YouSaid · the spoken record

Eric Friedrichsen

lines on the record: 28
first: 2022-04-07
most recent: 2022-04-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“No, I don't. I mean, again, our people are our most important asset. So it's not just about taking care of our 94 people, but it's making sure that all of our employees at Emperor know that they are our number one priority and that we're going to be here for them and do everything under our power to help them.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Employees and our customers are looking at how we react to this crisis. What are we doing? How are we supporting the people that we care about? How are we mitigating risks to ensure that this crisis isn't a detriment to our customers and how we're serving them? And so I think they're looking at us very, very closely and they're going to measure us on this. They're going to measure us from a morality standpoint, but they're also going to measure us as a vendor. And have we served them well through this crisis?”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's absolutely changed. The way I view the role of the CEO is very different than what it used to be. Our role is really integrated with the community. It's not just about running a business now. It's about trying to help communities. And so it's part of my role as CEO to do everything in my power. And I'm fortunate that I've got a team of people behind me that can help and I've got revenue behind us that can help. So I definitely think the role of the CEO has evolved dramatically over the last few years.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, again, we're right now focused on the urgency. And so we're absolutely spending more money than we would have otherwise. What I will say is our perspectives, there's a much greater cost to not helping our Ukrainian colleagues than helping them. And not just from a humanitarian standpoint, but even from a business standpoint. Again, they're extremely valuable and important to the imperse organization. And, you know, if we can help them and keep them productive, it's good for our customers and it's good for us.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Our number one priority is the safety and well being of our colleagues. That's our absolute number one priority. As a business, our colleagues in Ukraine are extremely important to us. They're very valuable. They do really important things for our customers, whether it's helping innovate and engineer solutions that we offer to our customers or supporting our customers. And so by giving them the opportunity to continue to be productive, it's good for them. It's good for them to continue to provide income to their family and to help their home country, but it's good for EMBERS. It's good for our business. It's good for our customers as well. There's no question about that.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the first thing we did was we made a donation to the International Committee of Red Cross and we communicated to all of our employees who were raising their hand they should consider.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think the first thing that I found when our executives and our employees were trying to put together programs to go help our Ukrainian colleagues, they kept uncovering roadblocks or risks. And the biggest thing I told them is these are people. This is urgent. Let's not worry as much about the risks right now. Let's just go solve the problem urgently and we will deal with the risks after the fact. So I think that's probably the biggest lesson learned was don't let the roadblocks get in the way when there are people that need you desperately.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think for one, for better or for worse, Bob, we've gotten good at dealing with crisis and it's not just imperse in the business world have really learned how to a little bit better anyway. We're still learning, but we've learned a little bit better how to navigate crises and how to figure out what to prioritize.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were fortunate coming into the pandemic that we had a very distributed workforce. And so mentioned Tortosa earlier where we have about 75 people in Los Angeles. We've got about 150. In Portland, Maine, we've got about 150. But out of, you know, 1,000 people total, they're all over the globe. And so we already were used to working in a very remote way. And that helped us pretty tremendously through COVID.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're focused on day by day at this point, Bob, how much support we're going to provide over time. We haven't made that determination yet. We've been just really, really hyper-focused on the urgent needs of our people. I will say more and more of our employees have asked how they can help. In the future, we are working on developing a plan for our employees to be able to help more. So that could allow us to extend even further some of the things that we're offering.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's correct, whether it was a baby stroller or coats or shirts or whatever it might be. There's a number of different things that we collected. And ultimately, as it turned out, we weren't necessarily providing the right things and we weren't giving our colleagues the opportunity to take care of their fundamental needs what they actually needed. And so that's where we've really migrated to more of a cash-based type of an approach to assist.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not just things. And some of it is they need to be able to buy what they actually need, not what we think they need. And then some of it, to be perfectly honest, is dignity. They don't want used clothes. I mean, if we can give them the opportunity to buy new clothes and the things that they need, it makes a huge, huge difference for them. They're also so gracious and so appreciative of everything that we've done for them that they don't really want to ask for things. And so we've had to kind of pull it out of them. What are areas and ways that we can help you?”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think about some of the stories, the first family that made it to Tortosa when they landed and our team met them and brought them to their apartment hotel. You know, it was a female contractor and a teenage son and then a four-year-old daughter. And anytime there was a loud noise, the four-year-old would jump and just be completely in fear. And the child didn't sleep for the first several days being in Spain. And then after about a week when our team went and spent more time with the family, you know, things were just a little bit better. Now the child was asking where the park was and wanted to get out of the house. So, you know, even that is a win as people are getting a little bit more comfortable. So that's one of the things that we've seen. But then there's other things that really have struck us. And some of it is our refugees need.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, that's right. I mean, in a burst, we're fortunate and that we're a very fast growing company, so we need to go hire a number of people anyway. Team is able to get back up to full productivity whenever that happens, we then will just be in a better spot because we will have grown even more.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First thing is that we temper all the information that we get and we assume that whatever people are committing to that we should expect a little bit less than that, but we keep track of it. We literally have a spreadsheet of every single contractor where they currently are, what their needs are, you know, how much they are able to work or want to work. And we obviously measured the productivity. We also have started to bring on some additional permanent and contracting employees to help bridge the gap in other locations. You mentioned software. They provided some additional resources outside of Ukraine. So overall, as an organization, we haven't seen productivity drop at this point. We obviously are continuing to assume that it may drop. And so we're doing everything in our power to prevent that from happening.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“100%, and I've got pictures of some of our colleagues in Ukraine on their laptop, in bomb shelters, in subways, still working. Believe it or not, our productivity rate for our contractors is still at 75% for those in and outside of Ukraine. It's incredible. Of course, to the extent that we can, we always say, look, focus on your health and your family and don't worry about working, but many of them want to work. And I think it's a good distraction for them. Many of them have told us that they also want to contribute to the economy. They want to obviously contribute to their family, but they want to contribute to Ukraine and to the Ukrainian economy. And so they want to keep working.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was really mostly about urgency, Bob. We knew that there was a tremendous need. It takes a little bit of time, even in a very nimble company like ours to try to go figure out how to fund something like this. And the executive team didn't want to wait. So we just made the commitment to go ahead and extend that first amount of funding.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some of the people that are in Ukraine don't want to leave. They want to stay. Some of them want to fight. And we can all understand why that would be. And then for those that have left Ukraine, some of them want to stay close. Perhaps their spouse is still in Ukraine. They want to be able to be there in case they can return quickly. They want to be right there. But they still have needs. They don't have a place to stay. And so we're fortunate that we have technology that can help. We have an ABBERS corporate card. We provide to our customers. We now can provide those to our Ukrainian contractors that are outside of Ukraine but not able to come to Spain. And so we've personally funded those through our executive team, not through IMBRS, but through our executive team, 500 euros to just get the ball rolling. They need about 500 euro for housing per month. And so we started that initiative.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Laptops from our inventory, not to the contractors because they already have them from their contracting company, but actually to the children of the contractors that need those laptops for school. And so we've started to provide that. And there's an incredible psychological component both for our contractors and our employees in the ground. And so we've hired a professional psychologist to help our contractors there on the ground get settled, get their needs met. And we've gotten a host program so that each one of these families has a host family so they don't stay with the host family, but they have a host family that's in BERES employee that can help them when they can't figure something out.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we have people in Spain that care and can help. So we've got 75 people there on the ground in Tortosa that have helped them when they land, spent time with them, helped them accommodate. We arranged with an apartment hotel for a discounted rate, which we're paying for the first three months. We have actually since arranged for the first four families to move into an apartment building all in the same location in the same block, just five minute walk from our office. It's really helped them build more of a community. So they've got each other. They don't speak Spanish. Some of them speak English, but at least they have other Ukrainians near them that they can help, that can help each other. So that's part of it. Some of our employees have spent a considerable amount of time greeting them, helping them figure out how to get signed up for healthcare, how to get their kids signed up for schools. We've started to provide.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I think it starts honestly with our mission as a company. So our mission, it embers, is to humanize work for our customers. In practical terms, we have software that processes expense reports and invoices. And, you know, we try to remove all the mundane tasks to make our customers, employees' lives much better so they could spend more time with their communities and their families. But that concept of humanizing work extends way beyond what we're doing for our customers. It extends to the way our employees treat each other, our employees raise their hands and said, what can we do to help? We've got relationships with these folks. We care about them. Are there ways that we can help in a more direct manner than just providing donations to, which we did as well, by the way, donations to the Red Cross and some other agencies? Is there a more direct way we can help the people that we care about? And so that's what really drove the program.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's all shifted. We have 94 contractors in Ukraine, approximately 30 have left the country. So we still have over 60 that are in the country. So approximately 30 have left. 12 of them have raised their hand and said they would like to relocate to Spain. So far, four have actually relocated. Four families have relocated to Spain and we're working on getting the other families to Spain as well as continuing to make sure that our contractors know that we want to be able to help them.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so we're fortunate that our European headquarters is in Spain, in a town, a village called Tortosa, which is about two hours south of Barcelona. And so we offered to our contractors the ability to relocate to Spain. So we said we would pay for their air or train or car transportation and that we would pay for them at least for the first three months in a hotel or an apartment. And for those that could work.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lviv that were more in the eastern part or the southern parts of Ukraine relocated to Lviv, which was helpful, not all of them, but many of them did. As the war went on, after the first couple of weeks, we work with our contracting partners to find ways to get as many people out of the country as possible. We arranged for some buses to be able to bus people to the border, primarily to Poland. It didn't take long before the ultimatum that adult males under the age of 60 needed to stay in the country. So we pivoted at that point to actually transporting females and children out of the country, families out of the country. And most of them ended up going first to Poland.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had already been looking at how we could start helping people get out of the country and then start thinking through, well, once they get out of the country, then what? How do we help them? How do we get them into a place where their families are safe, where they are safe, and where they could continue working if they are able to and interested in doing that? Once the invasion happened around February 24th, it all sort of came to a head and accelerated all of our plans pretty dramatically. We worked with our consulting partners, our contracting partners in Ukraine to get a list of, okay, where is everybody today? Are they safe? What is their risk level? And how do we get them into the best possible place we can get them to? Software in particular is headquartered in Lviv, which is in the western part of Ukraine, which at least early in the war was under a little bit less risk than many of the other parts of the country. And so many of our contractors that were not already”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so we've got multiple contracting companies, some are relatively new, but some have been with us for several years. We've got longstanding partnership with SoftJourn is one of our bigger partners there in Ukraine.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, Bob, we've got about a thousand people across the globe that work for Emburst, about 850 of them are employees, and we've got about 150 contractors. And it just so happens that about 90 of our contractors are in Ukraine or have been in Ukraine. As Russia was starting to approach the border and the threat of an invasion started to pick up, we had started to make some contingency plans to start looking at how we could support our contractors in Ukraine. But if I'm going to be perfectly honest, I don't think any of us really thought the invasion would happen. We were starting to prepare for it. And then when it did happen, we realized now we need to move and mobilize quite quickly.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got pictures of some of our colleagues in Ukraine on their laptop, in bomb shelters, in subways, still working. It's incredible. Of course, to the extent that we can, we always say, look, focus on your health and your family and don't worry about working. But many of them want to work. They want to contribute to Ukraine and to the Ukrainian economy. We had already been looking at how we could start helping people get out of the country and then start thinking through, well, once they get out of the country, then what? European headquarters is in Spain. So we offered to our contractors the ability to relocate to Spain. Making sure that all of our employees that emburst know that they are our number one priority and that we're going to be here for them and do everything under our power to help them.”
2022-04-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Supporting Ukraine's tech workers, w/Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT