How Gather Transformed Remote Culture at Human-I-T

To be that ambitious, you have to move fast and build a culture that empowers people to do excellent work. 

Those qualities weren’t an issue when the team was smaller and working together in person; Human-I-T had a culture they were proud of. But when the pandemic hit and they transitioned to distributed work, they faced new challenges to their culture. Despite their noble mission, the sense of community that once thrived amongst the team began deteriorating. Employee retention was down, communication was siloed, and essential conversations were taking far too long. 

CEO Gabe Middleton hit a breaking point when he had a simple question that should’ve only taken minutes to answer. Instead, it took multiple Slack messages, unnecessary frustration, and far too long to resolve. 

“We needed to do something to get out of what I was calling our “calendar culture,” or our “Slack culture,” because it wasn’t working.” _{– Gabe Middleton, CEO & Co-Founder at Human-I-T}  

Enter Gather—The solution that increased employee retention by 70%

After the breaking point, Gabe decided it was time to try Gather. On a Sunday night at 1 am, he personally created their first space and Slacked invites to half a dozen people on the team. 

One of the first people to join was Lo Terry, AI Implementation Manager. He admits to being skeptical at first, wondering if Gather would be distracting. After using it for a week, his mind was completely changed—he couldn’t imagine remote work without Gather. 

“Going back to actually having to create meetings for random things or wait on Slacks or emails that don't go answered…That was awful. I cannot really imagine working at Human-I-T now without Gather.” _{– Lo Terry, AI Implementation Manager at Human-I-T} 

Gather immediately improved how quickly people could communicate with one another. The ability to just walk an avatar over to someone to start an instant conversation made it quick and easy to solve problems. They also started to experience the serendipitous 'water cooler' moments that spark creativity and strengthen relationships – something that had long been missing.

The first group of Human-I-Ters who experienced Gather couldn’t wait to invite more teammates into the space. They started naturally adding each other, and by Wednesday of that first week, they had 50 people from the organization in their virtual office. 

Not only could they feel the impact of Gather on the speed of their work and the strength of their relationships, but they also saw it in the metrics: Since using Gather, Human-I-T saw a 70% increase in employee retention.  

The key driver in improving retention was addressing the sense of disconnection and isolation that employees reported in exit interviews and surveys. With the team dispersed between on-site warehouse staff and remote teams across 9 states and 6 countries, it was challenging for employees to stay informed and aligned about all aspects of the business.

After Human-I-T adopted Gather as their real-time collaboration platform, it made a tremendous difference. The team could instantly connect, relieving them from the burden of scheduling meetings and sharing links, which significantly eased the communication process between teams.

“Gather shortened decision cycles, improved creative collaboration, and facilitates knowledge sharing between our Los Angeles and Detroit facilities. It has also improved cross-team training and sped up issue resolution, which all contributed to a stronger, more cohesive culture and improved retention.” _{– Padric Gleason, SVP of Operations at Human-I-T}

A place for a distributed team to put company values into action

Human-I-T has always aspired to have a strong company culture. The organization’s super power lies  in their belief in the power of diverse perspectives and creative collaboration. 

Before Gather, their challenge with distributed work was that it was hard to implement their company values with traditional collaboration tools. Having a virtual office on Gather gave them the tool they needed to break down silos and engage in more natural conversations. All employees, regardless of location or position, can interact freely, accelerating the flow of ideas and fostering a culture of innovation. 

“Gather mentally flattens the hierarchy a lot. I feel no different at all being able to go up to Gabe as the CEO versus going up to somebody who's in inventory because we are all characters on a screen and our desks are all literally on a flat plane that you can see.” _{– Lo Terry, AI Implementation Manager at Human-I-T} 

After they started using Gather, Human-I-Ters met new people in the organization with whom they had never personally worked with before. Their head of operations, Padric, said he met more people in the first three months of using Gather than in the entire two years he had been with the company. For Gabe, the CEO, there was absolutely no question: Gather was “undeniably better” for his distributed team.  

Fast-forward a year: Gather is one of the first things taught to new employees when they join Human-I-T. The HR team even has a phrase they use: “Gather first.“ 

Gabe explained that it’s a mindset of ensuring new Human-I-Ters are comfortable with Gather. He wants everyone to understand that it’s not only how they communicate with each other but how they participate in growing their culture and genuinely being a part of the team. 

“Gather is the cornerstone of our communication and collaboration at Human-I-T now. It’s hard to think of a situation or a world where we're not using Gather to collaborate.” _{– Gabe Middleton, CEO & Co-Founder at Human-I-T} 

Advice to remote leaders looking to transform their team culture

For many organizations looking at Gather for the first time, it’s common for some team members to be skeptical, and Human-I-T was no different. As Gabe put it, there was a healthy question of, “Am I going to be disrupted too often? Is this going to get in the way of doing my work?” 

In his opinion, the only way to answer that is by spending time and experiencing Gather as a team. For Human-I-T, they quickly realized that not only was it not distracting, but the virtual office environment helped them get work done more naturally and efficiently.

“I don't think I can really remember a time where I've been actually bothered by a person coming up to me and been like, ‘Oh, that was a total waste of time.’ When people come up to my desk [in Gather], it's because they need stuff done or they need an answer from me. And that's the whole point of the app.” _{– Lo Terry, AI Implementation Manager at Human-I-T} 

In addition to trialing Gather as a team, Lo recommends showing people how useful it is to complete work they’re already working on, especially for skeptics. For example, he shared how he could get specific tasks done faster by walking over to someone in Inventory instead of waiting for an asynchronous response.

“Previously I could have gotten a question answered by submitting an operations ticket or by Slacking them. And they probably would have gotten it to me in the same day or two. They're a very efficient team. But that difference of a day or two as opposed to a minute or two… it's not even really quantifiable in terms of how much better it makes the work feel.” _{– Lo Terry, AI Implementation Manager at Human-I-T} 

Their final piece of advice? You need to have strong cultural values in place first. Focus on how ideas flow, establish clear communication channels, and create an environment that encourages people to do excellent work. A tool like Gather can be transformative, but only if it aligns with your organization's culture and values.

“It's not necessarily just how fast can you get things done, but how can you create a culture that allows people to work excellently together? Because that's how you're truly going to go far within an organization.” _{– Gabe Middleton, CEO & Co-Founder at Human-I-T} 

After the pandemic, Human-I-T’s culture started to deteriorate. Although they had all the right team values in place, traditional tools made it hard for them to put those values into practice.

When they found Gather, everything turned around. Retention improved by 70%, conversations felt natural, and the team felt more connected to each other and their mission than they had in years. 

“When you have a good culture and a strong sense of community within the team, so many beautiful things happen. We had lost that for two or three years post-pandemic, and that is  now fully recouped in just one year of using Gather.” _{– Gabe Middleton, CEO & Co-Founder at Human-I-T}