Technology companies put a lot of thought and care into their values — and with good reason. A company’s values are like a blueprint that defines its approach to everything from building cutting-edge technology to solving tough problems and cultivating culture.
Continue reading to hear from local tech companies about their values, the business impact they make and what a commitment to “collaboration” and “encouraging big ideas” looks like in action.
Enervee’s mission is simple: The company’s software applications and services are designed to make it easier for consumers to make energy-smart purchases. But bringing that mission to life is complex and requires team members with a diverse set of skills and areas of expertise. When it comes to uniting everyone behind a common goal, Chief Growth Officer Alex Katzman said the company’s recipe for success features three key ingredients.
What are the values that drive your company culture? Why are those values so important to your business?
Enervee spans online shopping, energy efficiency, digital marketing and behavioral science, and our talented team has an equally diverse set of backgrounds and personalities. To keep everyone aligned while navigating the ups and downs of startup life is no small feat.
The Enervee recipe for success starts with collaboration. We listen without judging, lend a hand to teammates or partners in need and provide actionable feedback. Then there’s passion: being positively engaged on everything we do in our lives, both at work and at home. When that engagement is no longer there, then it’s time to change. Finally, there’s growth. We’re constantly pushing our boundaries as individuals and as a team. We reinvent ourselves as we scale.
We listen without judging, lend a hand to teammates or partners in need and provide actionable feedback.”
What are some steps you take to stay true to those values? Share some examples of what your values look like in action.
When you’re growing fast there’s a constant balance to maintain between innovation and quality. Challenges normally arise when there is miscommunication, both within our team and with external partners.
When we make mistakes, we schedule a team debrief to identify the causes and, most importantly, how to prevent them from happening again. Passions get ignited in these meetings as there’s usually a combination of customer, product and technical factors involved. It’s not a singular cause. We strive to avoid pointing fingers and passing blame by creating an environment that supports being transparent and collectively finding solutions that are meaningful and scalable for all involved.
OnPoint Global is a data-driven online publisher and service-based e-commerce provider. The company’s original content and large monthly readership enables it to gather consumer data at scale, which is then refined into useful insights. According to the OnPoint team, the company’s CEO plays a large role in ensuring the company is staying true to its values and culture.
What are the values that drive your company culture? Why are those values so important to your business?
Our company aims to build an environment where people can accomplish and achieve any and all of their goals. We do this through the following core behaviors. We focus on delivering consumer value, demonstrating candor and being honest about the facts. No disclaimers are allowed. We move with urgency here at OnPoint Global and are bold, think large and encourage big ideas.
When it comes to our products, we furiously test, learn and retool. We also hire right and develop the best, and our team insists on going beyond, both inside and outside the company. We’re focused on quantitative impact, taking ownership and being accountable. We insist on teamwork and collaboration — even when it comes to chores. No one is afraid to pick up and take out the garbage.
Our company aims to build an environment where people can accomplish and achieve any and all of their goals.”
What are some steps you take to stay true to those values? Share some examples of what your values look like in action.
Staying true to our company culture and behaviors starts with our leader and CEO, Burton Katz. He makes sure to lead by example, making these behaviors the main drivers of how he acts and operates. He also shares and promotes this with his direct team, ensuring that anyone who joins the team in a leadership capacity showcases these behaviors from the beginning.
We also ask managers and leaders to not only use big initiatives to promote and remind employees about the behaviors but also to look for simple and easy ways to do this during their day-to-day. This can include using the first 10 minutes of team meetings to talk about one of the behaviors and discuss how the team used it that week or will use it the following week. We ask employees to think about ways to showcase these behaviors in their roles and with others, and we look for ways to promote it at a more collective level through global communication.
