With operations serving 400 cities, Fluid Truck is changing how the world owns and operates commercial vehicles. Through its website and mobile app, users can rent vans, trucks, electric vehicles, and more, anytime at the tap of a button. This seamless access to commercial vehicles makes it easier than ever for individuals and businesses of all sizes to get things where they need to go.

Building and scaling a revolutionary platform requires a large and ever-growing team of creative, talented people from all sorts of backgrounds. In addition to expertise, Fluid Truck focuses on bringing on new teammates who have an interest in building something special. As Fluid Truck CEO, James Eberhard said:

“We need smart, entrepreneurial, and passionate people to help us build innovative solutions to revolutionize the mobility space. If you're seeking an opportunity to roll-up your sleeve and tackle new challenges, solve difficult problems, and have fun while doing it – we would love to have you on our team.”

We recently caught up with Katie Schoon, Internal Communications Manager at Fluid Truck, to learn how she and her team attract, engage, and retain the type of talent it takes to change an entire industry.

“I was initially drawn to Fluid Truck because it’s a tech startup born and raised in Denver that will continue to play a role in building this city,” she said. “After joining, what I’ve come to appreciate most is the people. We have an amazing, ambitious, and helpful group of humans who are eager to roll up their sleeves and make things happen.

The leadership team does a great job of making sure that everyone has the autonomy they need to thrive and succeed in their work. It’s exciting to see how people have matured into new positions over time, and how the company has matured to serve an even wider customer base.”

"We have an amazing, ambitious, and helpful group of humans who are eager to roll up their sleeves and make things happen."

Scaling Rapidly, but Thoughtfully

You can’t revolutionize an entire industry without a lot of exceptionally brilliant and motivated people, and Fluid Truck has become a magnet for that sort of talent.

“We’ve continued growing at a really rapid pace,” Schoon shared. “Fluid Truck is committed to bringing nearly 1500 new jobs to the Denver metro area, and we’re on track to achieve that.”

While technical expertise and domain knowledge are necessary to build and support a platform that manages over a quarter billion miles driven, that’s not the only thing the Fluid Truck team is looking for as they scale. “The number one quality we look for in new teammates is creativity,” Schoon said. That creativity, combined with an entrepreneurial mindset helps drive innovation all across the company.

“Something that struck me during my own process as a candidate was a conversation I had with James, our CEO. He was so clear about being committed to building the next generation of entrepreneurs—how excited he’d be to work for me one day—and he carries that spirit to every employee in every department.”

When every member of a team feels motivated, encouraged, and empowered to change the status quo, it creates an environment where game-changing ideas can flourish.

“Fluid Truck is committed to bringing nearly 1500 new jobs to the Denver metro area, and we’re on track to achieve that.”

Functional Fun

Even though the team is building revolutionary tools that businesses across the United States rely on, fun has always been a core component of work at Fluid Truck.

“When things move really fast, you need to enjoy the pace and the work, or you’ll burn out. And while we do often put our heads down and work hard, there's also so much fun around the office. Our culture committee is dedicated to making sure we’re able to bring our real personalities to the office.

Whether it’s something like a World Cup bracket and watch party, for example, or the talent show we’ve got coming up in a couple weeks, holiday bake-offs—it’s just a wonderful environment where you can work hard beside your colleagues, but also get to know who they are outside their role.”

To support and strengthen that unique environment as it continues to scale, Schoon and her team rolled out Haystack, which they dubbed TruckStop. As a result, team cohesion and culture have continued growing, even during a period of rapid expansion and growth.

“I think the name game is super helpful. Our headquarters are in Denver, but a large portion of our staff are spread across the US and Buenos Aires,” Schoon explained. “In addition to the name game, the map and the directory are lifesavers for us.”

While it may seem simple at face value, having a tool to help employees across the globe connect and put faces to names can have a surprisingly large impact.

“Before Haystack, there’d been less opportunity to get to know new hires, learn about team transfers, or understand what the updated org chart looks like.”

“In addition to the name game, the map and the directory are lifesavers for us.”

Knowledge at Your Fingertips

Providing engaging avenues for employees to connect is already a major accomplishment, but Schoon and her team continue finding new ways to leverage the full suite of functionality Haystack has to offer. As members of a rapidly growing organization, Schoon and the Fluid Truck team were facing numerous challenges that led them to implementing Haystack.

“Like many other companies, we were very over-reliant on email. A lot of knowledge was getting lost as inboxes filled up. Haystack helped us clear out people’s inboxes and alleviate the volume of content that was misplaced there. It’s so nice to have that one location where we can store all our information, that becomes our central source of truth.

The platform as a whole cuts down on wasted time seeking information, and you can apply that to so many pieces of work, whether that’s organizing an event locally, or searching for a policy,” Schoon said. “It’s really nice to have that efficiency built-in.”

That efficiency and ease of access also translated to a meaningful impact on individual members of the Fluid Truck team’s digital employee experience. Schoon shared a key example of this impact in action:

“Onboarding new hires is the first example that comes to mind. One of our sales leads contacted me just days after we launched Haystack, saying that his new hire was absolutely overwhelmed with all the information being thrown at her—all the platforms she needed to do her job, all the people that impacted different parts for her work—but after showing her TruckStop (what we call Haystack), it all suddenly just clicked for her.”

Those improvements to the team’s experience continue to reverberate across the entire company, its customers, and the world around them.

“Having one location for all you need to know and do in your day-to-day work just saves so much time and effort. Employees get more time to focus on our mission, the customer, and their experience—and for that, Haystack has been incredible.”

Cultivating an Engaging Environment

With new tools in hand, Schoon and her team continue to learn and understand the needs of Fluid Truck employees across the globe in ways they weren’t able to before.

“We were in desperate need of analytics before Haystack. We had no idea which messages were actually landing with employees. Being able to see how many people viewed and engaged with a post over time is amazing.”

With that knowledge, leaders across Fluid Truck are able to lean into what’s working and deliver an even more engaging experience for their teams. From vibrant company updates to individual channel and notification preferences, TruckStop is a place everyone can call home.

“We’re making a lot more employee-centric content, and now it’s more accessible than ever before. There’s so much more fun, informational content that people can interact with  on their own schedule—it’s just a much nicer environment.

The multimedia capacity was something we were shopping for in a provider. The built-in images, video, embeds, and GIFs are so fun for content creators to use. We also heavily utilize Slack. The integration between Slack and Haystack has been nice to explore and use, too,” Schoon said.

“We were in desperate need of analytics before Haystack...Being able to see how many people viewed and engaged with a post over time is amazing.”

Earning Buy-In and Fostering Adoption

Finding a solution that fits a diverse range of employee needs is never easy. As a company with many talented product-minded people, sometimes it can be even more challenging to find a tool that truly sparks their excitement.

“We’re a tech company—we create apps ourselves,” Schoon said. “We did a lot of shopping before going with Haystack. We knew the user interface had to be simple and beautiful. It was a little bit of an uphill battle convincing our product team that we should adopt an outside tool—but the features, and the cleanliness of the presentation helped a lot.”

Since implementation, adoption has been widespread. But in addition to the volume of engagement, the depth of engagement, and the sense of ownership that is so highly regarded across the team continue to stand out.

“As far as adoption goes, I’ve been especially encouraged to see team leads really own the group sites, creating content that is specific to certain job functions,” Schoon said.

“There are so many ways to draw people in and inspire them to use the platform. We just ran a poll asking our staff which Fluid Truck leader would survive a zombie apocalypse (I voted for Jen Snyder). TruckStop is a nice, deep breath for everyone.”

“There are so many ways to draw people in and inspire them to use the platform."

Moving Forward Together

As a fast-moving team, Schoon and her colleagues at Fluid Truck appreciate having a tool that grows and evolves quickly along with them.

“A fun part of my week is going to see the Haystack product notes—what new features dropped, what’s been updated or changed—it goes back to me striving to be a creative person for this company, and figuring out how to leverage all the different tools I have to do that.”

Pro Tips for an Engaging Digital Employee Experience

Schoon and her team succeeded in building an engaging digital experience that brings employees across their entire organization together.

“This might sound basic, but make it as easy as possible for your colleagues to get into. Give lots of examples, make sure it’s preloaded with lots of awesome content.

In the workforce today, we’re all being pulled in a million different directions. Take some time to host trainings, showcase features, and share ways people can customize their experience. Any legwork you can cut out for yourself and your team will benefit everyone.”

‍Need seamless access to a commercial vehicle, or a whole fleet? Head over to fluidtruck.com to find a vehicle perfect for your needs.