Head of Distributed Work

| Remote | Hybrid
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We are in the midst of the greatest change in how knowledge work is done. It is clear that we will not return to how work was done pre-pandemic and that the "new normal" is far from determined. Across the business spectrum, behaviors continue to evolve and new approaches to collaboration continue to surface. We expect to see teams and technologies morph over the coming years to more effectively support collaborative work across a distributed environment. This is new territory for our company and industry, and the stakes are high. The opportunity is ours to improve how we work for the hybrid (remote + in-person) arrangement, and to do knowledge work better than ever.
At Sprout the future of our workplace is Hybrid and we are committed to making it excellent. We have begun the shift from mostly office-based work, to a distributed team interacting and collaborating from offices, homes, and workspaces around the country and globe. This presents massive opportunities for Sprout to work with the best talent independent of location, and to give each team member flexibility that maximizes their work and matches their life circumstances. So long as we can build well-connected distributed teams and preserve the culture that makes Sprout so special, this will lead to stronger company results and even greater career and personal outcomes for our people.
We are looking for a Head of Distributed Work to develop the future of our workplace. You will directly address the opportunities and challenges and build Sprout into a leader in distributed work. Your scope will span the hard to the soft, from optimizing for productivity across time zones, to designing more effective work spaces, to developing approaches for fostering deep relationships and trust among our distributed teams. Success is a distributed working environment that facilitates great work and strong interconnection of our team members, so that every person can flourish and feel connection, regardless of their location or that of their teammates.
This role requires a global view and working across all functions in the organization, especially People, Corporate IT, Communications and our executive team. The ideal candidate will bring a design and product mindset in service of Sprout team members as "customers". You'll have deep first-hand experience working in remote settings and leading or influencing globally distributed teams. Your background will include aspects of design thinking, experimentation, product development, organizational design, and experience in building lightweight frameworks, processes and tooling for teams large or small.
This is an opportunity to be a leading pioneer in the future of global knowledge work. If you are eager to play a role in defining the future of work at Sprout and our industry, please apply. We are excited to build with you.
Some responsibilities include:

  • Sprout's workplace is your product, from the physical spaces to the ways our teams work to the virtual fabric to our distributed team and culture. You are designing the connective tissue of our organization.
  • Drive alignment/buy in across all teams/functions in the organization, especially People, Corporate IT, Communications and our Executive Team.
  • Constantly source the latest thinking, research, best practices, and tooling, in our ever changing environment.
  • Coordinate the experimentation, iteration, and continuous rollout of new tools, processes, norms access the entire company. Lead working groups with cross sections of our team to help test/iterate and execute.
  • Develop and roll out standards and norms for different ways we work (collaboration, building connection, communication, etc).
  • Design a workplace environment that balances improved individual and team productivity while fostering strong interpersonal connections.
  • Devise metrics to evaluate dynamic and Hybrid work initiatives.


Qualifications
These are the minimum qualifications that our hiring team is looking for in this role:

  • Experience in organizational design, product management, or entrepreneurship
  • Experience leading or influencing globally distributed teams


Additionally, these are the preferred qualifications that would indicate a particularly strong candidate:

  • You are driven to work on this problem. We don't expect you to come with solutions. This is new territory and no one knows what they're doing yet.
  • You are a self-starter who has a history of solving problems from first principles and bringing your own vision to a successful reality.
  • You are an extremely strong and tactful communicator, collaborator, and change agent. You have experience leading, influencing, and bringing about organizational change without direct authority over people.
  • You might not consider yourself a designer or researcher, but you intuitively employ design thinking and experimentation to imagine and test approaches. You're creative and rigorous.
  • You show strong business acumen. You'll be working to change what's under the hood of our business and you need to ensure it still drives great outcomes for our team, customers, and company.
  • You can approach this work with an obsession for designing an excellent product (our distributed workplace) for your customer (your colleagues at Sprout).
  • Experience in the psychology of teams and organizations is a strong plus.


Within 1 month, you will...

  • Experience Sprout's in-depth onboarding, covering everything from our company mission and values, hearing directly from executives and founders, to deep training on our products and the value that Sprout delivers to our customers.
  • Set initial priorities, align on expectations for your role, plant goalposts for your career, and learn about Sprout's approach thus far to Hybrid Work.
  • Become familiar with our tech stack and our processes for communication, documentation and effective collaborations.


Within 3 months, you will...

  • Go on a listening tour across the organization to build relationships, and to understand pain points and opportunity areas in our Hybrid model.
  • Conduct an end-to-end tooling, meeting facilitation, communication and process audit and provide structured replacements for remote-last workflows
  • Establish credibility and trust across your team and key internal partners to be able to become an effective coach and advocate.


Within 6 months, you will...

  • Create a balanced internal working group representing various working modalities/preferences to collaborate and pressure test our ideas.
  • Develop processes to understand employee use cases, package those insights, and leverage them in a way that drives adoption.
  • Start testing/experimenting on improvements to how we work.


Within 12 months, you will...

  • Follow technical trends in the industry. Make recommendations on which new technologies to invest in or leverage.
  • Begin advising on the future of our physical workspaces, including existing real estate and other flexible spaces
  • Surprise us! Use your unique ideas and abilities to change our team and efforts in beneficial ways that we haven't even considered yet.


About Sprout Social Sprout Social powers open communication between individuals, brands and communities through elegant, sophisticated software. We are relentless about solving hard problems for our customers and committed to both customer and team success. Our team's shared belief in Sprout's mission promotes a culture of openness, empowerment and fun.
We're proud to regularly be recognized for our team, product and culture. Our benefits program includes:

  • Insurance and benefit options that are built for both individuals and families
  • Progressive policies to support work/life balance, like our flexible paid time off and parental leave program
  • High-quality and well-maintained equipment-your computer will never prevent you from doing your best
  • Wellness initiatives to ensure both health and mental well-being of our team
  • Ongoing education and development opportunities via our Grow@Sprout program and employee-led diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
  • Growing corporate social responsibility program that is driven by the involvement and passion of our team members
  • Beautiful, convenient and state-of-the-art offices in Chicago's Loop and downtown Seattle, for those who prefer an office setting


Whenever possible, Sprout wants to provide our team with the flexibility to work in the location that makes the most sense for them. For those that prefer an office setting, this role may be based in our Chicago or Seattle locations. If you prefer to work from your home, we can accommodate that for many locations across the United States. We are not set up in all states, however, so please take a look at the drop down box in our application to see whether your state is listed.
Sprout Social is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and an Affirmative Action Employer. We do not discriminate based on identity - race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex (including sexual identity), age, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, veteran or military status, unfavorable discharge from military service, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, order of protection status, citizenship status, arrest record or expunged or sealed convictions, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state, or local law. Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in our 2021 DEI Report .
If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at [email protected] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. We'll do all we can to ensure you're set up for success during our interview process while upholding your privacy, including requests for accommodation. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.
For more information about our commitment to equal employment opportunity, please click here (1) Equal Opportunity Employment Poster (2) Sprout Social's Affirmative Action Statement (3) Pay Transparency Statement .
When you apply for employment with Sprout Social, we will process your job applicant data, including your employment and education history, transcript, writing samples, and references as necessary to consider your job application for open positions. For more information about our privacy practices please visit our Privacy Policy. California residents have additional rights and should review the Additional Disclosures for California Residents section in our Privacy Policy.
Additionally, Sprout Social participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law.
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Technology we use

  • Engineering
  • Sales & Marketing
    • JavaLanguages
    • JavascriptLanguages
    • PythonLanguages
    • SqlLanguages
    • SwiftLanguages
    • D3JSLibraries
    • ReactLibraries
    • ReduxLibraries
    • DjangoFrameworks
    • HadoopFrameworks
    • SalesforceCRM

Location

131 S Dearborn, 7th Floor, Chicago, IL 60603

An Insider's view of Sprout Social

What’s the vibe like in the office?

We are invited to bring our authentic selves to work. The result is a culture without pretense.

Aja Saunders

Receptionist Systems Specialist

What's the biggest problem your team is solving?

The Growth Activation squad is focused on the challenge of retaining trial users and converting them into subscribers. We find solutions by A/B testing our features, using data science for quantitative analysis, using user interviews for qualitative analysis and working with other teams at Sprout on Growth strategies.

Andrew Kos

Senior Software Engineer

How has your career grown since starting at the company?

When I first joined Sprout, I could count the entire Sales team on one hand. Since then, my career has taken a variety of paths, from training and enablement to assisting our Sales team from a strategic perspective as a Solutions Engineer. Thanks to a workplace environment that fosters growth, I’ve been able to advance my career at Sprout.

Jordan Balkin

Solutions Engineer, Sales & Success

How do you empower your team to be more creative?

Instead of turning down ideas that seem unattainable, we encourage our teams to think through how we can solve challenges in unique ways. By testing and experimenting, we create an environment that fosters innovation and promotes creative thinking.

Jamie Gilpin

CMO

What's something quirky about your company?

At the conclusion of our company wide Kickoff party, tubs of McDonalds cheeseburgers mysteriously appear and rain down on us like a blizzard in the Chicago winter. But a good blizzard.

Molly Jones

Senior Employee Experience Manager

What are Sprout Social Perks + Benefits

Sprout Social Benefits Overview

We’re proud to regularly be recognized for our team, product and culture. Our benefits program includes:

- Insurance and benefit options that are built for both individuals and families
- Progressive policies to support work/life balance, like our flexible paid time off and parental leave program
- High-quality and well-maintained equipment—your computer will never prevent you from doing your best
- Wellness initiatives to ensure both health and mental well-being of our team
- Ongoing education and development opportunities via our Grow@Sprout program, employee-led diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and mentorship programs for aspiring leaders
- Growing corporate social responsibility program that is driven by the involvement and passion of our team members
- Beautiful, convenient and state-of-the-art offices in Chicago’s Loop and downtown Seattle, for those who prefer an office setting

Culture
Volunteer in local community
Partners with nonprofits
Open door policy
OKR operational model
Team based strategic planning
Pair programming
Open office floor plan
Flexible work schedule
Remote work program
Diversity
Documented equal pay policy
Dedicated diversity and inclusion staff
Mandated unconscious bias training
Diversity manifesto
Diversity employee resource groups
Hiring practices that promote diversity
Health Insurance + Wellness
Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
Disability insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
Health insurance
Life insurance
Pet insurance
Wellness programs
Mental health benefits
Financial & Retirement
401(K)
401(K) matching
Company equity
Employee stock purchase plan
Child Care & Parental Leave
Generous parental leave
Family medical leave
Vacation + Time Off
Unlimited vacation policy
Generous PTO
Paid volunteer time
Paid holidays
Paid sick days
Office Perks
Commuter benefits
Company-sponsored outings
Free daily meals
Free snacks and drinks
Some meals provided
Company-sponsored happy hours
Fitness stipend
Home-office stipend for remote employees
Onsite gym
Professional Development
Job training & conferences
Lunch and learns
Promote from within
Mentorship program
Continuing education available during work hours
Online course subscriptions available
Customized development tracks

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