Posts Tagged ‘how they work’

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How They Work: Zappos

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

Developing great company culture isn't all just fun and games. Here at Wistia, we've been working hard to create an environment that brings out the best in every member of our team. In order to keep improving our game, we've been visiting companies we respect to learn how they work and what makes their culture unique. We'll be sharing everything we learn though our favorite medium (video!) in an experiment we're calling How They Work.

This time around, we visited the offices of the venerable Zappos in Las Vegas, NV. Known for their fast shipping and great customer service, Zappos started out with a focus on shoes but has since expanded to sell much more than that. In addition to their excellent treatment of their customers, Zappos is also known for their exuberant company culture. Replace "work-life balance" or "work-life separation" with a new philosophy -- "work-life integration."

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How They Work: Care.com

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

Developing great company culture isn't all just fun and games. Here at Wistia, we've been working hard to create an environment that brings out the best in every member of our team. In order to keep improving our game, we've been visiting companies we respect to learn how they work and what makes their culture unique. We'll be sharing everything we learn though our favorite medium (video!) in an experiment we're calling How They Work.

For this installment, we visited Care.com, an online service that helps families find caregivers. They pride themselves on a transparent and fun culture, one that's helped them double their venture-funded business every year. They've had to fight to be in the position that they're in, working to achieve organic fun with more unstructured things and breaking down barriers.

Here are a few ways that Care.com has worked to create a rich company culture:

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How They Work: Clover Food Lab

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Developing great company culture isn't all just fun and games. Here at Wistia, we've been working hard to create an environment that brings out the best in every member of our team. In order to keep improving our game, we've been visiting companies we respect to learn how they work and what makes their culture unique. We'll be sharing everything we learn though our favorite medium (video!) in an experiment we're calling How They Work.

This was an especially fun installment of How They Work for us because we've been big fans of Clover Food Lab for a while -- they even catered our holiday party! If you're not tempted by those butternut squash fritters, you might not be human. Even if you're not someone who works with food, Clover's an interesting case study -- they're building a different kind of food business, one whose business model feels much more like a tech company. In many ways, they leverage technology to return to the way things used to be.

Clover's food is all vegetarian, but their message isn't at all preachy, and their healthier take on fast food is appealing to all, ranging from the BBQ seitan, which feels a bit like a hippie-friendly McRib, to the chickpea fritter, which is essentially a falafel on crack. They don't use freezers at all, so you know everything they're serving up is completely fresh. They also keep their menu local and develop close relationships with farmers.

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How They Work: Help Scout

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

Developing great company culture isn’t all just fun and games. Here at Wistia, we’ve been working hard to create an environment that brings out the best in every member of our team. In order to keep improving our game, we’ve been visiting companies we respect to learn how they work and what makes their culture unique. We’ll be sharing everything we learn though our favorite medium (video!) in an experiment we’re calling How They Work.

For this installment, we visited Help Scout, whose small team of four is housed within the larger offices of BzzAgent in Boston. Help Scout offers the tools to help companies deliver great email support and collaborate with team members while retaining a personal touch.

Help Scout is very new, but their small team is already thinking about company culture in a long-term way. They're not just sharing space with BzzAgent because it's cheap -- it's also about people and collaboration, and there are benefits for everyone involved in the relationship. The smaller company is pushed to be more productive as they work within a well-established company's space and are immersed in their process and work ethic, and the larger company is able to hold onto their startup roots and stay creative because of their time spent with the smaller companies they house.

Here are some of the awesome things Help Scout does to enhance their company culture, even early in the game:

  • Employees spend time with the people who work at both BzzAgent and the other smaller companies housed within their offices -- Help Scout certainly doesn't live in a bubble!
  • Everyone is given a $2,500 innovation allowance to spend time doing cool things outside of the office with takeaways that benefit the company
  • They believe in having all of the right tools for the job -- they have 13 displays for 4 guys!

It's clear that as Help Scout builds their company from the ground up, they already care a lot about company culture and values in a way that a lot of companies don't get after years in the game. Follow @helpscout on Twitter to see what they're up to! We hope you enjoyed this edition of "How They Work" and we'd love to hear about where you'd like to see us take the series.

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How They Work: Next Jump

Friday, November 4th, 2011

Developing great company culture isn't all just fun and games. Here at Wistia, we've been working hard to create an environment that brings out the best in every member of our team. In order to keep improving our game, we've been visiting companies we respect to learn how they work and what makes their culture unique. We'll be sharing everything we learn though our favorite medium (video!) in an experiment we're calling How They Work.

This time, we paid a visit to Next Jump's Cambridge office in Kendall Square (they also have offices in New York City, London, and San Francisco). Next Jump provides a tailored, personalized experience for online shoppers and helps merchant partners drive traffic, sales and new customers to their websites with their loyalty programs.

Even though they have 200 employees, Next Jump acts more like they're a start-up, and they want to make sure that those 200 employees feel great all the time: "a better you, a better us" is the mantra they live by, and they strive to make sure that when their employees go home, they can just go home and relax.

Their philosophy is that you should be on or off -- not go home for the weekend only to find yourself inundated with laundry, cooking, exercise, and other responsibilities. When we asked people what their favorite thing about working there was, it was almost invariably the workout equipment that's always available to them -- and ensures that they're always surrounded by motivated high-achievers.

Here are some awesome ways that Next Jump takes care of their employees:

  • They have a fully-equipped gym where employees can work out during the day -- not to decrease healthcare costs, but to keep employees productive and motivated
  • They have ten personal trainers on staff (I won't mention any names, but they've definitely got my gym beat!)
  • They stock their refrigerator with healthy food and drinks and many employees eat breakfast there
  • They offer a laundry service to their employees
  • They don't frame these things as "perks" -- they're something more deeply embedded in the culture

We hope you enjoyed this installment of How They Work! We'd love to hear your feedback on what you'd like to hear more of and what you think we should be asking the companies that we visit. What companies keep you motivated to make sure your company's got a culture to be envious of?

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