Use Cases
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The past year has been nothing short of incredible for FastSpring.
Starting with the investment from Accel-KKR then expanding into a second office in Santa Barbara, opening a new office in Amsterdam, bringing on 30 new hires, and most recently, welcoming our new CEO David Nachman. And to add to this wave of exciting news, Fastspring is featured in this year’s Pacific Coast Business Times Central Coast Best Places to Work!
Since I joined FastSpring two years ago, I have been lucky to witness the extraordinary evolution of FastSpring, and it’s even more impressive when you consider how far we’ve come since 2005.
In the midst of all of these major transformations for the company, our focus has never shifted from the well-being of our employees. It goes beyond the typical snacks, La Croix, kegs, and dog-friendly offices—although all of those things do factor into employee satisfaction! It’s about looking at the way the company is evolving and how employees both contribute to the changes and are affected by them.
There’s no question that creating a consistent and successful culture at a high growth company is challenging. It is something our People and Culture team is constantly working on through a variety of initiatives. While it’s impossible to summarize everything we do in just one blog post, I would like to share three key ways we are putting employees first to build a company culture that scales alongside FastSpring.
1. Regularly gathering insights with employee surveys.
In an ideal world, I would love to have in-depth conversations with each and every employee on a regular basis to understand how they feel about the direction of the company, and their role in it. However, as FastSpring continues to grow it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the time for those valuable conversations with every employee. However, employee insights are extremely valuable for establishing a healthy company culture and cultivating it over time.
You must survey employees on a regular basis—at least twice a year. It’s easy to chalk surveys up to a one and done type of endeavor, however, it should be viewed similar to other business metrics. The key is to track engagement and feedback over time. We look at employee survey data on an ongoing basis to explore trends, see what’s working, and identify opportunities for improvement. This helps us focus our initiatives on the People and Culture team to provide the most impact for our employees.
2. Offering career development opportunities to encourage professional growth.
FastSpring is the better way to grow for software companies, but we also do our best to help employees grow in their careers. One way we support the professional growth of our employees is by offering and supporting career development opportunities. We encourage our employees to take business classes at the local community college and enroll in certificate programs online and through universities. We also offer reimbursement for education and professional development. We’ve helped several employees earn certifications covering a variety of areas including Leadership, Product Marketing, and HR.
We invest in developing our employees because it helps keep them engaged and happy. In fact, according to research from Udemy, 42% of employees say learning and development is the most important benefit when deciding where to work.
3. Hosting employee-led company events.
Company events are a great time for employees to get out of their day-to-day routine, connect with coworkers they normally don’t interact with and reinforce the company vision, mission, purpose, and values—it’s also a great opportunity to have some fun! Throughout the year we have company-wide events that we nicknamed “Springfest.” Each quarter we create a planning committee with representatives from each department to help plan the events. It’s great to combine all of the unique perspectives from each department and create an event that caters to everyone while supporting our company culture.
We hosted a lot of great events including bowling tournaments, scavenger hunts, fiestas, and a film festival!
These three tactics are just a part of the overall employee satisfaction strategy here at FastSpring. Our goals and initiatives will continue to evolve alongside the company to ensure our employees are successful and happy. I can’t wait to see what comes next for the FastSpring team!
By the way, we are hiring! Take a look at our open positions at www.fastspring.com/careers.
