Why this finalist deserves to win Best Tech Work Culture:
Work culture is often mistaken for shuffleboard tables, beer taps, and “unlimited vacation days,” especially in the world of tech start-ups. At Hometap, we understand that work culture goes far beyond perks to support a physically and mentally healthy work environment, office diversity, community outreach, personal growth, and transparent business goals. A healthy work culture starts at the top. Leadership must be committed to making culture a priority in order for it to stick. As our leader and CEO Jeff Glass puts it, “Culture is contagious.”
We have two core values central to how members of Hometap collaborate with each other, with external business partners, and with our customers. Those values are being a good neighbor and being an owner. Enforcing these values starts at the recruiting stage, ensuring any potential hires meet these criteria and believe in these values from the onset.
Being owners means you’ll never hear “that’s not my job,” around the office. We roll up our sleeves, we create solutions, and we execute with intention. As a start-up, taking ownership of projects is paramount to our success, and strengthens the comradery between and among teams. It also means every win and every loss is shared across the company.
Another important aspect of being good owners is that we’re self-starters, which eliminates the need for over-managing. Less asking and less permitting means more doing. One of the many upsides to this kind of work environment is the flexibility not often found in more structured settings in regard to remote work and working hours. Another is our pace of progress.
Our second core value of being good neighbors applies to how we work with each other, our customers, and our community. We collaborate with trust and respect. We’re accountable to each other and are motivated by one another’s success, and we communicate directly and constructively across teams and levels. The physical dynamic of our office makes this pretty easy. There is no corner office; if you walked end to end of our office at any given moment, you’d hear product managers and data analysts troubleshooting, marketing and sales brainstorming, and management soundboarding with IT.
We’re also committed to giving back, and our CEO, Jeff Glass’ philanthropic connections to our city give us plenty of opportunities to do so. As part of BUILD Boston’s board of advisors, Glass participated in the BUILDFEST Pitch Challenge in June, which provides a platform for teams of ninth grade entrepreneurs to showcase their business ideas in a “Shark Tank-style” competition.
In July, the entire Hometap team participated in the second annual Up & Out event in partnership with Heading Home Inc., which pairs volunteers with local homeless families who are moving into permanent housing. Our team helped furnish and decorate a family’s home with the help of other volunteers.
We also put a lot of thought into strengthening our internal community, as well. One of the many team building initiatives we partake in is called Hometap on Tap, a bi-weekly in-office social event that gives us the opportunity to sit down and have less structured conversations around what’s happening in and out of the office (while sampling some of our favorite local brews). This gives our team the opportunity to get to know each other better, especially those that collaborate less frequently at work.
We also host monthly Lunch-and-Learn events that give individual team members and/or teams the chance to share projects they’re working on or industry insights with the broader team over lunch. At our most recent event, for example, our data science team lead taught the company how the team researches appraisals and how this impacts our company as a whole.
One of the most important aspects of our culture, after attracting talent, is maintaining that talent—and that’s where culture beyond perks really comes into play. We believe in professional development, growth, and competitive benefits that keep our talented team happy and forever learning. Generous maternity and paternity leave, flexible time off, above-standard pay, and investing in learning opportunities are just some of the ways we’re able to do that.
For better or worse, culture is indeed contagious, and Hometap’s office environment showcases the power of a politics-free, hard-working core. Showing up, being conscientious and respecting the skills of each individual are behaviors that start at the top and trickle down. The end result is a fun, challenging, healthy office and an innovative product.
