I'm privileged to work here - Customer Success Spidergap Employee Review

I didn't think I'd ever be able to say with honesty that I LOVE working a 'desk job', but Spidergap has been transformative in the way I think about work. And life. My experience here has changed me for the better, professionally and personally. I wanted to avoid saying it's been 'life changing', but, ... well. Too late for that now. :P Some highlights: - The executive leadership team/founders are not only top-tier experts in their field(s), but are FAIR, honest, reliable, dependable, caring people. Talking with either of the founders leaves me feeling inspired. That isn't hyperbole. They invest a lot of time in their own personal development to maintain and update their knowledge of best practices on what they & we do, and it really shines through in any conversation. They’re fantastic leaders, truly passionate about their product, business, and their goals. It's infectious. I'm so glad to know them. - There's a commitment to doing things — all things — properly. If something doesn't feel right, we focus on fixing it to make it work better. Or we scrap it and start again, or replace it with something different, or whatever different solution you or the team might come up with. Nothing feels off-limits; they’re open to suggestions on everything and there's no fear of having said something that crosses the line (i.e. the "I'm the manager and what I say goes and must not be challenged on my ideas or I’ll get upset with you and give you a bad performance review" attitude that's all too common). Basically, ego isn’t part of the equation. Instead, the focus is on impact, and doing things right. You have a voice, and you will be listened to. I love this and have never experienced comparable diligence or thoroughness in working processes anywhere I've previously worked. No one here ever suggests cutting corners, or questionable or greedy or immoral practices, or doing anything that will cheat or deceive or negatively affect a customer even if it would create a Scrooge McDuck-style vault of money for us to swim and throw coins at each other in. Basically: everyone wants, and always tries to do the right thing. - As a counter-point to the DuckTales mention, it's important to note that the company is in fact successful, profitable, has realistic targets and a long-term plan that I've seen work (with tweaks along the way). The leadership team have gone to great efforts to apply their expertise and thinking on how they see the company’s goals and growth (again, fully open to suggestion for improvement), and the progress I've seen in just over a year I would characterize as a transition from 'awesome' to 'wicked' to 'amazing'. I don't know what comes above 'amazing', but I'm excited to find out. 'Incredible'? - You don't feel that knife-edge pressure that you'll get in an old-school sales role. Our targets (sales or otherwise) are self-imposed. There's baselines based on data we’ve got already, but they aren't set in stone and can adapt based on certain criteria like your location and hours worked, etc. If there's a problem meeting targets, we first root-cause why, and if we find that it's the target that’s the real problem, then it's the target gets reviewed and analyzed and optimized. We experiment to get where we need to be. If it’s a different factor meaning targets get missed, we address those instead, with all the support you need to do so. - The hiring process is thorough. It makes sure we have the right team. It seems like a no-brainer, but it surprised me: it’s thorough enough that I initially didn’t make it! Though I was a top runner for the role advertised, I wasn’t a first choice — but in the spirit of accepting fair feedback, when questioning and addressing some of the reasons my initial rejection reasons were given, I was instead invited to pass through to the next round of interview. As a result of this thorough process, we’e got a wicked team that gels naturally. I've felt no friction with anyone, I’ve always had productive, amazing experiences when doing any collaborative work with colleagues. I find them all to be genuine, kind people who want to make a difference and just do good work without the rigidity of the classic organizational setup. I've never once had that 'how did you even get this position!?' thought that may have crossed your mind in other workplaces when dealing with colleagues in positions of power who don't seem a good fit for their role or organization. - There's real, working focus on employee happiness, with benefits to support them. The paid holiday allowances are the most generous I've ever seen, the pension contributions are substantial, there’s a gym/fitness/wellness allowance, you’re bought equipment (i.e. laptop or whatever is needed for your role) on joining the company with no catches — it’s yours to keep. There's a performance-based annual profit share bonus scheme which is transparent. The company meet-ups are well-planned and tons of fun. And if anything's affecting how you feel in a negative way, you're encouraged to share so as to keep you in top shape mentally (even if that means changing the way the company does things — which might be met with a big sigh and seen as too much effort for too little reward in other organizations — but not the case here). This job and the support it provides has done wonders for me and for my mental health, and I finally feel valued at work with my accomplishments celebrated. - Mentorship from your manager/leaders is absolutely top-tier. I already mentioned the impressive depth and wealth of knowledge from the leadership team a little bit before, but when you’ve got an issue, their guidance to helping me find the route to a solution always leaves me satisfied and knowing what to do next. You are being looked after, properly, with all the shared concern for wellbeing you’d expect from a family business, combined with expert experience, coaching, advice, resources and planning you’d expect from a big corporate that HR really, really well. Obviously, Spidergap makes a 360º Feedback tool with a focus on personal development, so it’s natural to conclude here that personal development is another area that they absolutely nail. I've grown so much, and know here that I can grow so much more (so much ‘taller’?). - Practically every task or procedure has usable, working, intuitive process/checklist in place to make them as quick, painless and automated as possible to complete. If you're doing something for the first time and there isn’t a process already, you can document what you did and start making it a usable, painless process for the next time you or someone else does it! - The flexibility offered is amazing. Your working hours are proposed on joining, but can be moved around more or less as much as you want (notice more opportunities for customers on the other side of the world? You're free to suggest revising your hours to work a later shift some days or every day to serve them, if you like). Of course, working from home, you don't feel the pressure you'd get in an office of having to 'look busy'; the supervisor peering over your shoulder at your screen. So when you're feeling rubbish or a bit of stress and need to take 20 minutes to decompress, no one's judging you for it or muttering about how they work so you don’t have to. In fact, take that quick break, tell the team — they'll be glad to know that you're looking after yourself! - I’ve definitely missed more fantastic stuff they do (regular happy hour, random unexpected gifts from the company for exceptional work based on stuff they know you like, an actually fair policy for sick days, etc etc etc), but I’d be writing all afternoon if I went into any more detail.