Rackspace Email & Apps Blog

Trying to Become a Great Place To Work?

Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 10:33 am in Tips & Advice by Cameron Nouri

If your company isn’t putting employees in positions they are truly passionate about, having the occasional ‘fun’ event, won’t turn your company into a Great Place To Work. Spending time, money, and resources building a great corporate culture is so much more than happy hours, pie-your-manager days, and company outings.
Building a great culture is about having employees who are passionate about your customers, managers who care about your employees, and a company full of people who jump out of bed, run to work, and can’t wait to collaborate with others who, just like themselves, love what they do.
At Mailtrust, we focus on doing just that: putting people in roles they are passionate about. It begins with our Recruiting process. We seek out people who don’t just have the skills we need but who have the values, vision, and passion to succeed in the role we’ve created. It continues as we make decisions about re-adjusting, promoting, and changing roles in our organization. And at times, it means getting rid of a sour grape who is sucking the passion out of our passionate employees. Every move we make not only takes into account the strengths and career goals of the employees we currently have, but also ensures we’re clearing their path so they can achieve personal and professional greatness.
We foster that greatness with guidance. First, we ask what their career passions are and how we can fuel those passions here at Mailtrust. Second, we watch them. Paying attention to successes and struggles helps guide employees based on individual tolerance. Third, we offer direction with tools like Gallup’s Strengths Profile training to give employees a broader understanding of their talents. We also offer a wealth of learning resources through “Rackspace University”.
So, if you’re an organization that is trying to figure out how to truly become a Great Place To Work, forget about the ‘fun’ stuff for a second. First, make sure you’re clearing the way for your best employees to succeed. Find your most passionate employees and ask them what you can change to make their lives better. Their input might surprise you. Then you can add the ‘fun’ stuff.

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5 Responses to “Trying to Become a Great Place To Work?”

  1. Anne Clelland says:
    March 30, 2009 at 11:15 am

    Mailtrust’s leadership in developing a strengths-based corporate culture even influences my small start-up. I try to play to my own strengths and foster the strengths of those with whom I work. We’re all growing.

  2. Nic says:
    March 31, 2009 at 12:20 am

    Marisa, what on earth does this have to do with email?

  3. Cameron says:
    March 31, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    Hey Nic – We use our blog as a tool to communicate about our company. We really want to be seen as a partner and not just a vendor.
    So while most of our blog is going to be focused around our products, some of the topics will also be on what we have learned as a company who has gone from start-up to IPO and everything in between.
    I think though you provide good feedback and in the future we are looking at ways to help dissect this information so you can subscribe to the information you want. Look for that later this year.

  4. Carl says:
    April 6, 2009 at 7:09 pm

    Nic,
    It has everything to do with email. We’re changing the way people thing about email hosting.
    Happy, engaged and highly motivated employees = the best customer experience possible for our hosted email clients. When a company hosts email with us, they know what the deliverables of our service are, which is email service. Pretty boring, unless it’s broken. But what they may not realize is that the added benefit of having such a great culture is the beyond the extra-mile white-glove service everyone at every level -on every issue- is inspired to give them.
    Have you ever had a stellar service experience or dealt with a company that made you able to be more successful in your work than you might have been if you’d used another vendor?
    For you to be able to answer that question with a yes after signing on with us is what we strive to bring to the table with regard to email.
    “Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success – yours or his.” -Franklin P. Jones, Saturday Evening Post, November 29, 1953

  5. Bill H. says:
    April 28, 2009 at 11:11 am

    I’ve been a technology professional for quite a few years and am constantly amazed that so few management teams really understand what Marisa is talking about. I was fortunate enough to have an early mentor who “got it”…even though my direct manager at the time didn’t. I’ve also been fortunate enough to work for HP, because Bill and Dave “got it”. They created a company culture that was very radical at the time, especially in the technology sector, because of its focus on the employees of HP. Having fun at work is not substantial enough in and of itself to generate this kind of culture. It is rather a byproduct of a healthy environment because it is simply fun to realize your professional aspirations while being part of a team that delivers exceptional products and services. All this is not tangential to creating great products and delivering exceptional service…it is nearly essential. Sure, great products and services are created and delivered by companies that treat employees as “human capital”…and it is also possible to win the lottery. That is, if a business aspires to consistently deliver exceptional customer satisfaction, they have to create a culture that values and nourishes the soul of the business – its employees. I believe this so strongly that I’m currently interviewing for a position at Mailtrust. I hope it works out for both of us; because I think Mailtrust has a bright future and who doesn’t want to be part of a winning team?

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