Inside Scoop: How Great Place To Work® creates a high-trust culture with unique employee programs.
One of the coolest benefits that stood out to me when I started as an employee at Great Place To Work was the variety of committees we can join. People with out-of-the-box ideas lead the Fun Committee, they inspire us to engage with each other in different ways.
The People Posse committee helps us live, breathe, and work in alignment with our values every day. The Health and Wellness committee nudges us with guided meditation and weekly outdoor walks.
And finally, the Community Involvement Committee or CIC for short. This group find opportunities for our team to give back to the San Francisco Bay Area and communities across the world.
Charity matching campaign
In September 2019, the CIC began a month-long campaign for employees to gather donations of time and money for charities.Great Place To Work matches up to $1,000 in employee donations during September Match Month.
Our team members chose to support the people and causes they care about most. My colleague Carrissa runs a non-profit for survivors of human trafficking, The Adamo Group. Lorena from my team sponsors a young girl in New York City, and my desk mate, Tania volunteers four times a month to various organizations across the San Francisco Bay Area.
By the end of the month, we supported nearly 30 unique 501c3 non-profits across the country. They range from the National Center for Transgender Equality to the Latina Safehouse.
One colleague of mine, Pat, used September Match Month to bring attention to his combined love of video games and supporting children's hospitals. Pat had recently split from a very successful East Coast charity team to form his own team locally and Great Place To Work employees rallied around him.
The charity is Extra Life and it allows Pat and his charity team to broadcast their gameplay year-round to raise awareness. These efforts peaked in early November in the form of a 24 hour marathon Game Day. Great Place To Work’s matching campaign has become a vital part of Pat’s charitable efforts.
Doing work outside creates meaning inside
This isn't only a unique way to inspire staff to think about their impact outside of the office. It also lets people show how involved they are in their communities and tell a story about the plethora of organizations that they support.
Community work is a way for companies to reinforce their values and their greater purpose- and help employees connect to that purpose.
At the end of September, 14 Great Place To Work employees celebrated the conclusion of Match Month by spending the afternoon bagging produce at the Alameda County Foodbank. We met other volunteers there and they happened to be from Great Place To Work-Certified companies like Salesforce and Kaiser Permanente!
At the day’s end, we had bagged over 6,000 pounds of plums, 4,000 pounds of apples and provided fruit for families across the Bay Area.
At Great Place To Work we celebrate workplaces where employees feel like they can make an impact and that their work has special meaning. It's powerful to know that making an impact outside of the office can help forge new connections inside the office. It also creates meaning that extends far beyond the walls of our Oakland headquarters.
