode 9

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In this episode, we're joined by Allagash HR Director Celine Frueh to get into the nitty gritty of building positive company culture. This was a fascinating conversation that touches on all sorts of topics like: how we use a yearly employee survey to figure out the biggest spots for growth, how to preserve the things people love as the company grows, and the business case for giving employees a sabbatical. If you have even a passing interest in the ins and outs of good workplace vibes, this one is for you.

Brett Willis:

This is from Maine with Love, an Allagash Brewing podcast where we talk about beer or community here in Maine and things that generally make us happy. Yeah , I'm flying solo today. It was, it was me talking with Celine Free , our HR director here at Allagash. Um, just, I mean, kind of all about hr. The, the, the crux of the episode is talking about, you know, how we've made this list of best places to work in Maine for many years, basically since 2013. But I think it goes beyond that of talking about what is kind of the purpose of hr, what's the foundation of a healthy company, and, and just how we use this , uh, survey and everything else. It's, it's, if you are even halfway interested in creating company culture, I think this is a really cool episode because we get into just a lot of the specifics around how we approach it, how it's ever changing, and how it's just kind of this , uh, constant work in progress to make sure people feel valued , uh, and that the company adapts with the , uh, you know, with the people who work there. So that sounds interesting to you. This is the episode for you. I'm joined here by Celine Frueh, our HR director here at Allagash . Hi Celine . Hey, Brett . And this is Brett , uh, senior communications specialist here at Allagash . Uh, and we're gonna start of course, with a secret question. So, Celine, what is the difference to you between a conference room meeting and a walking meeting?

Celine Frueh:

Ooh , walking meetings are better <laugh>, so walking meetings get you outside Yeah . In the elements, and you can think better as you're moving. Um, yeah, it's my preferred form of meeting.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. Like, isn't there some psychological thing of like, as thing as you walk and move, it's jogging your brain in different ways than if you were sitting sedentary and trying to think of new things ? Like there's something creative about it. I feel like,

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. I mean, I, I've never researched it. I just go with kind of how my brain works best. Sure. Um , yeah, there's, there's something deadening about spending a lot of time sitting without movement. Totally. So, yeah. I like to build it into interviews too. Yeah . Walking interviews.

Brett Willis:

I think we might have done a walking interview back when I was interviewing a little while ago. Probably.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah, probably.

Brett Willis:

Well , so we're here today to talk about , uh, best places to work in Maine mm-hmm. <affirmative> and kind of a lot around that, what that designation means, what we kind of do with that , um, survey. And also just kind of around, I feel like company culture and , and everything like that that we have here at Allian. It just, I think it's a pretty fascinating subject. And I think , uh, Celine, you have quite a bit of knowledge around it, so I'm excited to hear , uh, what you have to say. Uh, so I wanna start really broad and say, so for the question being, what in your mind are the hallmarks of a healthy workplace?

Celine Frueh:

That's a great question. I think first and foremost, it should be a place where people feel comfortable being their true self. Yeah . Their authentic selves. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And, you know, it's our responsibility , um, running the company to try to create an environment where people do feel the sense of safety.

Brett Willis:

Sure. Yeah. That is a , I feel like that is a good, like, that's a good foundation for it in general. Cuz I think it's, if you can't feel like yourself while you're working, how can you can contribute in the same way? Right. You know, or give your full, give your full skillset to the, to the job.

Celine Frueh:

Totally. And just kind of building on that, this concept of a flat social hierarchy.

Brett Willis:

Oh,

Celine Frueh:

Sure. So, you know, for practical reasons, you need sort of a structure for making decisions. Who's accountable for this? If there's a tough call to make, who's gonna make it mm-hmm . <affirmative> . But when it comes to just general worth and value of people's perspectives, truly everyone is equal. And so we just want a , a place where you know, your coworkers Yeah. And you feel like you can connect and kind of whomever walks in to a group of people hanging out after work, they're welcomed and it , it just feels comfortable.

Brett Willis:

Sure. That's nice. Yeah. The question that that raises for me is like, if you don't have the buy-in of the senior leadership team though, right? Like, that's kind of impossible.

Celine Frueh:

A hundred percent. You cannot coach someone into caring about employees. Sure, sure . They either do or they don't. Yeah. And it was just evident to me in my first conversation with Rob Yeah . Before I even started working here, that he got it. Sure. And so, you know, he doesn't even realize how amazing it is because he has only, you know, he just knows his natural instincts. Sure . But the fact that he wants to walk around, walk the floor, get into the field, ride with the sales team, stop by an HR happy hour if we're doing it in the tasting room and, and have shift beers with some of the brewers after work. Yeah . All of these natural instincts, it sets the tone. Um, and that just kind of trickles down where , where people feel like that's a good approach. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. And there, I feel like there are so many examples of that sort of like, if you have a suggestion, make that suggestion no matter how like, you know, new you are to the company, how senior, not necessarily your department. Yeah. Because I mean, most of the time that I've ever made a suggestion, it's like, yeah, we thought about that a lot and this is why we do it this way. But it's always a really good reason. Like, you know, it's, it's, it's rarely ever like Yeah . Nah. You know, like dismissed out of hand, which I feel like is so important to feeling valued too.

Celine Frueh:

Right. It is. And one of the things, you know, I , I don't track this with data, but just anecdotally this happens every year, is that a relatively new employee in a relatively kind of entry level or mid-level role mm-hmm . <affirmative> has an idea about a better way to do something in their own department. Sure. And their manager says, wow, yeah, let's do it. That's cool. And then I hear about it, or Rob hears about it and tells me mm-hmm . And I feel like, wow , if you can get noticed, you know, if you're a packaging operator or you know, you work at the Warehouse or you work in the tasting room mm-hmm . <affirmative> , and you have a better idea about how to do something and, you know, the marketing team takes, you know, listens to that or , um, leadership in the brewery ops department listens to what you have to say. Like, that seems like a healthy organization. Totally.

Brett Willis:

So speaking about healthy organizations , uh, we've been taking this survey since 2013. It's called Best Places to Work in Maine. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. What is the sort of, what is the start of that? How did that get started? How do we get involved with that particular survey? I guess, what's the origin?

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. So before I worked at Allagash , um, I did HR consulting and one of the realms that I ended up focusing on for a while was employee engagement surveys or , um, exit surveys with large employers like Main Medical Center. Or, you know, other hospitals in the state. And through that kind of learned , um, just the theory of data and you know, how to use data and it, it know it's suggests things to you. It's not absolute truth, but it can suggest things Sure . And sure , the more people that participate, the more you can trust the data and and so forth. So , um, I think it's a really nice counterpart to a lot of hr, because a lot of HR is hunches gut that, you know, you walk by a group of people Huh. They don't seem something doesn't seem quite right or Wow, that group of people seems really excited. So the data of a survey is a really nice complimentary method to sort of assessing how folks are doing Sure. And pinpoint certain areas. Um, so there, there are just, you know, the people that do this exclusively professionally, there's just a series of questions that are considered best in class for assessing employee engagement. And, and so the best companies group who administers the best Places to Work survey, they're based in DC and they do surveys all over the country. They do it in every state. They do outside magazine, you know, you see these other Oh , okay. Best Places to Work contests. And most of them are really the same questions with a few things thrown in. Right. So if outside is doing it, they're gonna ask a few things about do you let your employees go outside? Right. Right. Right. But , um, but largely it's the same set of questions. Huh. Um, so when I started working here and, you know, heard about the survey, I thought, gosh, this is an amazing place to work, and so why not throw our hat in the ring? Sure . But also, let's see what people really like best about working in all gas . And also what are the pain points? Because the anonymity of a survey Yeah. You know, it's, it's administered by a third party. We only see aggregate data. Right . But we don't see, you know, Sam said this or Johnny said that . Right .

Brett Willis:

This individual person said that . Yeah.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. So there's this level of , uh, freedom for employees where, you know, that's what we encourage people to do is to be really candid. Cuz if people are faking it, it doesn't help us at all. Totally.

Brett Willis:

Cuz I think that that is the important point. And that's the part that I've kind of understood about this and why I particularly thought that this was gonna be a really interesting podcast is that like, it's not just a pat on the back, you know mm-hmm . <affirmative> , we've made this, but it's like, it's the way in which it is implemented of saying, Hey, look, we're doing so well in all these areas, but let's actually look at the way the place we're not doing well. Right . You know , and then Right . What do we do about that? Right . And so, yeah, it's just seems like it's just a , it seems like such a health , healthier way to view that sort of a survey to actually help ,

Celine Frueh:

Uh, yeah. And even, you know, there, so there are all these multiple choice questions mm-hmm . <affirmative> , and then there's a section at the end for comments. And the comments are so helpful because you can have high scores in a certain category, but if a few people have a concern of like, well, this is going well now, but I'm worried about preserving this as we grow. Sure. If you get a bunch of people with the same concern, then that's a good clue that, wow, okay. People are paying attention to this, this is a treasured part of working here. Oh , interesting. So let's pay extra attention to keeping this strong. And the , one of the most interesting parts about working at Allagash for me has been you might have the same goal year over year . Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , like, let's say, for example, fostering a workplace where people know their coworkers and , um, feel connected. And , uh, but the way you do that might change year over year. Hmm . So when you're certain size, right. So we were about 40 people when I started. Now we're about 160. The way you kept people feeling connected at 40, 50, 60 employees didn't look exactly the same as it did. Totally. And then of course, during the pandemic, it had to change again. Yeah . Not due to size, but due to the constraints of the health situation. Yeah. So anyway, it's, it's like we don't replicate every year and you know, this from being here for a while . It , it's not that every year is just a replica of the past year. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

That's, yeah. That's really interesting . There are two things in there, and I feel like the first one that I wanted to kind of dig into is the, do you have a specific example of an unexpected trend that popped up on the survey or something that appeared that then you had to take action to address? Do you, like, is there something that you could share along those lines of like, oh, I didn't know people were thinking about that that much, or Ooh , we really do need to work on that. And then we worked on it.

Celine Frueh:

It's funny, the first thing that jumped to mind, and this is, is sort of a , a funny example is , um, you know, there are a lot of questions on the survey. Yeah . There might be 80. Yeah. Honestly, I'd have to look that up. But there are quite a few, but all the questions aren't weighted equal in terms of experts view of them. Oh . So there are about 12 that are considered like the most significant and some are harder to change than others. And this is just a kind of a , an easy example if someone is dissatisfied in the benefits section about, you know, vision insurance, well, it's pretty simple to fix that. Right, right , right . If we didn't have vision insurance, we brought it in and now people are happy with the vision insurance. Yeah . And that's, that did happen, huh . You know, that's cool. But there are other things that are just really not necessarily solvable at all. Like if you have a group of people in a department, none of them like the type of work that they do. Yeah. That's really Yeah . Hard to fix. And that sort of tells you, wow, we we're not hiring the right type of people. Interesting. Early on in my tenure here, we had this pattern of a lot of folks who were like, wow, Ash just sounds so cool. Like, I wanna get my foot in the door. Right. And so we had a lot of, a lot of , uh, positions and departments where folks would not really be interested in the particular job that was being advertised. Right. But they just wanted the foot in the door. And then it led to like, pretty quickly people were like, thumbs down, <laugh> . Yeah. I actually don't like it after all. And Huh . And so it, it forced us in a good way to get better at explaining the job to candidates, to making sure that we were looking for people who had skills and interests that suited people in a particular role. So, like in the packaging department , uh, for example, we wanted folks who had interest in mechanical Sure. Systems, cuz that's a pretty sophisticated machine out there mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it was less about, you know, kind of a starry-eyed view of, wow, it would be cool to work at a brewery and more about, wow, I really like, you know, these certain things. And then looking for people who were interested in whatever it was. So in the tasting room it would be people who like to talk about beer with guests. Yeah. Yeah .

Brett Willis:

Yeah.

Celine Frueh:

So I don't know if that's helpful. No,

Brett Willis:

That's, that's totally helpful. And , and it , it , it also makes me think because it , it goes back to what you were saying about that flexibility of you have a plan, but then you can be flexible because there, there's also the factor of like, people do move around with an Allagash. Mm-hmm . Yes . And that is one of the sort of cooler parts about working here is that you are not like you're here or you're nowhere else, like these positions. Yes . And honestly like the , the investment in employees to learn and to take on new positions. I think there are a number of stories within the brewery of people who started One Boy Place and are now in another place that is like, I'm thinking of Todd, our designer. Right. He started in the warehouse and then he went to school for design, and now he's designing basically everything you see from Allgas. That's Todd. And it's incredible. Exactly.

Celine Frueh:

It's just so cool. Exactly . And there are stories like that are , you know , all throughout the company. And that is so encouraging. It makes me think of the question you just asked me. And you know, for a time there were some lower scores in the career advancement. Right. The perception of if I do good work, I will be rewarded. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I see potential for career advancement in Allagash. And those scores were pretty low for a while . And so we made a really concerted effort actually over the past three years. And it , it's an ongoing one. It's one that will never be done Yeah . To post for every open position within the company. And so rather than , um, you know, manager saying, oh, there's this opportunity within the department, I think, you know, Sally would be perfect. Uh , let's just put Sally in that role. It's like, well wait, what if there are other people that might be interested? Yeah. And, and so now we're really biasing toward posting for things and that not, not only do they create a perception there that there's advancement, it actually creates opportunities for advancement. Yeah . And , um, and those scores are improving as a cool , as a result. So That's

Brett Willis:

Great. Yeah . Cuz that's like, that's like, feels like a , such a conundrum of create a good company culture. So people want to stay for a long time, but then those positions that those people are in are not going to turn over. And so then you have people who want to , you know, like, what do you do? So like, that's just a really interesting way to solve for that.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. And, and I think there's a lot of stuff in the HR realm where there's this tension between, you know, retention is, is a goal. It absolutely is. Yeah. And then if you have so much retention that no one ever leaves, then opportunities may be limited to just pure growth as opposed to growth plus back filling . Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Wow.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. It's a hard balance to strike. I'm very sure. Well , yeah. So the , I think this kind of speaks to that, that question, but what are consistently some of the reasons people give for why they like working at Allagash?

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. So one that really jumps out is working for Rob. Huh . So I think in today's world, you know, every year more and more in a world of like mergers, acquisitions Yeah. You know, people are selling and , and so on. Rob is a human that everyone knows. Yeah. So it's not working for a nameless, faceless corporation, it's not working for a conglomerate based overseas, it's a person that knows your name Yep . That cares about your experience and your quality of life Yeah . As, as an employee here. And so I think people find a huge value. I mean, that's part of the value proposition. Yeah . For sure. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

And , and I think within that, for me, a lot of it comes down to values Yes . And living values. Yes . You know, and I think when you have, you know, it's Rob, you know, you can see Rob is going to live this value and his word has a big say in, you know, what the company's doing. And having that confidence in him as a person and his values is like, that's huge for me. And I think that when you have that same situation of like, with a board of directors or whatever Right . You can't really have that same confidence that Right . The values are going to take, you know , uh, take precedence over the bottom line. Right.

Celine Frueh:

Exactly. It's like if, if we walk through the brewery and see a group of people chatting briefly and having some laughs like Rob looks at that as a positive. Right. You know, some

Brett Willis:

Right , right ,

Celine Frueh:

Right , right . Owners would be like, what's going on here? Get back to work. But it's the opposite with Rob. Like, there's so much trust that Yeah . Everyone works really hard. If somebody found two minutes to convene with a couple coworkers and enjoy a laugh, great. Totally. Because they're having a good day at work. And it, you know, it's this kind of long view on investment. And so when we expand the physical plant, we'll put in skylights windows in the manufacturing facility. A lot of people don't do that. Yeah . Cause it's , it's cheaper to skip those things, but Rob doesn't want people who work at Allagash to feel like they're beaten down. Yeah . He wants people to feel like it's a good existence.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. It's a powerful thing. It's, it's a , it is , it's nice when we do well as well mm-hmm . <affirmative> like, like just like, you know, the bottom line. Like , you know, we're a growing company, we're a healthy company. And it's like, it's just, I think a, you know, in the marketing department, we are really aware of the power. Uh, that was when we, when we did tours, you know mm-hmm . <affirmative> when people would tour the brewery mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . <affirmative> a very consistent takeaway that people would come away with. It was not necessarily just that, oh, the beer tasted great. It was like, whoa, these people are happy. Right. They're happy to be here. And like that was perhaps the most inspiring takeaway. Yeah. And so, like you Yeah . I don't know . It's , it's cool.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. Yeah. So that wasn't even

Brett Willis:

A question <laugh> .

Celine Frueh:

Yeah, no, it , it is. They're just , um, there's some things that really make all gas different and um, yeah . Yeah. If you tour people around, most people pick up on something, even if they can't quite explain it, that it's stands out.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. And I think it's also one of those things where you don't see that in so many different places that kind of seeing that like, oh, people can be happy working. It's, it's like a cool thought. Right. It's an uplifting thought of like, well, maybe I could be happy with my job. And then you can Right . Look around and find something maybe that's better suited for you. Right.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. Yeah . And then, I mean, other things that come back consistent are , um, are benefits. Sure. I think people just, they like the full spectrum of benefits that we offer mm-hmm. <affirmative> , they feel like the company has their back in , in , in terms of, you know, from, from expansive paid time off programs Right. To support people at different stages of life or, you know, just sort of, you know, this education benefit that we offer different things that, you know, we say we want to be a distinctive workplace and we , and we, and benefits are the values in action, I think. Yeah. So if you're saying we wanna be a certain type of employer and then you're really stingy with, with benefits, it just, it's like this huge disconnect. Totally. So it's been fun over the years kind of adding and refining and, and kind of getting those in a place that feel like it sets the stage for a really inclusive workplace.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. And so my preamble to the next question is that I think I had a certain vision in my head before I came to work at a brewery of what it was like to work at a brewery mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And I think it was very different than what I experienced when I actually came to work here. And I think that like, you know, you think of it's beer, everyone's gonna have a beer at lunch, it's all, you know, like, oh , it's gonna be this big like party all the time. Right . And I think like, I'm glad it's not <laugh> . I would not have been here for as long as I had been if it had been that way. Right . But the question is, how does beer both help and potentially hinder our efforts at making this sort of a positive inclusive workspace?

Celine Frueh:

Yeah, that's a , that's a really great question and it's something that we think deeply about Yeah . On , on a regular basis. And so it's this wonderful opportunity for connection. Yeah . Right. Because it naturally can pull people together to sort of savor and experience together mm-hmm. <affirmative> , um, at the same time, if it's used excessively, it can lead people down a really dark path. Yeah. And so we wanna strike the balance of generosity around, you know, help when people are making a product to let them enjoy it. Yep . And at the same time, we wanna do our duty to keep people outta harm's way or educate people about potential issues that we could have. Yeah. And so we've made a , a big push over the past few years to shift away from the idea that everyone's gonna enjoy beer. Like everyone who works at Allgas should, should be a , you know , a beer aficionado. Yeah . And that's helped us in a bunch of ways because I think it's made the workplace feel more inclusive and less like intimidating for folks who totally might even like beer, but just don't feel like they're a beer geek. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And , um, you know, people choose, we have very long tenured employees. People choose to stop drinking at various times for all different reasons. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and they are still wonderful contributors to Allagash . And so we've kind of, you know, figured out that if you care deeply about the part of your work that you're doing mm-hmm . <affirmative> it , it really doesn't matter. So it's like an, an invitation if , hey, if you wanna be part of sharing a shift beverage and drink beer, great. But also we always have non-alcoholic options so that people don't feel like it's a tap water versus beer situation. Yeah. And we've found some good partnerships with , um, education around mindful drinking and healthy alcohol habits.

Brett Willis:

I was thinking with , with , uh, with WellSpace. Yeah. That's a huge one.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. No , those have been fascinating. Yeah. We've got such interesting smart employees and so they tend to really like to explore and learn mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's very gratifying to bring a subject to the, the company or to a particular department and have people really embrace it and be all in for those 90 minutes to try to examine their thoughts and their habits around alcohol and how that might be serving them or not serving them. And do they wanna make any changes. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Could you explain that, that WellSpace partnership a little bit? Cause I feel like this ties in with that of just, you know, mindful alcohol habits and also just like mental health in general and really honoring that as an important part of the benefits package.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean , the pandemic was such a challenge, but it also allowed us to kind of make progress in certain areas Yeah. That we had maybe been kind of trying to chip away at over the years. It's super important to me for a whole host of reasons that mental health just be something we can all talk about comfortably the same way if, you know, I twisted my ankle and Right, right. I needed some accommodation. I would not fear that people would think I was less than Yeah. Because I had had an injury that affected, you know, physical part that, you know, people struggle from time to time mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And so it was kind of a conscious effort to go from thinking that you either did or didn't have a mental illness to more like Right . This is norm for the human condition. We all have struggles from time to time. Yeah. And when we have struggles we should f feel like we can get help when we need it. We entered into this partnership with WellSpace in July of , we started working with them like drawing up the agreement in July of 2020. Mm-hmm . It was during that kind of supply chain crisis of Covid realizing, right. Our team is gonna struggle like everyone else in the United States and around the world is struggling and we wanna to, to find a pathway to reduce barriers to mental health counseling for people that are struggling. And so this partnership gives people quick access to , um, a set of clinicians and, and the virtual aspect of it made it really easy for our remote team that's all over the country to also use it if they wanted . That's right.

Brett Willis:

Yeah . That's really cool.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. And then through that we just did some webinars. They started as webinars because of covid and now we bring folks in in , um, on site . But when there's a topic that many people have expressed interest in Yeah. Like seasonal effective disorder will just say, Hey, there's, yeah, this is a thing when you live in Maine. Yeah . Let's, let's gather and just share strategies. So I think it's, it's been a healthy change. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Oh yeah. No, it's , it's just like, and especially knowing it can be really hard to find a therapist Right . Or something, even if you're looking for them. And like, even taking that step to look Right . I feel like is a, is a , is a big personal sort of decision. So it's like, yeah. I don't know . I think it's a really powerful part of the whole package and , uh, a cool thing that I definitely valued. So in addition to this WellSpace benefit, we have some other sort of unique benefits to, to us as a brewery and I think potentially to us , uh, as a business of like these sort of milestone uh, perks of being here . Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , there's a five-year trip and there's something that happens after 10 years cuz you just talked briefly about what those are.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. So, you know, our intention is to have long-term employment relationships with people. That's our goal Yeah . Is that we cultivate a workplace that is interesting enough and supportive enough and exciting enough that people wanna stay 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. And it's, it's such an honor, but it's also a responsibility. I mean, there was one year, I think this was even pre pandemic, where several people in their early , early thirties or late twenties said to me, or they wrote in their self reviews , I hope to retire at Allagash. Whoa. And Rob and I were like, whoa, whoa . I mean this is, that's

Brett Willis:

Serious.

Celine Frueh:

It's so , um, it's so major and so different. And so during the pandemic it was like, wow, I mean we've gotta keep this ship going. Yeah. Because this, you know, enables the livelihoods of so many people. So as part of that, this, you know, there's this part of our culture that I think , um, reflection is sort of absent from mm-hmm . <affirmative> and sometimes people will literally quit jobs just so they can catch their breath, take a break. Yeah . Like things, they're just not sure that , you know, something is changing in their life and , and whatever. And so a sabbatical is such a fun benefit to offer. So that's what we do . We offer this sabbatical, which is four paid four weeks, totally paid, and you can add two weeks of vacation time onto it for a total of six weeks. We do that at 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and , and so on mm-hmm . <affirmative> so that people don't have to, if they've always wanted to go to , you know, on a trip somewhere special and they need extra time, like they wanna go to India for a month, we don't want people to make the choice of either I have to quit my job Yeah, yeah. Or give up on this dream that I've had all this time. But a lot of people use their sabbatical in a totally different way. They just relax at home with their families. Yeah . Or some people will do a home improvement project. There's no, there's no expectation, there's no , um, it's really up to each person to choose what would be the most , um, you know, how they would wanna spend the time. But it allows for this opportunity to reflect a little bit on your life.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. And one of the cool parts of the sabbatical from my perspective is like how it's such an awesome tool to stress test the health of your organization.

Celine Frueh:

A hundred percent.

Brett Willis:

Because if you take away one person Right . And everything breaks, like you , something's, something's not working there. So Exactly. We've, we've experienced that on the marketing team cuz we're not a terribly big team and we've had, you know Right . We've had a sabbatical or two and it's like we, we , we made it through, it was all good, you know, but it's, it's interesting how that works.

Celine Frueh:

Exactly. And so that's the other component of it is, you know, so at first I was talking about how it could benefit individuals. Yeah . The way it benefits the company is exactly that and it's succession planning. So it's a way to get information out of someone's head and become more institutional knowledge. Ah , yeah. Because really the goal is to create an organization that any one of us could be removed at any time for any reason and the company would be okay. Right. Yeah. Um, you know, just the kind of worst case scenario, right. Um, somebody's in a car accident, whatever it is, where suddenly we, we can't get access to that person. Um, and , uh, what happens? Yeah. So that exercise, it's also a great way if we encourage managers to, rather than delegate up to their boss to cover things while they're gone. Right . To delegate down.

Brett Willis:

So give Oh , that's cool.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. So that gets at the succession planning concept of getting people comfortable with, you know, trying things a little bit outside of their comfort zone mm-hmm. <affirmative> that they haven't done before. And every once in a while someone does something while their manager's away and they do a great job and the manager says, you know what, why don't you keep that? Yeah, sure. And , and that's like career development for that person.

Brett Willis:

Wow. That's cool. Yeah.

Celine Frueh:

That's

Brett Willis:

Really cool . Yeah. So , uh, I think rounding this out, and we kind of touched on this but not in super depth. Um, how do you, you said it was kind of, it's a constantly evolving goal of keeping the good parts of the culture mm-hmm. <affirmative>, are there any sort of ways that you've found that you can like, that work across the board to keep those good parts of the culture as you grow? Is it just vigilance ? Is it like what, how do you keep that culture?

Celine Frueh:

Yeah, I mean, a big one is communication. Yeah,

Brett Willis:

Yeah.

Celine Frueh:

Yeah. So, you know, early on , um, I pitched to Rob, can we do a newsletter mm-hmm. <affirmative> and it's, you know, you , you know it well, <laugh> . Yes . And you, you Matt help me with the original template for it. That's awesome. Um , in, in MailChimp, but so we call it the New Flash. Yeah. And at the time, I remember talking about it in a leadership meeting and people said, do you really think we need a weekly newsletter? I mean, what do we have to say? Like, is there enough going on on a weekly basis? Well, hilariously, you know, 10 years later Wow. Literally , um, this little weekly newsletter is still alive and kicking and it just has a stat. It was helpful in establishing kind of setting the tone that communication is something that's important to the company. We have tons of information that we wanna share with you mm-hmm. <affirmative> , of course, it's not the only way. Right. We do these all staff meetings, we do department summits, we have, you know, a q and a form where people can ask the leadership team any, anything. And, and that's kept confidential. Yeah. So we have lots of ways that we communicate with people, but that I think does so much for keeping it feeling small and like the healthiest meaning of that word. Yeah. Um , where you know, what's going on, things that affect you, you know about, but also things that are just a company goal, a company objective. Yeah . You know, we, we share more about big picture strategy I think than most, most companies do. And people seem to like it.

Brett Willis:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm a , I'm a newsflash fan. I like to, I like to save it for like, honestly kind of after work or in the morning if I have my cup of coffee. Like Yeah . Yeah . Cuz it's substantial. It it is , it is a lot of information and there's some really good stuff in there that you just me I wouldn't know about Right. Because I maybe wasn't there wasn't seeing it happening. And so yeah. It's cool. And there's also the , I think the, in speaking about communication, there's this sort of another tension between timeliness and also completeness of information that I feel like I was dealing with, especially for bigger decisions. Yes . So like how, how do you navigate that <laugh>?

Celine Frueh:

Well, Brett <laugh> , if I had a good answer for that, <laugh>.

Brett Willis:

Yeah.

Celine Frueh:

I mean, I think it's just this kind of ever-changing Yeah . Thing and we're probably at a zone right now where we're kind of rethinking some things and you know, we'll probably change things up a bit , uh, for next year. Yeah. But , um, people love , I mean, it it's the, when people are so interested in what's happening around them and what's happening in other departments and it's such a healthy form of engagement. Yeah. And we just, I think it also lends great credibility if you have to communicate bad news that you have this like, reliable, trusted relationship of communicating mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So when you have to come in and say bad news, there's a pandemic. We have to close everything down, you know, for a certain amount of time. People,

Brett Willis:

They're ready for it . Yeah , exactly. It's , it's a way that they've , they've come to expect and so Exactly. Yeah. Totally. Yeah . It's not just jarring to get an email in your inbox that you've never seen before. Right,

Celine Frueh:

Right,

Brett Willis:

Right. Yeah . That's great. So my last question, it's kind of like my first question, but I guess this is maybe more personal. What is success for you in HR?

Celine Frueh:

I think surprising people in a good way. Because many people come either with no idea what HR is or they've had a terrible experience with hr. Yeah . Yeah . And so when you can show people that you have their best interests at heart, that you take their, you know, when they're willing to share with you honest things and take that so seriously and keep things confidential that should be confidential. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> help people when they need help. I think that's always so fulfilling for me or anyone on my team of like, yes. You know, we, we kind of, there's this stereotype right. From like office space or like Dilbert or whatever out there and we, we don't wanna be that. Yeah. And so yeah.

Brett Willis:

That's great. How many people are on the HR team at this point?

Celine Frueh:

It's a big team. Yeah. And it's an unusually big team and I think it speaks to kind of the wide scope of hr. Yeah . You know, where we do internal, you know, this very comprehensive in internal communications program and then all of the perks and rec events that we do. Right . That just foster small groups getting together to have fun all the time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But um, yeah, it's the department of six of us now. Oh, nice. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

It's appreciated all you do. Thank you .

Celine Frueh:

Oh , thank you. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Well yeah, thanks Celine . This fulfilled all of my expectations of being super interesting and just like, yeah. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Celine Frueh:

You're so welcome. Thanks for having me.

Brett Willis:

This has been an Allagash brewing production and if you have something you want us to talk about on the show, shoot us a message at podcast@allagash.com.