It might seem counterintuitive that at the origin of many great tech products, instead of a machine or an algorithm, is a person. But machines can’t replicate the human characteristics essential to unlocking innovation. And no machine, however well made, has a passionate internal flame.
That’s why it’s crucial that leadership teams remember it’s not the hottest new tech stack or AI-equipped warehouses that single-handedly launch a product to success. It’s the people. And implementing perks that encourage a people-first culture while simultaneously strengthening individual capabilities can be the secret ingredient to talent retention.
For some, that means having the freedom and flexibility to work remotely from wherever they’re most productive. Others may want to elevate their skill set through continued education courses or climbing the career ladder to a new role. But for employees at agricultural robotics company Tortuga AgTech, it’s about the little moments of coming together to recognize big wins as a team — and a little effervescence.
“We emphasize celebrating success, and not taking ourselves too seriously,” said People Operations Lead Donna Ludwig. “We celebrate major company milestones with cheap champagne, adding to the collection of milestone bottles. We also give each team member a $1,000 wellness stipend each year to use on whatever makes them feel well.”
Keeping a finger on the pulse of company culture can also be a crucial indicator on when to amplify what’s working, or when to pivot. For marketing platform Contentful, biannual employment engagement surveys act as an effective litmus test to determine how employees are feeling, and if alignment with the company’s core values have soured.
“We want to ensure every employee has a voice in shaping the future of our shared experience,” said SVP of People Vanessa MacIlwaine.
After all, a company’s tech might generate its quarterly revenue reports, but it’s the strength of the teams that builds a solid foundation.
What steps has ToD taken to foster a people-first culture?
We strive to build a community, not a company. Our first priority is putting our people first. This means Traction on Demand (ToD) is a place to build your career while growing personally and professionally, and that includes more than 1,300 Tractionites in decision making.
Our people-first culture starts with giving Tractionites the opportunity to be heard, and we listen. Various surveys and our CEO advisory council give honest feedback about how things are going. Our quarterly engagement survey, The 411, gives us a pulse on how ToD can continually improve and build a better experience for Tractionites. It’s a short series of questions that measures sentiment based on topics like happiness at work, direct leader support, career development, tools to get their job done, and more. With participation rates typically in the 90-and-above percentile range, we can drive improvement and focus on employees.
As a result, we’ve been able to identify areas of opportunities to improve our culture. Ideas such as our flexible work model, providing meals for our team during pandemic lockdowns, and the ability to work from local businesses have all stemmed from these lines of communication.
Trust is an important foundation of our culture that powers our business.”
What perks, benefits or other offerings help support a people-first company culture?
In the past year we brought on over 700 new Tractionites. What attracts them to ToD? It’s our culture and values, but it’s also more than that. We look to enable and empower our team through our programs.
Our impact and our people teams work tirelessly to ensure Tractionites have the support and benefits program they need, feel a sense of belonging, have trust in our leadership, are compensated fairly, and are rewarded for their contributions. We’ve done this through programs like our JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion) program and diversity surveys, by looking at pay parity, and by encouraging our team members to take advantage of our baby benefits and our employee shared ownership plan.
These programs wouldn’t be possible without trust. Our team members need to feel comfortable taking advantage of our benefit programs, and our leadership needs to establish trust with Tractionites in order to confidently share direction and strategy while knowing that the job will get done well from wherever Tractionites choose to work. Trust is an important foundation of our culture that powers our business and when our people are happy, healthy and dreaming big, we can reach new heights.
How do you gauge the effectiveness of these efforts and ensure employees feel valued and supported? And what are some ways you’ve adapted your strategy in response?
Our CEO Greg Malpass instills in us the phrase “Just because it made sense, doesn’t mean it makes sense.” In 2021, we hoped to be emerging from the pandemic and knew that going into the office every day wasn’t going to work for most Tractionites — so we needed to find a new approach to work. We conducted a survey on how Tractionites work best to determine what cultivates happy hearts and heads. As a result, we implemented our flex work options and created a hybrid work model called Working Forward.
Flex work includes options like working reduced or different work hours, taking Friday afternoons off, or a sabbatical, enabling Tractionites to work when they’re most productive. The purpose of Working Forward is to create both real and virtual workspaces that are not just about physical facilities, but also providing a space that best fits Tractionites’ needs. As a result, we opened four “shops” in the greater Vancouver area in 2021, with more to come wherever Tractionites can gather. A “shop” aims to partner with local businesses like a brewery, restaurant or legion to support them during slower periods while providing our team members with a place to work and connect that’s closer to home.
What steps has Contentful taken to foster a people-first culture?
Our executive leadership team enthusiastically communicates to employees about the important role they play in the rise of Contentful. We celebrate the opportunity this presents to employees in their careers as well as how they contribute to our people-first culture. In our monthly virtual town-hall meetings, we recognize people from across the company and the great work they are doing that aligns with our core values. This creates a positive environment where our employees feel connected, supported and part of an exciting mission.
With more than 750 employees across more than 70 countries, we celebrate the unique perspectives that each person brings to our culture. Contentful is growing rapidly and has big goals. Employee engagement, people development and the well-being of our employees are foundational to achieving these goals.
Contentful’s Core Values
- Be humble
- Start with the customer and work backwards
- Embody a growth mindset
- Strive together
What perks, benefits or other offerings help support a people-first company culture?
At Contentful, we understand the importance of a well-rounded benefits program. We look at competitive cash compensation, benefits, development and time off to help support a balanced life. We bring this to life by offering equity for employees so everyone is a stakeholder in the company. To support our employees’ personal development, we offer a generous education budget and time-off allowance for professional development, as well as free access to LinkedIn Learning.
We also encourage our employees to take care of their personal well-being by offering wellness benefits, such as a subscription to the Calm sleep and meditation app, and an annual physical well-being stipend. And we encourage time away from work to recharge and focus on personal pursuits. In the U.S., we have a flexible time off policy that is comparable to an unlimited time off policy. In Berlin, employees have up to six weeks paid time off. We also have impressive parental perks including paid parental leave and benefits to support those beginning their family building and fertility journeys.
How do you gauge the effectiveness of these efforts and ensure employees feel valued and supported?
One of the biggest drivers of effectiveness is through our biannual employee engagement survey that gauges how our employees are feeling, how we’re doing as a company, and if we’re aligning to our core values. We care deeply about the experience of those around us and want to ensure every employee has a voice in shaping the future of our shared experience. We ask for feedback, actively listen and make improvements as appropriate.
We establish focus areas at the beginning of the year from the survey, and we conduct a mid-year “temperature check” survey to assess how things are going with our initiatives and if anything needs adjustment. We recently adjusted our benefits offering to align best with what employees felt was important based on their survey feedback. For example, we added additional vacation days for our Berlin employees, where local laws dictate set vacation allotments, and added a new physical wellness benefit.
We have many events where employees have an opportunity to connect with our leadership team to provide their honest feedback and we actively design these opportunities to break down barriers.
What steps has CyberGRX taken to foster a people-first culture?
CyberGRX is committed to being a remote-friendly company, allowing our employees the flexibility they crave. Our employees are able to choose if they want to work from home, come into the office, or both. We support and encourage remote work, but we are also opening a beautiful new office this year. This space, conveniently located in the trendy McGregor Square area, gives our employees the option to collaborate in person with their peers if they wish. We will continue to host virtual employee events — our cooking classes and terrarium workshops have been a huge hit in the past — and we will soon start hosting optional in-person events when it is safe for us to do so.
More On McGregor Square
What perks, benefits or other offerings help support a people-first company culture?
We actively work each day to put our employees first. We offer a completely free medical, dental and vision plan as well as a monthly wellness stipend to support our employees during this work-from-home era. Employees get to choose how they spend this $100 wellness benefit, whether that’s new skis, a monthly massage or even online continuing education programs.
How do you gauge the effectiveness of these efforts and ensure employees feel valued and supported?
We believe each employee is unique and brings their own value to the table. It is important we maintain a transparent culture where everyone feels safe to voice their opinions and make suggestions on how we can continue to improve. On a quarterly basis, we send out an anonymous employee satisfaction survey which helps us gauge how people in the organization are feeling and where improvements can be made.
In addition, employees have the option to submit anonymous questions and suggestions that our CEO and executive team then discuss and answer during our monthly company-wide meetings. This is a platform to ensure we are talking about issues that matter to our employees and are actively pressing forward to make continuous improvements. After all, one of our core values is to continuously learn!
What steps has Tortuga AgTech taken to foster a people-first culture?
Tortuga is a mission- and values-driven company. During our interview process, we check for alignment and a candidate’s culture add by asking questions that map to our values. Our interviews include a meet-and-greet session where candidates interact with the whole team they’d be joining to get a better feel for our culture, and our team gets the opportunity to better understand what the candidate is like at work and in everyday life.
We also emphasize celebrating success, and not taking ourselves too seriously. We celebrate “Champagne Goals,” or major company milestones, with cheap champagne, adding to the collection of milestone bottles. This small example ends up being a lot of fun. On Thursdays, we wear animal shirts and other animal paraphernalia, which has developed into a competition for ridiculous apparel.
We also foster a people-first culture through our value of, “speak up, listen up.” We truly want to have a dialogue with our team, so we encourage everyone to share their thoughts and opinions and engage in challenging conversations, whether it’s during one-on-ones with managers, during our weekly Tech Talks, or in our bi-weekly founder town-hall discussions with the entire team.
What perks, benefits or other offerings help support a people-first company culture?
We are all about our team, as we realize our people are the reason we’ve come so far! We have a weekly social hour at the office where we all stop working and just hang out with each person’s drink of choice, alcoholic or not. It’s a great opportunity for people to get to know one another better. In addition, each team has a quarterly budget for team-building events, which have included activities such as Topgolf, escape rooms and off-site lunches.
We also give each team member a $1,000 wellness stipend each year to use on whatever makes them feel well. We’ve had team members go on international trips, get a gym or climbing membership, or use the funds toward a new bike or ski pass. New hires also get a productivity stipend in their first year to make sure they have everything they need to be successful in their job, whether that’s at work or at home. We recently added short-term disability, and we also offer a 401k as well as a choice of medical, dental and vision plans. We cover a significant portion of the cost, for both the employee and their family.
We encourage everyone to share their opinions and engage in challenging conversations.”
How do you gauge the effectiveness of these efforts and ensure employees feel valued and supported?
The two main ways we gauge the effectiveness of our efforts are through one-on-ones and pulse surveys. Each manager meets individually with their team members on a monthly basis to check in and see how they are doing, to discuss their strengths and areas they can improve, and to talk about their learning and development. Our people ops team meets with new hires after their first month to ensure onboarding has gone well and then has one-on-ones with team members on a quarterly basis thereafter. Feedback from these meetings is acted upon, as appropriate.
We also have quarterly pulse surveys where we ask for anonymous feedback from each team member. We compile the results and then have discussions within each team and as a company overall, where we decide on commitments for the upcoming quarter. We then follow up on these commitments during the next quarter’s pulse survey discussion. We’ve made improvements in a number of areas as a result, such as more effective communication through channels like Slack, ensuring teams didn’t get siloed as we accelerated our growth, implementing lunch and learns — which don’t have to be work-related — and better defining our career paths.
What steps has Adswerve taken to foster a people-first culture?
We prioritize flexibility and put our people first. Our distributed workforce allows our employees to be fully remote and live where it’s most convenient for them. We offer stipends to make working remotely easier and support our employees with tech, collaboration and benefits where they reside. We also maintain office locations and budget for our teams to get together as needed or desired. Still, even employees based near our offices have the option to be completely remote.
Our flexible approach extends beyond location to job roles. We collaborate closely with individual team members to find ways that allow them to do their best work, whether that means adjusting hours and responsibilities or creating roles that better align with their needs.
To ensure our teams understand how to succeed at Adswerve, we’ve provided more consistent goals and performance feedback. First, we added quarterly reviews to complement our annual review cycle. Then, to make them more actionable and helpful, we implemented the Lattice People Management system.
Finally, we’ve provided multiple listening and feedback opportunities and consistent internal communications over the past year. We hired a chief people officer in 2021 who met every Adswerve employee, held small-group meetings with executives to give employees a voice, and surveyed our team members multiple times. We’ve acted on feedback, too, even changing our compensation structure to shift more dollars into guaranteed salaries.
Our goals, reviews and public recognition programs take into account our five pillars. Our employees exemplify these pillars, lead with grace, and demonstrate vulnerability and transparency at every level of our organization.
Adswerve’s Five Pillars For Success
- Be genuine
- Be gritty
- Be giving
- Be groundbreaking
- Be a guide for each other and your clients
What perks, benefits or other offerings help support a people-first company culture?
We understand compensation, benefits and work-life balance are a considerable part of our team members’ lives. We take pride in offering a robust employment package that includes company-paid medical, dental, vision, and long and short-term disability insurance for all team members. We also provide a generous 401k plan, hearty paid-time-off plans and paid parental leave. All team members are encouraged to take advantage of our volunteer days, too.
Beyond our standard benefits, we work with teams and individuals to understand their unique needs — from career development opportunities to working locations, times and styles. And we ensure they have what they need to be successful both in their roles and in their lives outside of work.
How do you gauge the effectiveness of these efforts and ensure employees feel valued and supported?
We maintain open two-way conversations with team members in several ways. First, we hold weekly one-on-one meetings with direct managers so employees can receive guidance and provide feedback. Our managers and team members also meet quarterly to review progress and goals.
Additionally, we send out biannual engagement surveys to gather input on important topics such as compensation, DEI and the Adswerve experience. We conduct executive360 sessions where our leadership team members join calls with small groups of team members to discuss anything they want to share. We also hold annual company summits to encourage cross-team bonding and create a shared company vision.
Adswerve has always maintained a strong culture, but we’re not complacent. Our feedback sessions and engagement surveys have helped us understand what’s working and what we need to adjust. We use the information to set and prioritize new people-centric goals.
Working closely with each of our teams to ensure they have the support they need, and with individuals to make sure their roles fulfill their desired growth, is a huge part of our evolving strategy. We want each of our employees to be the best version of themselves at Adswerve, and we want to give them every opportunity to be successful in their careers and personal lives.
What steps has OrthoFi taken to foster a people-first culture?
A people-first culture means different things to different people. Our definition is one in which the company is fully invested in its people so that the people can be fully invested in achieving the business results. We focus on supporting each individual as a whole person and in turn ask them to bring their whole selves to work.
We care deeply and genuinely about each person. We have ongoing coaching conversations, we focus on mental health through a company-sponsored subscription to the Calm app, and we provide training on items such as Psychological First Aid — a lesson on how to care for yourself.
What perks, benefits or other offerings help support a people-first company culture?
OrthoFi is a remote-first culture, which is a reflection of how we prioritize our people and their well-being. The majority of our team has not been into the office since March 2020, which allows them to have a significant level of flexibility in choosing the work environment that is best for them.
Additionally, we use a recognition platform that promotes our team members living our core values and allows our team to share positive feedback with each other. They also receive rewards they can cash in on.
Our medical benefits offerings include options for fully covered monthly premiums, HSA and 401k contributions, and mental health support.
We focus on supporting each individual as a whole person and in turn ask them to bring their whole selves to work.”
How do you gauge the effectiveness of these efforts and ensure employees feel valued and supported?
We regularly conduct individual and small group discussions to gauge how the team is doing. Access to the Calm app was a direct result of some of these discussions that occurred in the early part of the pandemic. It was very clear early on that Covid-19 was going to have profound impacts on mental health, and so many people had lost their normal outlets for stress relief.
On a continuous basis, we use the Gallup Q12 to measure team engagement and evaluate the effectiveness of our cultural initiatives. We specifically look at the answers to prompts such as, “My manager, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person,” “There is someone at work who encourages my development,” and “At work I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.”
