Company Culture Thrives in a Remote Setting

RCS Influencer Arty Molinari explains how culture at Tremco is tailored to employees’ personal needs in a remote environment.

Editor’s note: The following consists of a conversation between RCS COO Karen Edwards and Building Envelope and Infrastructure Specialist at Tremco Arty Molinari. You can listen to the podcast or read the transcript below. 

Karen Edwards:  All right. Hi everybody. I'm Karen Edwards with Roofers Coffee Shop, and I am really excited to welcome one of our RCS influencers, Arty Molinari, from Tremco. Welcome, Arty.

Arty Molinari:  Hi Karen. Thanks for having me.

Karen Edwards:  Yeah, it's always a pleasure. We're going to talk a little bit about the importance of culture and how important it is in retaining current employees and recruiting new employees. And I think you bring a different perspective to it because we've got some influencers that work for very small roofing contracting firms, and then we've got other influencers such as yourself who work for a large manufacturer with people all over the place. What have you seen in terms of culture and how that's helped your organization retain and recruit?

Arty Molinari: Well, working for Tremco is really unique because I'm pretty sure most of the employees are remote. The people who are working in the corporate offices, obviously they are pretty much there every day since COVID. They have hybrid schedules, but there's not really a lot of them when you compare in North America, for example, there's thousands, and then international tens of thousands. It's pretty cool how, I mean, I guess we won't dive into culture just yet, but at least the employees can have the flexibility to do their job, manage errands if you will, whether they're personal or professional in nature, behind the scenes and still get their work done and still be at the level of performance that the company expects them to be at.

I never had that privilege until I started working for Tremco. Being an architect, I would work in a firm. Traditionally it was an eight to five situation and nothing was wrong with it. I liked it, that's all I knew. And I would try to do errands on my lunch break maybe and stuff like that, but it just wasn't really an option. But there's been companies doing what Tremco's been doing, like IBM for example, for decades. It's nothing new, but culturally, I feel, even if you don't know that many people that you work with, like myself, I probably only know a couple hundred max and I don't even know them that well, but we know each other's face and at least our voices. It just allows you to, I feel like automatically be proud of the company that you work for, even if you don't quite fully understand even their mission. It could take people years to really know what they stand for in the company and not just think of themselves as a number.

Karen Edwards: Well, I think flexibility is a big part of culture because it sets the feeling that we know that you are going to get your job done, but you may need to step out for two hours in the afternoon and then come back and work a little later in the day. I think that that speaks to culture in itself.

Arty Molinari: Yeah. It's interesting because I've literally had meetings with employers, not necessarily the CEOs, but operations managers, HR people, and in the past pre-COVID, whenever the word culture was brought up, even though it sounds like a cool and exciting word, if ever you're in a meeting privately and that's brought up, it usually means that you are either going against the culture or you're doing something wrong, or how can we help you fit into the culture? And for me anyway that was always an interesting conversation because I feel like I fit in easily into any given situation I'm put in. But again, if you're new, especially to a company there, I notice that company will do whatever it takes to help you fit in or make you feel like you're a part of the team. And sometimes that, like I said, can take time, especially if you've done something differently previously and now you've got to adapt and adjust.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, that's true. I think a big part of culture as well is helping people find where they fit and learning to work together and within everyone's working style. And when people are happy at their job and feel like they're a part of the family, for lack of a better word, they stay and they tell other people about what a great place it is to work.

Arty Molinari: Yeah. You actually just reminded me of when we were presenting at METALCON in Indianapolis, and one of my goals that I was talking about was, if you don't recognize the skills that you have, usually a good employer will help you do that. Tremco is very good at doing this. If ever you talk to someone who's worked at Tremco for a long time or you just actually look at their LinkedIn profile and you can easily see the different roles they've had within Tremco, it's not because they say weren't necessarily good at the job that they were doing because the company is constantly hiring people and trying to find the best talent to do a particular task.

Tremco will actually sit down with you, almost re interview you. If it doesn't happen at your annual review, it could happen randomly because of say the type of work that you're getting into that maybe didn't meet your job description or what have you, and they'll find the most suitable place that is a win-win situation for you and for the company. And so after I've talked to... I mean this has happened to me. I started actually in the roofing division and now I'm in the sealants division. I seem to work well in both divisions, but at the same time it's just their way of saying, "You know what? We liked you in roofing, but then the tasks that you were performing for roofing are more suitable for sealants. So let's see how it works if we put you in that department."

And it's, for me, I don't mind moving around, maybe it's a millennial thing, we get bored easily anyway, so having a curve ball thrown at you, it's exciting. At least you don't have to worry about losing your job because especially if you're doing well and everyone likes working with you, you don't really have to worry about it. Whereas when I was in the office setting, whenever we were discussing how can we change, whenever someone says change, you automatically think of improvement or that you're lacking in something. I like how the language is caught up with the times to make people feel not necessarily more comfortable, I mean, I appreciate you got to be kept on your toes, but it definitely allows you to feel excited about opportunity rather than change.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. I like the way you phrased that. If we can all see it as an opportunity and feel excited about it, then that's all part of... The culture is not just one thing. Culture is the whole picture in an organization. And I think you've just explained how that works really well. And any other words to add for our site visitors?

Arty Molinari: No, no, I'm good.

Karen Edwards: Keep at it, right? Yeah, it's not something that happens overnight, it's something that is created over time and with a lot of effort sometimes. And I think that this is good advice that you just shared and thank you Arty for being here today and for sharing your experiences with our visitors.

Arty Molinari: Yeah. No, thanks for having me.

Arty Molinari is a Building Envelope and Infrastructure Specialist at Tremco. See his full bio here.