In this episode of Make Yourself @ Work, Matt Tverberg sits down with Caitlin Steininger, Director of Workplace Operations (Americas) at Samsara, a connected operations cloud platform. She dives into how Samsara uses utilization data for meal forecasting and lease planning, the real cost of disconnected systems, and how AI is already changing how her team works. Some key lessons from the conversation include: your employees are your customers, always communicate the "why" behind new tools, and if you want people to come in, give them a reason worth the commute.
In this episode of Make Yourself @ Work, Matt Tverberg sits down with Caitlin Steininger, Director of Workplace Operations (Americas) at Samsara, a connected operations cloud platform. Caitlin brings more than 14 years of experience, including senior roles at Cohesity and SteelWave, and today leads workplace strategy, real estate operations, and employee experience across a growing global footprint.
Caitlin shares what it really means to own employee experience at scale. She manages 15 locations across multiple regions and explains why the biggest challenges aren't physical, they're operational.
She dives into how Samsara uses utilization data for meal forecasting and lease planning, the real cost of disconnected systems, and how AI is already changing how her team works. Some key lessons from the conversation include: your employees are your customers, always communicate the "why" behind new tools, and if you want people to come in, give them a reason worth the commute.
This episode provides a practical guide for workplace and facilities leaders, and anyone responsible for building employee experiences that scale.
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Quotes
“ We're more than just a facilities manager. We really are the chief operating officer of employee experience. When you step into a Samsara office, that employee experience, what you feel, what you see, what you engage with really is what workplace does.”
“ We spend more hours with the people that we work with than our families, and so it's really important that our office environment and creating that great employee experience is… a home away from home, where employees can be their most productive.”
“I really like to put myself in the employee's shoes and say, "Okay, an executive just came to me, or a VP just came to me, and they need me to set this up right now. What information do I need to give the workplace team so they can turn it around quickly?" And that's really where I focus.”
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Timestamps
(00:32) Background on Caitlin and Samsara
(03:01) Defining workplace operations
(06:48) Raising the bar after Samsara's TIME100 recognition
(11:10) What strains first when companies scale
(14:14) Cultural differences across global hubs
(16:14) Hybrid in practice: building the why for in-office work
(20:46) Data blind spots and the HRIS integration gap
(24:11) Using utilization data for forecasting and planning
(31:12) Building team culture and celebrating wins
(43:01) The 80% occupancy pinch point
(51:24) How Caitlin Makes Herself @ Work
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Links
Connect with the guest and host on LinkedIn!
[00:00:00] Matt Tverberg: Hi, I'm Matt Tverberg, the host of Make Yourself @ Work, and I'm super excited to introduce my guest today. I'm joined by Caitlin Steininger. She is the director of workplace operations from Samsara, and she leads the workplace strategy, real estate operations, and employee experience across a growing global footprint.
With more than fourteen years of leadership experience, Caitlin has managed global real estate portfolios, large-scale construction projects, space planning initiatives, and technology-driven workplace transformations. Prior to Samsara, she held a senior workplace and facilities leadership role at Cohesity and SteelWave She saw similar programs at those organizations, so I'm thrilled to have her here today to talk about Workplace at Samsara.
Caitlin, great to have you.
[00:01:02] Caitlin Steininger: Good to see you. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:03] Matt Tverberg: Oh, my pleasure. So just to start, you know, a lot of our viewers may not even know what Samsara does. Yeah. I'm a big fan- ... and it's super interesting technology, and I've learned a lot about-
[00:01:15] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah ...
[00:01:15] Matt Tverberg: what you guys do since you've been a customer for a while, but why don't you tell the folks at home, like, what, what Samsara does and-
[00:01:22] Caitlin Steininger: Samsara is a... the- the highest level is, like, a connected operations cloud, and less on the tech side but more on what makes this world go. So we are helping keep the lights on by those operational companies, transportation, construction, energy, the public sector. All of those big rigs you see and the cranes out in the city building those buildings, some of them have Samsara ID tags on them, and they can see them through our platform.
They can identify when a, a vehicle is not responding. If it's a dairy truck that has ex- a p- product that can expire, we have products within them that will alert somebody and get them help as quickly as possible so the product isn't wasted, and the support that the driver may need if there's something wrong with the vehicle is taken care of quickly.
[00:02:10] Matt Tverberg: Oh, that's so cool.
[00:02:11] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah.
[00:02:12] Matt Tverberg: So a behind-the-scenes operating system-
[00:02:14] Caitlin Steininger: Yes ...
[00:02:14] Matt Tverberg: for trucks and cranes
[00:02:16] Caitlin Steininger: and- Yeah, so think of DHL. DHL is a great example. They use our full fleet of products, and so much mail and so many packages are coming through DHL, and behind the scenes, all of that fleet is tracked with our Samsara products.
[00:02:28] Matt Tverberg: Wow. S- uh, it's more than I even knew 'cause I knew the- about, like, the dash cams and- Yes ... some of the safety stuff behind it, but I didn't know about all the data you're gathering about the heart, the, the cargo itself.
[00:02:37] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah, and spearheading into AI, we recently launched our AI initiatives through our, um, customers who need route planning.
So you can point in, say you have a truck that's going to 37 stops, and you wanna find the most efficient, fuel-efficient route or the most toll-efficient route, whatever it is. You can pop in all those, and S- the Samsara product will spit out the most efficient route for you.
[00:03:01] Matt Tverberg: Ma- Google Maps on steroids.
[00:03:03] Caitlin Steininger: Yes. There you go.
[00:03:05] Matt Tverberg: Amazing. Well, with your title, the director of workplace operations, that can mean a lot of different things- Yes ... at a company. So as you look at your role today at Samsara, like, what does success look like to you?
[00:03:18] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah, so a lot of people hear workplace, and they hear a bunch of different...
We've been called so many different things over the many moons, facilities, workplace operations, maintenance. There's so many different words that go into what workplace really is, and we're more than just a facilities manager. We really are like the chief operating officer of employee experience. Like, when you step into a Samsara office, that employee experience, what you feel, what you see, what you engage with really is what Workplace does.
I like to think of what we do around two, like, major pillars, which is, like, the global hub strategy. S- in a post-COVID world, like, what does that look like when you're supporting hybrid work? So Workplace supports both the real estate aspect and the remote employee aspect, as well as the, you know, the actual physical environment, the office we sit in right now, the office you go to every day.
And then, like, kind of that harmony between, like, how do we make the office a commute-worthy place for those who are coming in? So for example, I come in from Bart, and it's two and a half hours every time I come into the office, but I do it because it's so fun. We, the Workplace team, not to toot our own horns, but we make the office fun, and that is kind of, like, the goal for what Workplace does.
And then we do the technical stuff, right, which is we need to make sure the lights are on, and we need to make sure the HVAC's working, and all the chargers, and the AV, and all of that fun stuff. But really, it's that holistic view of what an employee experience is when they step into a Samsara office.
[00:04:54] Matt Tverberg: That's so, essentially, like, your, your employees are your customers.
[00:04:57] Caitlin Steininger: Our employees are absolutely our customers.
[00:05:00] Matt Tverberg: What would you say you get more joy out of, the, the creating the experience aspect, or, like, the systems?
[00:05:09] Caitlin Steininger: It's definitely not systems. No, it's, it's that employee environment. I really- In a, in a post-COVID world, it really is about creating an environment where people want to be and where they want to work.
And I think that's something I've always wanted to ingrain in myself and my teams, is we spend so much time with the people that we work with, whether that's at home on our computers. We spend more hours with the people that we work with than our families. And so it's really important that our office environment, and creating that great employee experience, is exactly that.
It's a, it's a home away from home where employees can be their most productive.
[00:05:48] Matt Tverberg: Totally. And it changes so rapidly, too. It's like-
[00:05:50] Caitlin Steininger: Every day ...
[00:05:51] Matt Tverberg: it, it's really wild how frequently it, it changes- Yeah ... and we have to evolve with just the, the market as- Yeah ... a whole. It's, it's... I've learned so much about workplace over the years.
[00:06:02] Caitlin Steininger: Yes. It's pretty cool. And it's never the same thing every day. I think that's one of my favorite things about, about what we do, is there's the standard catering and food and beverage and snacks and drinks, but then there's, you know, the random, "I, we wanna park a semi-truck on the front of the property," and somebody wants to film a 360 video camera out of it, and it's like, "Okay, and you wanna do this tomorrow?"
You know, it's like, "Okay, let's figure it out." But that's, you know, that's the way we roll, and it's fun.
[00:06:28] Matt Tverberg: Yeah, it keeps things interesting-
[00:06:30] Caitlin Steininger: Yes ... for
[00:06:30] Matt Tverberg: sure.
[00:06:31] Caitlin Steininger: Yes.
[00:06:32] Matt Tverberg: Well, speaking of cool things like- ... you know, shooting semi-trucks- Yes ... Samsara was just named to the Time magazine 100 Most Influential Companies list.
At that level of growth and visibility, how does the bar change for what your workplace really- Yeah ... needs to deliver?
[00:06:48] Caitlin Steininger: That's great, yeah. So being a most influential company m- means many things to many people, but when you get to a, a, a level of workplace, it's really more about, like, y- you have to up-level.
It co- it becomes from, like, regional differences to the Samsara experience, no matter what workplace you step into. So a candidate interviewing in London needs to have a comparable and as energetic experience as they do stepping into our HQ. You know, m- a lot of companies put tons of focus on their HQ, but where you find talent, for example, we find incredible talent in Phoenix, which is one of our hubs.
A candidate walking into that office needs to feel the same energy that they feel in S- that they would feel in San Francisco. So, and then that other piece, which I spoke earlier, is, like, if we're talking strictly workspace or what makes us The place you want to be and to continue to meet that expectation.
[00:07:44] Matt Tverberg: Got it. And when you have these other hubs, and you're obviously here- Yeah ... located in the Bay Area, I'm sure you have s- colleagues on the, with boots on the ground there. Yes. But given the different size of these offices and the different things that you have to highlight to create that experience, like what are some of the challenges that exist for trying to keep the bar high?
[00:08:04] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. Systems. I like to say systems are usually our first barrier of entry when creating a common experience. So if a badge system operates differently in one office versus another, that is going to, could be potentially a pain point for an executive going to Atlanta versus going to HQ where they typically come.
[00:08:25] Matt Tverberg: Got it. Yeah. It's cool to visit different offices and it, it, it is about the brand too, I'm sure. Yes. And trying to make that at the forefront as well.
[00:08:35] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. You know, there's little things about Samsara. When you walk into every one of our lobbies, you're gonna see the Samsara owl, you're gonna see a neon sign.
So those are elements of design which we work really closely with our real estate, real estate and design team to make it so it feels like a Samsara office, but it also feels, um, regionally appropriate. So there's i- in our CDMX office, it's just a very different culture than what we have at HQ, where we're welcoming EBCs on a regular basis.
In our s- um, Mexico City office, we're welcoming a lot more customers, right? Mm-hmm. And so we wanna make sure our office feels very tactile 'cause they're the ones, the boots on the ground people who are really doing the work, and we want them to see we understand their point of view.
[00:09:17] Matt Tverberg: Cole, have you been to that office?
[00:09:19] Caitlin Steininger: Yes, I have, and I get to go back. Um, we are expanding in Mexico- Oh ... so I get to go back, um, towards the later end of the year, and I can't wait.
[00:09:27] Matt Tverberg: So talking about, like, scaling and growing, this is a perfect segue. You're... Right now you're supporting 15 locations.
[00:09:33] Caitlin Steininger: Yep.
[00:09:33] Matt Tverberg: And as you've been mentioning, hybrid, and you have people working at home and coming in, and, and a whole mix of different systems to support that.
As you continue to grow, like, what's the first thing that actually starts to strain first? Is it, like, the physical spaces? Is it the systems? Is it a combination of both?
[00:09:51] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. I would say people would like to point to space first, right? Ooh, it's tight in here. Oh my gosh, it's a ghost town, right? You would love to point to space first.
Mm. But I actually think it's the, it's the other two that we run into constraints first. So I like to look at it as, like, we lose speed to action when we expand. Right now at a smaller portfolio, we can answer those tickets really quickly, like, within a 24-minute, like, SLA. But as you expand, you stop being, like, the director, and you start being like a traffic controller who's trying to be like, "Okay, A, B, C, D," and that really makes it really challenging.
Um, and then when you think of expanding into new markets, so new countries, new regions down the street, those all throw differences into the mix. And I would say, you know, scaling so fast, you lose a bit of the ability to think strategically versus tactically. Like, oh, well, we know the coffee machine is broken in our Atlanta office, like, we have to fix that, and of course that's critical, but we also need to think long t- term.
Like, oh, the whole neighborhood that we have blocked in Envoy for our ADRs is at 88% capacity. That's gonna be a problem when we have 30 interns come in next week.
[00:11:10] Matt Tverberg: Sure. And as you look at, like, new cities and, and regions, there's, like, cultural differences- Yeah ... and all sorts of things that maybe folks don't even think about.
How far ahead are you typically planning?
[00:11:22] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah.
[00:11:23] Matt Tverberg: Like, years? Months?
[00:11:25] Caitlin Steininger: We would love for it to be years. I think in the workplace world, as you may know, like, sometimes we get pulled in last minute and we're like, "Oh, it's time to spin up a hub in Seattle," or it's... You know, we spun up a Toronto hub really, really quickly, and it was just out of need from the business.
I would say there are so many unique factors regionally, and they... And it goes down to even the basic level of, like- I u- I'll, I'll use our CDMX office as an example, but they're ver- they're very family oriented, so a lot of the events we do will be r- open to the family, right? Like, there's more things we're doing that have to do with, like, kids in the office, right?
And then there are other opportunities, like in Phoenix, where we're seeing new grads, and, like, the environment of that office is very different because you're, you know, pulling in just kids straight out of college, and they're really, like, humble, ready to hit the ground running, very green. And so the type of events we throw there are more, you know, happy hour styles than really what we're doing in other places.
[00:12:24] Matt Tverberg: Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It's like, again, tailoring to your, your quote unquote customers- Yeah ... in their locations.
[00:12:31] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah.
[00:12:31] Matt Tverberg: Cool. What's the latest and greatest happy hour in Phoenix and, you know, what was the theme?
[00:12:36] Caitlin Steininger: Okay. So Atlanta just did a really cool, it was c- um, a really cool, like, build your own smoothie bowl.
Okay. And that was really, really fun. Um, our London office, which we're all very jealous of and all trying to figure out how to do, they did a puppy yoga. Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh, the pictures were priceless. And it, it just like... You know it, like, that environment, you walk in and there's like six puppies in the office.
Oh my gosh, like, we're dog friendly, but oh my gosh, puppies. Right. Uh, so that's always, like, really great. We get to plan that fun stuff. That's the best part about workplace, is we're like, "Somebody said puppy yoga. I saw an ad online. We can bring in puppies to the office. Let's do it." And we get to be the ones who make that happen for the employees.
[00:13:20] Matt Tverberg: That's so cool. So your team has a, sounds like quite the level of autonomy to, to make some of these- Yes ... fun decisions to create these environments.
[00:13:28] Caitlin Steininger: Yes, definitely. I like to rely on, I know myself, um, and Vicky on our team, we like to rely on our coordinators to really- own what they, 'cause they know.
They're there. They're in the weeds every single day at those offices, and we're not necessarily there every day. I'm not in the Atlanta office every day, and they know what that environment is like. They know what the employees like. So really encouraging them to say like, "Okay, I know puppy yoga is gonna be a hit."
Yeah. Um, I know this is gonna be a hit. We had a cartoonist come in, uh, um, for our Atlanta holiday party, and that was a huge hit. In San Francisco, I honestly couldn't imagine anybody walking up and wanting to get themselves to be cartooned, but in Atlanta it was amazing.
[00:14:14] Matt Tverberg: This is e- even the cultural differences here in the US I'm sure- Yeah
is just, like, undeniable too. So fun. Well, let's talk a little bit about, you know, hybrid in practice versus, like, the theory of it. So you have a very intentional approach to flexible working, and you support all m- models of work, in person, remote, hybrid, really dependent on the role. Like you mentioned, the ADRs have to be in, which makes a lot of sense.
A lot of those are younger folks that they could benefit from being around their colleagues. But given that you're supporting a model that gives teams a ton of flexibility while still needing some structure in the workplace to run well, how do you personally think about really striking a good balance?
[00:14:58] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. So I look at it from two sides of the house. We've got... What I personally think for me and my team, we're workplace. We need to be in the office. We need to have our physical hands on the environment. That's what we do. When I look at it from a broader company perspective, I always like to dig into the why, right?
We have to create the why in order for the employees to buy into it, right? The employees are our customers. We have these offices 'cause we want you to come in and collaborate and learn, and learn from each other and teach each other and mentor each other. And there's a lot of flexibility in how and when you do that, but we also-- There also has to be a point where we're like, "Okay, we got to c- create some guardrails around that."
And I think that's where I try to help our leadership understand that balance of if you're wanting, if you're wanting that really close collaboration with the ADRs, that in person three days a week so they're learning from their managers or recent ADR promotes, like, that's critical. You can't always get that over Zoom.
Sitting next to someone when you're hearing how a sales call goes- Hmm ... right next to them, listening, hearing how they're dealing with the conflict or the yeses or the nos, the rejections, the exceptions, the celebrating of the deals, you can't get, get that over Zoom. You, you just can't get that over Zoom.
And I think for my team personally, helping them also understand the why of us being there every day is, is critical for them. Like, your presence, your stability, them knowing that you, if something goes awry, Workplace is there to support them, is really the, the model I like to model for my team is like, okay, we're here.
We are not in theory. We are not hybrid in theory. We are in the office five days a week. I have somebody in the office Monday through Friday. Um, and, and we have-- we know our why behind that, but also the environment we create for the employees. We want to make sure they understand the why. Like, the reason we have these pods and the reason we have these breakout spaces and the reason we design anchor rooms the way we design them is to make sure they can be their most productive
[00:17:03] Matt Tverberg: Yeah, and I, I tend to find too that as we grow here at Envoy, a lot of folks that we're bringing in are actually thirsting for that- Yes
in-office experience. People that have been primarily remote, I think that it was, like, fun for a while, but I think people are really desiring a, a cool workplace to go into, and it's great to hear that.
[00:17:25] Caitlin Steininger: There's something about the energy of, like, sitting in the same room with somebody versus having the conversation online.
I, I found that I was get... I would get really easily distracted at home, and I was less present with my team than when I am physically on site looking them in the eye and we're whiteboarding. We're trying to figure something out, and we're working on a floor plan or a new neighborhood plan. Like, that's when the real work happens- Mm-hmm
and the real connection too, 'cause then you, you know. You have off-the-wall conversations, and you create these connections that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
[00:17:59] Matt Tverberg: Absolutely. The cross-departmental collaboration that happens in real time is certainly un- irreplaceable.
[00:18:05] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah.
[00:18:06] Matt Tverberg: Yeah.
[00:18:06] Caitlin Steininger: Let's get a taco and solve the problem- Yeah
so it's not an email.
[00:18:09] Matt Tverberg: Exactly. So you kinda touched on this earlier, but maybe just a little bit more context around it, but walking into a Samsara office for the first time, what, what do you think someone would notice that tells them what the culture is really like there, you know, regardless of the location?
[00:18:29] Caitlin Steininger: Instantly, that it is a friendly and open environment. I have never walked into any of the offices I've been to where two colleagues who are not from the same department are chatting and having a good time. Every time I walk into the SF9 lobby, there's a, a new employee there that I've never seen before.
You know, we're, we're growing as well. And, "Hello. Hi, how are you? How's your day?" The, the camaraderie that we see within the people at Samsara, it's, it's from the moment you walk in the door. It's from the security or reception who has said hello to you. But even just granular, the employees. Like overhearing two employees chatting in the lobby who have maybe not seen each other in six months.
It's just a very welcoming environment, and I think that is the culture Samsara creates. Like, we're here to work hard, play hard, have a great time. Um, and we really res- respect everyone we're with, and we enjoy the people that we work with.
[00:19:28] Matt Tverberg: Yeah, and I think that would lead to good employee retention too.
Yeah. It sounds like you- you're creating these really great environments. That's gotta be super rewarding for you to then see that energy kind of transfer from the space to the people- Yeah ... in a way. Does that make sense? One of
[00:19:44] Caitlin Steininger: my, one of my favorite things is when I see somebody who was maybe on a pr- a, a different team, and then I see them, and they're like, "Oh, yeah, I moved to recruiting," or, "I moved to marketing."
And I'm like, "Oh my gosh. That's amazing," because it shows that that cross-functional teamwork is still there and that there's growth within the company even if you're like you got a foot in the door here, and you found your passion elsewhere and that Samsara, like, really supports that. One of the things that I find really wonderful about Samsara that I think helps build the culture that we have is our interview process is fantastic.
And going through it, you know, a year ago now, I, I realize the way we ask questions and how we ask people to answer those questions ensures we have the right people in the role. And that's, I think, w- why everybody feels ... Like, you just jump right in, and your, your team feels like your team because the, the, the hard work was done on the p- prior end, and we got the right person in the seat.
[00:20:43] Matt Tverberg: Right. Right. The vetting is done.
[00:20:45] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah.
[00:20:45] Matt Tverberg: Yeah. You've been pushing for things like manager-level filtering and kind of butts-in-the-seat visibility. What's a real decision you've had to pause or debate because you didn't have the right data in front of you? Yeah.
[00:21:00] Caitlin Steininger: Oh, I love this one. I'm still fighting for this one, and someday I know it will come true.
But we've had to pause on the integration with our HRIS system, so our, our, our workday, for lack of a better word. I see that data... I, I don't see that data when somebody's on LOA. I don't see when somebody's had an approved vacation. And so when I run... And when I go to do these manager level reports, some people look like they're out of policy, but they're not.
So without those integrations, I don't have the right data to really be able to tell a, to a manager or, or the executives like, "Yep, workplace is all in compliance. We're here five days a week." You know? Their workplace probably isn't a great example, but when we're thinking about, like, the ADRs or even marketing who really, you know, who's pri- primarily remote, if somebody...
If it's a five-person team and one person's on LOA or one person's on vacation for a week, it can really skew those data points. Sure. Um, so that's why I'm always pushing. Like, every time Envoy launches a new feature that will integrate it more with the things that we use, I'm like, "Can we please do it?
Can we please do it?" The more points we have of reference are gonna get us incredible data, and most executives make their decisions based on data. So without that data, I can't tell you if SF9 needs more or less space. I can't tell you if we're busting at the seams in Atlanta or Phoenix.
[00:22:22] Matt Tverberg: Yeah. It's harder to think further ahead then, too, without that.
[00:22:26] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah.
[00:22:26] Matt Tverberg: Is there something that I guess we could be doing to help instill confidence on that front with the-
[00:22:32] Caitlin Steininger: You know, I don't think so. I think it's more... I think it's actually the barrier of entry when it comes to employee data is really running that through all the flagpoles and make sure everybody is comfortable with the data flowing across all the platforms.
Um, and I think it's just, it's also a change of how we work, right? So it's, it's bringing the business along on the journey with us to say, "This is why it's important." We have a team in Bangalore who's running manual numbers because we're getting the data from Envoy, we're getting the data from our badge system, but some people in India work swing shifts, and our system's not necessarily capturing that.
Mm. And if they clock in at 11 and they didn't scan their badge till noon or whatever, or till midnight, whatever it is, it looks like they weren't there when they were supposed to be there. But that's not necessarily the case. So making sure we get points of data and points of reference where we have those unique situations is, is critical.
[00:23:35] Matt Tverberg: Yeah. I completely agree, and I'm finding companies that are seeing a lot of success are, are doing, like, the badge data, and then we have, like, SSO sign-in signals. Yeah. We've been trying to give our customers more and more signals for unique situations like that, so- We got you.
[00:23:51] Caitlin Steininger: I love it.
[00:23:54] Matt Tverberg: So using workplace data for things like, you know, meal forecasting and cost planning, when did you- when do you think it, it shifted from being about space to being about something that actually drives more operation- operational efficiencies?
[00:24:12] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. I mean, I hate to be the person who always points to it, but really COVID, right? The world-
[00:24:16] Matt Tverberg: Oh, sure ...
[00:24:17] Caitlin Steininger: changed, the workplace changed how it operated in a post-COVID world. So we really went from being like, "Okay, we have 100 desks here, and we are hosting- we are telling everybody to come to this event. We need food for 100 people.
There's 100 people here. 100 people come in. They're here Monday through Friday 8:00 to 5:00. That's what it is." Now, we've shifted to the, the hybrid model, which is fantastic, and it gives employees a lot of choice and a better work/life balance and all the things we're seeing with that. But it makes it really hard when you have an office of 500, 600 people, and you're like, "Oh, boy, I'm guessing.
I'm guessing at this point how many people are gonna show up to this event." So leveraging Envoy, we're able to look at trends, which I really love. We can go through the Envoy platform, and we can say, "Spit me out a report on how many people badged in and how many people we had over all the Tuesdays in September of last year, and now let's look at where we're trending this year and make some really educated guesses."
They're still a guesses, educated guesses now at this point. I guess, sure. But, um, it allows us to tailor our ... It allows us to tailor our employee experience in a better way, right? So if we know we're gonna host this event on a Wednesday, and instead of 200 people, it's gonna be 100 people, well, we can spend more money because it's less people, and we have the budget for it versus 200 people, so the experience gets a little better.
[00:25:47] Matt Tverberg: Right. And then more reason for those that did show up to come back again.
[00:25:51] Caitlin Steininger: Exactly.
[00:25:52] Matt Tverberg: Which is-
[00:25:53] Caitlin Steininger: It's the stick and the carrot, right?
[00:25:55] Matt Tverberg: Exactly. Well, I know you're, you're definitely effectively orchestrating multiple systems, and that's across different data points, different locations, and then also to help manage your people.
What do you think the hardest part is about getting those things to work together and feel seamless?
[00:26:15] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. I think when I look across all of our offices, my ... What I find to be the most challenging is when we are not the only tenant in the building. So when you look across workplace, there's a lot of people who are in multi-tenant buildings, or we're in a single-tenant building in our SF office, but we're in a multi-tenant building in our Atlanta office.
It becomes really challenging when you're beholden to landlord systems or another company's systems, or you sublease space, and you're stuck with whatever systems those were. I think really the tools and the systems not talking back to the ... Like, being able to communicate with what the Samsara sys- is and how we use the data, that is my most challenging aspect, is 'cause I can't, I can't get a read on what's really happening at that office.
Or if we inherit a space that, you know, could've been designed better, and there's no badge reader where there should be, and I have no idea why my snacks are going missing. Well, we didn't put a badge reader on the snack door, and you know, 17 people are walking out with bags of chips in their backpack.
[00:27:25] Matt Tverberg: Yeah. Our tenant neighbors are also enjoying our snacks. And
[00:27:27] Caitlin Steininger: they're also enjoying it.
[00:27:30] Matt Tverberg: With that, that's a- that's interesting. It's something that we certainly deal with a lot, where you're a, a tenant in a larger building and, you know, the, the landlord doesn't want to connect to your other systems. How, how do you fill those gaps today?
Has it become more manual at those locations then?
[00:27:51] Caitlin Steininger: We try really hard to pre-plan that when we are planning for real estate. So making sure we have those conversations up front with the landlords, and saying like, "Hey, we need a reader/writer in the elevator," or, "You need to make sure we're getting monthly reporting," or whatever it is.
But yes, it does become very manual. Um, our Seesaw t- team does a great job, but for example, in our Toronto, um, our Toronto hub, it's 13 desks, and it's busy, and it gets warm. So they prop open the door, and therefore-
[00:28:20] Matt Tverberg: Oh ...
[00:28:21] Caitlin Steininger: nobody's badging in when they come in and out. So how do we know how many people are coming in?
We're now relying on managers to give us an estimated head count. We're putting out Slack notifications saying, "Please don't forget to sign in." We're using it to cross-reference with the lunch orders for the day. And it just becomes, uh, very cumbersome in that way when the systems don't talk to each other.
So s- I always envision, like, blue sky, I would love to see someday where there is an API where every landlord's system can communicate with Samsara's system.
[00:28:51] Matt Tverberg: Yeah. For sure. And I... We- we're exploring some of the same types of things that, you know, the, the art of the possible today- Yeah ... as long as people are, systems are willing to speak.
Sounds like even for some smaller sites, you have to hack together some creative solutions to meet them where they're at almost.
[00:29:09] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. Yep
[00:29:12] Matt Tverberg: A little bit about your values. So Samsara has some values that I really like, like working with urgency, eliminating bureaucracy, staying deeply customer-focused.
Where do you feel those most clearly show up in how the workplace actually operates?
[00:29:29] Caitlin Steininger: Sure. So for workplace ourselves, urgency. I mean, people come to us and they're like, "I need a laptop riser now. My charger's not working. I need a new charger now." So we really operate in that urgency. My team has-- We have a very high caliber for our SLAs.
We expect everybody to be responded to within five minutes. They-- we expect somebody to have eyes on it. We may not have an answer for you right away, but you have at least gotten a hold of us very quickly. Um, for me, I tend to trend towards our, like, eliminate bureaucracy value more for my team, because I think we have a lot of processes, SOPs, ways of doing things that can make the way the employee engage was u- engage with us more effective.
So I know my team and I have really been focusing on that eliminate bureaucracy. We wanna make it easy as possible to get to us and make it as easy as possible for you to give the information to us, like a self-service situation. Um, and I really like to think about I really like to put myself in the employee's shoes and say, "Okay, an executive just came to me, or a VP just came to me, and they need me to set this up right now.
What information do I need to give the workplace team so they can turn it around quickly?" And that's really where I focus.
[00:30:50] Matt Tverberg: And that sounds like building a lot of trust too, and that, with that comes trust. When you have the ability to respond as fast as you can, it sounds like just in a handful of minutes, it sh- certainly instills a lot of trust from y- your employees that they can count on you to do these things, and it's gotta be very gratifying for, for your team.
How do you celebrate wins then within your team? I'd love to hear that.
[00:31:13] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. Okay, rewards and recognition. I could go on for hours on rewards and re- recognition. Like I said, we spend so much time with our teams, and it's important that they feel their work is valued. For me, it's more about, like, what I can do as a manager.
So whenever my team does something great, it goes into a Slack channel that I have that's just personally for me, and at the end of the month, I can do, like, a recap to them, and, like, shout-outs and wins, and I do it in my team channel. So everybody sees, like, "Oh, Nash knocked it out of the park with this," and celebrate that.
That is always sent to our VP because I wanna make sure that my team is being celebrated. I can say, "I'm taking the team to lunch," right? "I'm taking the team to lunch," or, "I'm going to Atlanta in a couple of weeks, and I know a few days after my trip is one of my team member's three-year work anniversaries.
We're gonna celebrate her, and she doesn't know it." So it's just those little surprises. Remembering somebody's birthday, remembering what they did over the weekend, um, and always really giving them the shout-out that they deserve. 'Cause sometimes it's just a matter of, like, "I see you. I see how hard you worked on this.
I noticed it, and now I'm gonna make sure everybody knows you did such an awesome job."
[00:32:23] Matt Tverberg: Sometimes a little goes a long way. I love, I love the sending the reminders to yourself.
[00:32:28] Caitlin Steininger: Oh, yes. I lo- it's called my feedback channel, and it's incredible. I highly recommend it.
[00:32:34] Matt Tverberg: Yeah, I, I, I'm gonna take that. I'm gonna use that as a takeaway to be a better leader here at Envoy.
[00:32:40] Caitlin Steininger: And now that Slack has the summarize AI, like, feature- For sure. That's i- instantly what I had lunch ... I just tag my employee. They're not in the channel.
[00:32:46] Matt Tverberg: Yeah.
[00:32:47] Caitlin Steininger: And they, like, I can easily y- I ru- I, like most people, I run into recency bias, so this really helps me not have recency bias. And so when we go back to our town halls and we look at what we've done over the quarter, I can recognize my team and the work we've done more holistically.
[00:33:04] Matt Tverberg: Absolutely, and sometimes the smallest things, they go in and out of your mind, and they are a big deal. So just, like, having that reminder at the end of the quarter, very helpful So I know that, you know, a lot of folks in your role have to partner closely with a security counterpart, and we at Envoy help many different personas, including security.
But as a, a director of workplace and then safety at Cohesity, you were balancing both. And what experience did you have there that taught you about managing risk at larger organizations?
[00:33:43] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. So that's a really great question. I was only briefly in charge of security, but it was a brand new world to me, and there was a lot of questions I had to learn really quickly to ask.
And it came down to Security isn't just your badge at a badge reader. It's really about the holistic employee experience, right? Emergency response teams, emergency notifications. Do we have the right data in our, um, HR system to know where our employees are located? Have they moved? Are we validating that data?
So there was a lot of moving parts that I didn't really think went into security, but it did. And I think a lot of people think of security, think, oh, like the security guard who sits at the desk, but that's really not it. It goes down to, like, when you have Winner's Circle, and where you're hosting that, and do they have a security plan, and what's that evacuation plan, and what's their...
Are they-- Are there fire alarms? And what's the policy for that? If we do have an earthquake or an emergency when we're there, what do we do? Have we communicated that to our employees? So there's a, there's a whole lot that goes into security behind the scenes. I think that most organizations don't even know.
They just show up to an amazing event, and it... They've got their lanyard on and ready to go. But there was months and months of work that went into making sure that event went that way.
[00:35:10] Matt Tverberg: Right. And as companies grow in size and scale, a lot of people don't have any security- Right ... in place. And then when somebody in that type of position steps in, it's like a ton of white space of what is needed.
Yeah. You know? We, we deal with that a lot here. And as Envoy has went into the foray of, like, emergency notifications- Mm-hmm ... and, like, threat intelligence, and I've got-become more knowledgeable of that, it's wild what can go into supporting a, even a 500-person company, and executives that are traveling, and remote employees, so.
[00:35:49] Caitlin Steininger: Michiel Fitzgerald, our Senior Director of Safety, Security, and Resilience, he has been such a great learning resource for me. The way he handles, um, emergencies, whatever, however we want to l-label those, he's very level-headed, and I think in that role, you really need somebody who does not get worked up.
Because you are dealing with the highest of highest. Like, where is our CEO's vehicle, and is it parked where it needs to be to get from point A to point B? And, um, I think about companies That aren't necessarily prioritizing that, and that can get really challenging.
[00:36:28] Matt Tverberg: Yeah. When you do different events, it- I'm sure you have to have tight partnership with someone on the security team.
What does that working relationship look like when you come up with a unique concept for an event? How does that all pan out to-
[00:36:44] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. Luckily, we, our security team sits on site with us, the people who we, we work with to plan these events. So we're, you know, we're the get in the room, whiteboard it together.
They are great about... We'll say, "Oh, we wanna do this or this and this and that." And then employee health and safety will be like, "Did you think about this?" And we're like, "Oh, no, we just thought about the fun aspect of-" "... bringing the dogs to the site," right? Yeah. Um, so it's, it's been really fantastic to get to see and partner with them and, and hear how they work through the problem, 'cause they work through our opportunities and our events and our changes in a very different way than we do.
Operations is very like, "We're gonna do A, then B, then C, then D, and that's gonna result in this." And the area of safety, security, and resilience is a lot more fluid. Uh, and so they're... It's very fascinating to watch them think through what we think is just such a simple, easy, concrete idea, and we're just gonna do this.
[00:37:43] Matt Tverberg: Yeah. They're always planning for worst case scenario type of thing. Yeah. So- What typically brings workplace operations into executive conversations? You know, it, it, it's... Is it the growth that's happening, cost, like risk mitigation, or something else? So like when something goes wrong, is that when the C-suite suddenly is paying attention to the workplace operations, or are you able to work hard and kind of stay ahead of that?
[00:38:11] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah, I love that. Our team does try to be really proactive. We're walking our sites every day. Security is walking the sites every day. So those little things like, oh, the desk isn't working, or there's a table with a, you know, a leg that's wobbly, that... I d- I have not seen that happen very frequently at Samsara because our coordinators are so incredible.
Where we get brought in is when somebody more senior is like, "There was not a desk for me to work on today. The office was completely packed." And we're like, "Yes, we know." We're at 89% occupancy in this office on a regular basis. When we recommended we expand, it was decided that that... it wasn't the right time to do that, or there wasn't growth.
We often get brought in when the executive team notice the office is incredibly packed or it's a ghost town.
[00:39:03] Matt Tverberg: Yeah.
[00:39:04] Caitlin Steininger: And then we have to work with them to provide that data, and making sure we have that data is really important, but then also advocating for what we think makes sense for the future. 'Cause when you're thinking about lease planning, it's really easy for somebody who doesn't understand real estate to go, "Okay, well, our lease isn't up for three years.
I don't know where we're gonna be in three years. We might need more space. We might need less space." But that's not how it works in real estate. You start planning a renewal 18 months in advance. So we really have to advocate for ourselves to say, "Okay, we're at that 18-month mark. We need to know what the business wants to do here.
We've heard feedback that it's a ghost town. Should we densify? We've heard feedback that the office is too crowded. Do we need more space? Can we even get more space in the building, or are now we looking at relocating?"
[00:39:54] Matt Tverberg: Right. That is a very tricky problem to solve and as we've been thinking about helping with more of those strategic insights.
So it's a good segue into like, how often are you looking at your real estate footprint? Are, are you trying to not get locked into longer term leases because of the speed of growth at Samsara? Like, what does that look like?
[00:40:19] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. I would say our VP, Sandra, is absolutely incredible, and she really advocates well for our portfolio.
She sees the trends in the market and she tries to get us, our team as a whole, ahead of those. But I do feel like- So many companies have so much real estate that they were locked into long-term deals that a, a lot of companies are a little shy now to, like, sign long-term leases. Sure. And so we're looking at those serviced offices, like a Regus or a WeWork, and they're, you know, 12 to 24 months.
And then you start looking at something that's more stationary that's three to five years, and that five-year number kind of spooks some people sometimes. Like, ooh, a lot can happen in five years. So I do think we're still in that stage of, like, right-sizing the portfolio, making sure everything is where it should be.
But I do think Samsara does a really good job of getting together with our stakeholders regularly, um, both finance and on the sales and the, um, you know, recruiting and HR side, and saying, you know, "What are we... What are you seeing here? What is the trend?" Like, is- are we really... We projected we were gonna hire 100 people here.
Is that really looking like it's gonna be 100? Is it gonna be 50? Is it gonna be 150? And then that helps us to make recommendations to the business.
[00:41:42] Matt Tverberg: Sure. Is there, like, a sweet spot of utilization that you typically shoot for?
[00:41:47] Caitlin Steininger: I mean, we would l- We kind of see our pinch point as, like, if an office is regularly on our core days, 'cause we all know Mondays and Fridays, it don't matter anymore.
We're gonna see lower occupancy there. Not, not none, but low. We say on our core days, like, if we are regularly hitting 80% occupancy, we are at our pinch point. 'Cause nobody wants to work where they're screaming over themselves, because even with their noise-canceling headphones, they can't work, and every conference room is full, right?
So I think 80% is, like, our pinch point of, like, ooh, we need to explore more space. Um, we're currently sitting... If I look at us globally, we're, like, 30, 32% across the board, which isn't bad, um, when you're, when you're looking at how much space we have. I do think w- we would like to see that over 50. We would like to see over 50% utilization across our offices and really be in that 60 to 70.
I don't know that we'll, I don't know that we'll ever get there because people's sche- schedules just vary.
[00:42:52] Matt Tverberg: Right. That and the, the Mondays and Fridays probably skew- Well ... the numbers drastically. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I've heard, I've heard similar 80%-ish where, all right, if it's 90%, it's too late, like especially if it's happening consistently.
So it's cool to hear- Yeah ... there's some consistency there. Well, as Samsara continues to scale, how do you see your role and those in workplace operations like evolving? What do you think your job will look like a handful of years from now?
[00:43:22] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. I think a lot of the focus, and, and as most of the companies now, our focus is really on how can we leverage AI and AI agents to take some of that manual work or the tedious work.
So I do, I do think in a handful of years probably we're gonna see less of those personally answered questions by workplace operations, and that more answered by AI agents. So we can, you know, I need a laptop riser. Oh, auto-response. And we've got the autobots and all of those things. But something that feels more conversational, I do think that will come into play for us.
Um, I am seeing a trend of more people returning to the office. So if I was gonna be at... In, in five years, what do I think workplace operations look like? I actually think we're gonna be seeing more people in the office. I think we'll find we actually need more space in specific instances. I do think that in the future we are trending towards a more formal returning to the office and less hybrid.
[00:44:31] Matt Tverberg: Yeah. And it's crazy to even still be talking about that, but I am seeing the same. Like, it's continuing to go further back to the way it used to be, I think with still a level of flexibility, right? And that's why we need all these systems in place to make the best use of our space. But I, I certainly see the benefit of being in the office, as I sit here in our office.
What do you think one thing people assume is simple about workplace operations that's actually much more complex?
[00:45:04] Caitlin Steininger: I love that question. Okay, so first glance, I'm gonna say, like, scheduling any maintenance. And the reason I say that is it seems so simple. Call the HVAC company and have them come out and fix the thing that's wrong.
Well, not everything can be done after hours 'cause it's incredibly expensive to have somebody come in on a weekend or after 5:00 or after 6:00. And then you have impacting p- employee productivity if you do it at certain business hours. If you do it in the morning, then you've got, you know, your sales folks who are working East Coast, that might be impacting them, the noise levels.
And then I think you get on the other end, you're like, "Okay, I'll just do it later in the day." Well, then you have engineers who come in later in the day, and they work later. So I think something as simple as scheduling a maintenance that impacts our entire office, HVAC maintenance, window cleaning, things that really are quite disruptive, and finding a time where we're like, "Okay, well, we do need to do this to make sure our office is functioning properly, but how are we going to do this without im- impacting productivity?"
[00:46:06] Matt Tverberg: Sure. Yeah. We, we had a recent, uh, kinda facelift on our office here, and it was really cool to see how much effort went into eliminating the employee disruption really. What do you think the magic bullet is there, then?
[00:46:25] Caitlin Steininger: Uh, the workplace team doing a run of show every single day and asking a lot of different people.
So I think getting the right stakeholders involved is really critical and understanding how the teams are working. So it's, it's great if you're like, "Oh, I have... I'm gonna phase in the space lift for the office. I know marketing doesn't come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's too crazy. It's too busy.
We're gonna tackle those areas of the office." It's still gonna be disruptive to some people, but it's gonna be the least disruptive.
[00:46:54] Matt Tverberg: Right. You're just approaching it with a data-driven, like, smart- Yeah ... smart approach. Well, AI in the workplace, you were touching on this, but I came across a, a Fast Company article from December of last year by your CIO, and he talks about AI as a business strategy, not as, like, a standalone initiative.
How is Samsara, or... And how is Samsara tying it directly to efficiency and then product innovation? How do you think that mindset shows up in how you think about workplace operations?
[00:47:27] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah, I love that. So we're really looking at, as I was saying earlier, we're really looking at what can we take, what can we offload to AI that takes a lot of our time so we can really focus on being intentional and being there, speaking with our employees and getting that feedback.
And where I see that trend coming up with workplace operations is it's really around, like, comms support. So usually you have a team within a company who helps you with comms. We see that trending towards AI, right? "Hey, here's our plan from before. These were the comms we used before. We're actually doing it at this office for this many people on these days.
Spit me out a comms plan." And they're pretty successful. So I do think that continuing-- I do see that continuing more and we leveraging that versus leveraging necessarily a copywriter who will sit down and write comms with us. And then simple things like slide deck improvements, right?
[00:48:23] Matt Tverberg: Mm-hmm
[00:48:25] Caitlin Steininger: Death by PowerPoint, they say.
You wanna make sure, like, the information you're capturing is really f- is, is really gonna get the attention of the audience in what you're trying to do. So leveraging AI within our tools, we have to put together a lot of presentations on the data, right? What is, here's our analytics, this is what we're seeing at every office, these are how many tickets, this is what we've resolved, this is what we haven't.
Leveraging AI to really tell the story behind it. Hey, here's our data, what trends are you seeing? Compare it to last, last month, compare it to last year at this time. What's the story? Tell us the story, then we can make some recommendations based on that. And then even more granular would be, like, building SOWs.
Right now, that's, a lot of that stuff happens by hand. You're like, "Okay, I do A, B, C, D. The employee needs to do this." We can s- we can then say, "Here's the SOP. This is the start point. This is the end point. What do you think the, what do you think it needs to be?" And so just really leveraging AI in every aspect of what we do where we can without it removing that human element of being the people who handle the employee experience.
[00:49:32] Matt Tverberg: Yeah. If anything, it's giving you more time back to add more of the human element. You know? Think about the time you'd had to invest in creating a powerful deck with all that data even just a couple years ago. Yes. Like a week sometimes. Now
[00:49:46] Caitlin Steininger: it's- I think, I think about that all the time. Our team talks about that.
We call, um, the AI tools we use, we call them our interns. So they're our interns. We just give them names, and we're like, "Oh, give it to the intern." So we're al- ooh, I'm so sorry. We're always t- we're always trying to leverage it wherever we can. And sometimes, you know, it's t- Check and verify and we're like, "Oh- Of
[00:50:09] Matt Tverberg: course
[00:50:09] Caitlin Steininger: this isn't gonna work. We know this is not what, you know, the executives wanna see, or it's not what I wanna see or something like that." But it's fun to be able to try out a tool like that. And then when you get a great result, it's like, "Ooh, this is great."
[00:50:23] Matt Tverberg: That's awesome that Simsari gives you access to the tools.
Are they pretty AI forward there, where they're really encouraging to, to put it in as many places as, as possible?
[00:50:33] Caitlin Steininger: Yes, absolutely. They're alway- I- our, um, department head always encourages us, like, what could that be done with AI? Like, ask yourself that question before you do anything. Could, how could you use AI to make this easier, better, more clear, or do the process for you?
[00:50:49] Matt Tverberg: Yeah, we have a very similar approach here, and it's cool to think backwards from, like, what the problem is and how you can get to a, an AI-based solution.
[00:50:58] Caitlin Steininger: I can't wait till I can chat with Envoy and say, like, "Hey, can you just tell me what the occupancy was four years ago on a Tuesday across my offices?"
Like, that's gonna be so cool.
[00:51:11] Matt Tverberg: Well, I may, may have something for you- Ooh ... to give you some access to. We, we definitely are moving that direction, for sure. I'm excited for what we'll do in, you know, in the near future, 'cause we do have so much rich data that it's just asking for it to be, you know, conversational.
So given everything we've touched on here, you know, we've talked about your data, the different systems, your hybrid approach, kind of how you're innovating, how you're doing things there. What's the next big, big thing that you're thinking towards?
[00:51:46] Caitlin Steininger: Yeah. For me, I... For me and my team, we're really thinking, like, how do we leverage our tools and systems and get business buy-in to build integrations between our key tools, like our badge system and Envoy and the building's parking garage, right?
How do, how can we support our vendors to go after those things and support those things? Because those are really critical to our operations, and I'm always looking for ways to improve that employee experience. If I could create a white label app that basically allowed the employee to just engage with this one app and it will do everything at every building for everyone, that would be incredible.
I know we're... that's not feasible, but I do, I do kind of think the next big thing for me is like, okay, here's where we have those differences at all of our sites. What tactically needs to happen to make these all appear and function the same?
[00:52:50] Matt Tverberg: Uh, that almost goes back to how we kicked this off is, how are you creating consistency across all of your spaces?
Yeah. Love that. Well, when everything's working in your role, the data's clean, everything's connected, and the experience just clicks, what's, like, a perfect, perfect day look
[00:53:08] Caitlin Steininger: like? Oh, a perfect day to me is I'm doing puppy yoga, and I'm having a really lovely beverage, like a fun Olipop, and I'm eating a cool new snack.
No, I'm just kidding. No, for me, it's really... I'm s- we're- my team and I are spending less, less time digging for information and more time engaging with our employees. So for me, that's the quick, like, oh, somebody... one of the executives walk by and ask what our average occupancy is today. I wanna be able to pull up my mobile device where I'm on Envoy and say, like, "What's the average occupancy for today?"
It spits a number at me. I can give that information with accuracy and confidence right away, and then I can move back onto the conversation I'm having about helping plan the all hands space, right? I wanna really be able to, on a good day, just exist with our employees and spend good quality time with them to understand what we can do every day to make their day better while they're in the office.
[00:54:09] Matt Tverberg: Love it. Well, I hope that we can help you get there. And Caitlin, I really appreciate- Of course ... you being here today and the, the thought-provoking conversation. I know that I speak from all of us at Envoy when I say, like, don't be shy. Keep... Help us, help us push the envelope. And with that, my name's Matt, and this has been Make Yourself @ Work, and we will see you next time.