Chief People Officer at Outset Medical, Stacey Porter - Believing in People and Communities

Stacey Porter is Chief People Officer at Outset Medical and an organizational psychologist by training. Before Outset, she ran global talent development for Intuitive Surgical, designing performance and succession practices and building leaders for high-stakes work. Her career across VMware, Roche, and Outset shares a thread: every company she has joined has wanted to keep its early-stage culture as it scales, and she has spent years figuring out what that actually takes.

On this episode of Reimagining Company Culture, Stacey shares her playbook for building what she calls anti-corporate culture. The core idea is to subtract hierarchy where possible, resource first-time managers heavily, and treat employees as adults capable of running their own work. The conversation moves through onboarding, manager development, and what it means to believe in people and communities at work. We have pulled the threads together below, with broader research and patterns from across AllVoices company culture solutions.

Why Subtracting Hierarchy Beats Adding It

Most companies grow by adding layers. Each layer feels rational at the time, then collectively they slow decisions and dilute accountability. Stacey's argument is that the People team's first job during scale is to defend against unnecessary hierarchy.

The data supports the framing. McKinsey research on enterprise agility finds that less hierarchical, cross-functional structures correlate with 20- to 30-point gains in employee engagement and 30- to 50-percent improvements in operational performance compared to traditional structures. Subtracting hierarchy is not a feel-good move. It is a performance one.

Resourcing First-Time Managers Properly

The biggest predictor of whether an individual contributor becomes a strong manager is what happens in the first 90 days. Stacey treats this as a make-or-break window, with structured coaching, peer cohorts, and a clear set of expectations.

What does proper resourcing for new managers look like?

It includes three things. A skill-based curriculum on feedback, conflict, and performance conversations. A peer cohort of other new managers for shared problem-solving. An assigned senior manager to coach through real situations as they happen. Most companies offer one of the three. The combination is what builds capability.

How do you tell if a new manager is struggling?

The earliest signals come from the team, not the manager. Engagement-survey scores by team, attrition trends, and case volume in HR case management software all flag pressure before the manager will. Stacey's advice is to look at the team's data, then have a coaching conversation, not a corrective one.

What Actually Works in Building People-First Culture

Principle 1: Treat employees as adults

Anti-corporate culture starts with assuming employees can manage their own time, decisions, and information. Policy follows from the assumption. Time-off rules, expense rules, and approval chains all get simpler when the operating assumption is competence rather than control.

Principle 2: Build listening into the rhythm

Annual surveys are too slow. Stacey recommends frequent, light-touch listening through pulse surveys and skip-level meetings. The AllVoices employee survey platform gives People teams the cadence to spot shifts before they become attrition. Employee feedback systems work best when the loop closes within weeks rather than quarters.

Principle 3: Invest in community alongside performance

The phrase Stacey returns to is believing in people and communities. That belief shows up in how the company funds employee resource groups, how it engages with the towns it operates in, and how it handles employees in crisis. Culture lives in those decisions.

Where Employee Relations Fits in People-First Cultures

People-first does not mean conflict-free. It means conflict gets named and resolved. ER infrastructure is what turns belief in people into a working system, because every reported issue is a chance to either reinforce or undermine the stated culture.

That is why centralized case tracking for ER teams matters at fast-growth companies. ER cases hold the data on whether managers are leading, whether policies are working, and whether the culture is real or rhetorical.

How does ER data support a CPO's strategy?

Three ways. Case volume by team flags where managers need coaching. Case categories show whether the friction is policy or behavior. Resolution times tell you whether your processes are fast enough to maintain trust. Stacey describes that loop as essential during scale, when culture is hardest to defend.

Frequently Asked Questions About Building People-First Culture

What is anti-corporate culture in HR terms?

It is a culture designed to remove unnecessary process, hierarchy, and control. The intent is to keep the speed and trust of a startup as the company scales. In practice, it means flatter structures, simpler policies, and a heavy investment in manager capability rather than oversight layers.

How do you support an individual contributor moving into management?

Through structured coaching in the first 90 days, a peer cohort for problem-solving, and a senior manager who can mentor through real situations. Stacey Porter recommends not promoting until the candidate has at least one of those three supports lined up. Without it, the promotion is a setup for failure.

What does subtracting hierarchy actually mean?

It means removing layers that exist only to approve, review, or relay decisions. The test is whether the layer adds judgment or only adds friction. Layers that add friction get cut. Layers that add judgment, like a senior coach for a new manager, get reinforced.

How do CPOs measure people-first culture?

Through a combination of engagement scores, attrition by team, internal-mobility rates, and case data from ER. The strongest programs publish those metrics quarterly to leadership and use them to drive investment. Employee engagement data alone is not enough. It needs to be paired with behavior data from ER.

Why does community matter in workplace culture?

Because employees who feel connected to their colleagues and to the company's mission stay longer and contribute more. Community is built through small repeated actions: how the company shows up in tough moments, how it celebrates wins, how it handles departures. None of those are programmatic. They are cultural.

The Bottom Line for HR Leaders

Stacey Porter's argument is that culture is a defensive position during scale. The bigger the company gets, the harder it is to keep the trust, speed, and connection that defined the early days. The People team's job is to defend it, by subtracting hierarchy where possible, investing heavily in first-time managers, and connecting belief in people to the systems that make belief operational.

The starting move for most People organizations is to look at how decisions move. If approvals are taking weeks instead of days, if managers are escalating routine issues, if the org chart is denser than the work requires, the culture is at risk before the data catches up.

See how AllVoices supports People-first organizations with case management, listening, and analytics that protect culture during growth.