How to Empower Your Team to Succeed, with Hulu's Director of Workplace Experience, Sara Mailloux

What makes an Awesome Office? Is it the culture? The leadership? Is it the office space itself? These are the questions that we set out to answer on this podcast from day one.

You’d be hard pressed to think of a more qualified person to provide answers than this week’s Awesome Office guest, Sara Mailloux.

As Hulu's Director of Workplace Experience, it’s Sara's job to provide the company’s 1,300 Hulugans with an environment that supports their culture and empowers them to perform at their best, day in and day out.

While Hulu does have an incredible, open workspace, Sara contends that it’s the people in that - not the space itself - that make an office truly awesome. The office is there just to empower the people in it to do great things. 

Sara was a delight to talk to in this episode. In it, she goes deep into the history of Hulu, and describes the ways she helps craft the right experience to keep the company on an upward trajectory.

Key Takeaways

• Sara describes the transitions that the Hulu workplace has undergone since its inception nearly a decade ago.
• Sara explains why she’s rarely at her desk, and tells us about the types of spaces she’s designed to encourage collaboration.  
• Sara tells us how she became the #2 employee at Hulu, and how an early foray in television production inspired a career-long love of experiential design and construction.
• Sara relays the story of how Hulu got the name “Hulu,” as well as how Hulu employees came to be known as “Hulugans.”
• Sara tells us the funnest thing about working at Hulu (which, it turns out, is also the most challenging).
• Sara explains Hulu’s “60/40” rule, and why she believes employees must drive their own career development.
• Sara explains what “Workplace Experience” means at Hulu, and why she’s dedicated her career to it.
• Sara explains the dilemma between trying to design for the individual vs. creating experiences for the team in aggregate.
• Sara names the types of spaces that she thinks every workplace should give their employees.
• Sara explains the role of constant and consistent communication in workplace experience.
• Finally, Sara tells us what companies can do to improve workplace experience, even if they don’t have a ton money to spend.

Links

• Hulu.com
• Sara on LinkedIn
• Gensler Architects
• Oregon Ducks Football

Recommended Reading

• The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship by David Whyte

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