Revisiting our Core Company Values: What it Means to Be a “Robinaut”
Robin needed a core values refresh, and I couldn’t be happier with where we landed.
Following our Series B, we decided to revamp Robin's core company values. To be honest, I don’t remember what our values were before. I started at Robin as employee 64 less than a year ago. These days, we’re right around 90 people and quickly growing. There’s so much potential energy that comes from the second round of funding. It was actually the advice of one of our return investors that got us thinking about our culture as we continue to grow the Robin team. Those of us who were here before the accelerated growth are the stewards for all the next folks. We choose who to hire, what values to pass on and what we appreciate in one another.
Our VP of Marketing, Jackie, surveyed the people to get a sense of where we stood. She asked us to complete this sentence:
"The number one trait I value most in my co-workers is their _____. "
I’ll share my answer. It was something about being future-minded, forward-thinking and progressive. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Robin is very futuristic. The products we build are one step ahead of where most workplaces are today. When companies feel ready to optimize, Robin is there to upgrade their workplace.
Shortly after the survey, we also brought on our first ever Head of People, Elizabeth. She cleared her calendar for 15-minute meetings to learn what we admired most about our co-workers. What she found was that the thing people liked best about their peers was how unique everyone was. Everyone at Robin is their own distinct flavor of awesome. We’re all fascinated by each other and encourage each others’ vast uniqueness. That being said, we wanted to develop a group of shared values to continue to drive our special group of individuals forward as one.
This mix of qualitative data-gathering birthed our new & improved Robin Company Values:
1. Simplify: Simple is memorable. Simple takes work.
We need folks who have the intelligence to disentangle and clarify. To me, this value has everything to do with communication. Simple is about relating to each other and to our customers. Simple is about being accessible. Simple is about understanding feelings. Simple is about making sense.
2. Act: Learn enough to be deliberate, then follow through.
We are a company all about optimizing the workplace, and what would a workplace be without the work? At Robin, we know why we come to work and we're eager to get sh*t done. Robinauts have a preference for action. We like to be productive, but we love to be agile. Through doing, we get results from which we can learn and react to do better next time.
3. Help: Helpful people make helpful products.
This value should be number one. As an account executive at Robin, I know first-hand “helping” is woven into our organization’s sales style. Sales leaders here want you to be helpful. Our customers and their teams, the people who use our product, come to us because they’re looking for a solution to the ills within their office. We answer their questions, get them set up and pick a package that makes the most sense for them. One of the top reasons customers say they pick Robin is because of how easy our product is to use, along with its simple interface. That comes from the helpfulness of the folks who engineer Robin software. It's key to our culture and across teams you can always hear someone asking, “How can I help?”
4. Rally: Make it happen as a team.
Our business has everything to do with how people come together to make the modern office a better place. We know that more brains = more great ideas. More fingers = more code, emails and chats. More hearts = more passion. A large part of this value traces back to our local culture as a Boston-based company. Don’t quiz me on my sports knowledge, but we are a city where teamwork gets you gold medals, trophies and rings. Rallying is in our nature.
5. Celebrate: Recognize wins everywhere we see them.
We talk a ton about desks and rooms here at Robin. But do you know what the biggest room in the world is? The room for improvement! We know that we can always be better. Our true goal is progress, not perfection, and we see the perfection in the process. With this mindset, it’s easy to leap for joy with every little win. The little milestones along the way help to refine our growth and we always make sure to pause, celebrate and recognize individuals for their contributions to Robin’s success.
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What I love most about these core values is that they’re all verbs. Robin isn’t looking for specific character traits in our new hires. We’re looking for people who are willing to act and take big steps with us as we redefine what the future of workplace looks like -- all while staying true to our values, and more importantly, to themselves. As our Content Strategist, Danielle, says, “We spend most of our days at work. If I couldn’t be myself here, I’d go insane.” At Robin, we 100% want you to come as you are - for your own health and wellbeing, and for that of our business. In fact, last week we worked with The Darkest Horse to bring Diversity and Inclusion training to our entire workforce to emphasize the importance of protecting individuality in our professional lives.
Future teammates, we want you to be you and join us as we demonstrate our core values every single day: Keep things simple. Make things happen. Help, always help. Come together. And be proud of what we've achieved.
Interested in joining the Robinaut team?
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