The GroupRaise Culture

GroupRaise Culture: We build it every day
(Last Reviewed January 2024)

When meetings are online, we usually use cameras and show our faces.
Each team meets on their unique cadence and structures, but all are set with clear intentions.

On Tuesdays the whole company gathers where all teams present their status, ask questions and seek collaboration. Everyone is welcome at this meeting, even if not presenting.
We encourage meeting cross-functionally weekly/bi-weekly to seek collaborations and to minimize communication gaps that may arise from remote work.

We set quarterly OKR for company-wide/team/individual goals.
We consult with other teams that will be major stakeholders in our goals during the goal-setting process
Each team leaves “space” in their medium-term goal-setting to be able to support other teams in their respective goals
We review our goals & progress at the end of each quarter to celebrate successes and discuss room for improvement.
Each week starts with a set of priorities and we share them with our team members.
Each individual is responsible to draft their own goals based on their team goal & share progress with the rest of the team.

We share appreciation for work on the #thanks Slack channel, and share a notable personal news in #lifeupdates, so everyone can celebrate!
We create moments to get together as a team.

We meet up once every quarter for a fun social event. We decide who is hosting it next during our culture meeting, they will form a poll on Slack for times and come up with an activity. The crowdsourcing of ideas is encouraged.
When scheduling the next quarterly activity, try to schedule 3-4 weeks in advance to allow people to plan accordingly
All other social meetups are encouraged but not required/scheduled and they can happen spontaneously and initiated by anyone who brings up the suggestion.

We develop a schedule that fits your tasks ahead of time.
We go to a cafe or take alone-time if needed to be extra efficient. If you need to turn off notifications and be fully focused, say so on Slack.
Be on time for meetings, and communicate as soon as possible if you will be late. Even 2 minutes’ notice is better than showing up late without a message.
Have an agenda outline for every meeting: if the meeting does not require a full document, at minimum add a topic outline in the calendar invitation.
Be intentional about your time. Make exceptions for very good and specific reasons only.
Promote positive energy and trust. Positive reinforcements.
When answering any questions, we always explain why.

Slack: informal chat, team announcements, one to one
Trello: Ways to communicate pending tasks, develop a standard format to communicate tasks (title, deadline, participants, info)
Email: Ask non-urgent questions
Wiki: SPECs, long-term knowledge retention (make sure you move over info you may have somewhere else i.e. google doc)
Google docs: for meeting summaries and SPECs
WhatsApp: memes

Formal feedback meetings with leaders every 6 months, alternating between “feedback session” and “performance review”.

Feedback: goes both ways, what are you doing well + what are areas for improvement.
Performance: more formal, 1-way feedback to you on making KPIs, where we discuss potential raises.

If someone makes a mistake, always go over what we learned, and how to avoid one in the future.
Within a team, everyone has a 1-on-1’s with their team leader. The agenda is set by you, and can be about anything! It could be about work, something in your life, a hobby, it is up to you. It is not meant to be yet-another status update on projects, but you can use it for that if you would like.

Take a walk in the sun and be exposed to fresh air & nature.
If your meeting schedule (or time zone) requires you to start early and finish late, be sure to make room for your own time in between.
When stressed, speak out and ask for help. Offer support when you see someone is stressed, and be available when someone comes to you.
If you need to go get space to deal with a bad mood, call someone on the team, call your mom, whatever it is JUST DO IT!
We have a really flexible schedule, PTO and sick days for a reason. Use them and take care of yourself!

We work with wide ranging time zone differences from Canberra (GMT+10) to California (GMT-7), so a bit of flexibility is required sometimes
5-10 minutes of weekly life updates make us who we are as a team
We communicate our work hours especially if we are not in our usual time zone
We use slack to communicate if there is a sudden change in availability, within the day.
We host a culture meeting every semester to discuss how we are living it and aspirations as an organization.

Each team member will have $100 per quarter allotted to spend on any online/offline learning materials. This learning budget can be spent on anything related to your work at GroupRaise.

As you learn or come across resources, think about who else on your team or in the company, would benefit as well. Share your learnings, links to articles, names of books or podcasts. LINK
When you have an idea for a topic you’d like to share or discuss in the Learning Friday allotted hour, add a brief note to the #learningfridays channel
Learning Friday time is flexible–feel free to update based on who plans on attending
Learning Friday is an hour-long session where we share interesting and relevant topics with the team. There are 3 types of sessions:

Brainstorming Session: “I see a problem (or I have this challenge), what can we do?” to gather multiple perspectives from across the company.
Project Presentation (e.g. as Adri has done in the past for customer studies/surveys).
Product Feature Demos.

We don’t just sit and dwell on our problems when we run into them.
If something is going wrong, feel empowered to handle it yourself. Find a different way if you can!
Speak up when something is wrong.
We don’t play the blame game.
Don’t be offended when someone expects excellence from you and hold others accountable to their level of excellence.
Know and own your limitations, and work to be the best you!
Identify what problems can be solved by just you and which ones need help from a manager or peers.
Google and investigate your problem first before seeking additional help.
If you have an issue with a colleague, ask for feedback on the issue from another colleague to get a different perspective on the matter before trying to resolve the issue directly.

Wiki: Company Resources