SPOTLIGHTS
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So many ways! We shoutout often, and showcase everyone's work in a weekly company-wide "showcase" event. There are lots of little things, like everyone gets their own unique animal character crafted for them when they join which becomes part of their online presence in the company, and is featured on the gifts they receive after each year of service. But most importantly, we trust people to do their job the way they think is best. Across the company, people work in self-organizing crews who share often so that everyone can celebrate progress and achievements.
So many ways! We put a great deal of emphasis on psychological safety so that everyone feels comfortable giving and receiving feedback in all contexts. We specifically ask the team to be involved in creating a more inclusive environment. We think deliberately about we can be more inclusive for many different types of people, which has resulted in big things like our parental journey (which is open source) and smaller things like having a prayer room available. We work hard to make sure that the experience of working at Joyous is inclusive regardless of work location (headquarters, smaller offices, remote working etc). We use Joyous which improves belonging by providing a regular cadence of conversation around important topics. We believe we need to do more than just "shift the deck-chairs" so we put in effort to improve the opportunities available in tech e.g. "Pathways" (https://joyoushq.com/download-pathways) which is a book to help people from diverse backgrounds switch to a role in technology. We have clear objectives for diversity and pay equity, reported at board level, and we closely monitor how well we are doing both across the business and in each functional area.
A genuine meaningful purpose: to make life better for people at work. We're building a great place to work, as defined by the team. And we're a set of people committed to helping each other learn and develop faster than we could anywhere else. We have a comprehensive set of benefits that support and elevate wellbeing, that were all created and championed by the people who work here. We also have shared leadership in many departments (including co-CEOs), and most of the company works in full-stack roles. This means everyone has the opportunity to stretch across their functions, and to decide how they grow during their time here.
BREAKING THE MOULD. Being very deliberate about putting people first sometimes means we do things very differently at Joyous. Our people design and refine our culture. We experiment with different ways of working, and keep what works. For example we have built a magically different way for product and engineering teams to work together, as described in Joyfully. Another example is our full-stack engineering crews, and full-stack customer crews which enable people to stretch across functions and enables small teams to take full ownership of outcomes. But perhaps the best example is our shared leadership model. We have co-leadership at the functional level (engineering, product and customer) and in our CEO collective. Shared leadership has many benefits, including creating the opportunity to develop leaders faster, better decision-making, better resilience and better well-being. But it's not a trivial choice - shared leadership means you have to have fewer functions (otherwise you end up with too many leaders) so it affects how your business is structured. These are all examples of deliberate choices that break the mould to deliver better outcomes for our people.
