Startup companies have a reputation for making employee morale a priority. It's a stereotype that, depending on your point of view, is the solution to 21st century employment problems or a mistake that bankrupts companies and destroys productivity. Arlington-based Opower (OPWR) is making a point of emphasizing its philosophy on the importance of talent by hiring former Google executive Marcella Butler as senior vice president of people.
"My role really is people," Butler told DC Inno in an interview. "Recruiting, training, retaining them et cetera. But we also apply analytics to focus groups to help figure out what people need and want. We measure everything"
Butler spent five years at Google, directing human resources and leading the integration of Motorola employees into Google after the acquisition. In the last few years, Butler worked in a semi-freelance way from Texas. Her background and talent had already drawn the eye of Opower's leadership as the company started to see real success, going public in 2014.
"I did some consulting with Opower while working in Texas," Butler said. "Then I got a call from the CFO in early 2015 right when I was thinking about my next move. Timing matters a lot in a career."
It wasn't just the timing that made Butler happy to sign on with Opower however. Though she spoke positively of her time in Silicon Valley, it's obvious that she feels very passionate about her new setup.
"I always wanted to live in Washington, D.C., ever since I was little," Butler said. "And I love the size of Opower and its growth. It's incredibly progressive and that permeates through the company. We really treat people like grownups."
Opower's current office setup is already designed to make employees happier. Butler may be the SVP of people, but dogs are an important part of making those people happy as you can tell from their presence all over the office. Butler's own dog sat in on the interview, perking up every time another dog walked by the conference room. And with Opower's plans to move into an even bigger office, Butler will only get busier.
"It's sort of a no-brainer that if you have better retention you'll spend less on recruiting."
"The awesome thing is the level of employee involvement and engagement," Butler said. "The environment here is much more like Google than any other place I've worked."
Some of Butler's ideas are already in play, like unlimited personal time off and a more expansive maternity and paternity leave. The idea behind these new policies is not just that it improves productivity in the short term, but entices people to stay at Opower for longer.
"It's sort of a no-brainer that if you have better retention you'll spend less on recruiting. There's always a war for talent," Butler said. "[Increased maternity and paternity leave] was not a decision it took long to make."
Applying what she learned at Google and elsewhere to Opower has been smooth, but Butler noted that it's partly a function of Opower's tech startup kind of culture. Other kinds of companies still often equate dour, boring offices with successful business but it doesn't automatically make it true, Butler explained.
"The tech world is doing a good job teaching the rest of the world you don't have to wear a suit to be serious," Butler said.
And the D.C. area, despite its penchant for buttoned up office attire, has all of the ingredients to make successful tech startups, Butler opined. By setting up Opower as an example of the kind of company culture that makes employee happiness a goal and still pulls off financial success, Butler thinks it could inspire plenty more firms to start reexamining how they deal with attracting, and keeping, employees.
"What you get here in the D.C. area is that people are serious. They're passionate," Butler said. "It's not a work ethic, they're more mission driven."
