Every year the Cincinnati Business Courier releases their list of winners for the Best Places to Work awards, an annual program that recognizes companies and organizations for their outstanding workforce engagement. Callibrity has been a Best Places to Work finalist for 5 years in a row. Now we are happy to announce that Callibrity is a Cincinnati Best Places to Work 2020 winner!
To determine the awards, companies were divided into five categories by size, and finalists were ranked by employee-satisfaction scores in a range of areas. The winners received the highest score in each size category among first-time participants, veteran participants, and past winners. Callibrity has won the veteran participant award in the category of 50-99 employees. When Callibrity was announced as a finalist, we were asked a few questions about what makes us such a great place to work. Here are our responses to their questions:
Q. What are the two most important factors in creating a great work environment?
A. The first important factor is creating a fun culture within the company. We embrace a fun environment both in and out of the office. The second important factor is our focus on continued learning and education. We offer books, training sessions, weekly lunch ’n learns, and opportunities to attend conferences to ensure that everyone is always honing their craft. Each employee is also given a yearly training stipend to spend on learning opportunities such as these.
Q. How are you promoting diversity and inclusion?
A. We create and nurture a culture of inclusiveness by putting value on each individual’s voice and ideas regardless of their background. Understanding that our employees often represent us at clients, we hire those individuals that will demonstrate the same open-mindedness that our leadership brings each and every day. Our workforce diversity provides fresh perspectives and approaches to the complex problems we help our clients solve. We also sponsor monthly tech meetups and conferences: Agile Cincinnati, CinJUG (Cincinnati Java User Group), Domain Driven Design, and WITcon (Women In Technology Conference) to name a few. These meetups are free for anyone to attend. Our goal for sponsoring is that those who are historically underrepresented in the tech industry will be inspired by a tech talk and gain access to the knowledge and skills they need to pursue a career in this exciting field.
Q. How has the Covid-19 crisis affected your workplace?
A. We have managed to stay strong during the pandemic and are currently on track for a great year. We have transitioned to working fully remote and staying in touch with virtual meetings and our multiple channels of communication. Transparency and communication have been key. We have onboarded 11 new employees since the beginning of the pandemic in February.
Q. What has been your most effective method for keeping your employees engaged?
A. We keep employees engaged through our fun culture, continued education, and opportunities to grow and develop their careers. We are also continuing to add new clients with critical projects to be done that our employees will find gratifying. For example, one of our clients during the Covid-19 pandemic developed and brought to market four different digital tools that are used nationally to increase access to Covid-19 testing and health care services. All of the work was discovered, scoped, and delivered in three months.
Q. Have you introduced any new benefits or programs to support your workers during the pandemic?
A. When quarantine began and our employees started working from home full time, we sent everyone a bonus to upgrade their equipment and home office setup to make it a comfortable and more productive work environment. We have hosted virtual team events where all of our employees are able to socialize from behind the screen while we enjoy conversation and fun activities such as bingo, trivia, and a virtual cooking class.
Check out our gallery to learn even more about what makes Callibrity such a great place to work!
