Apptentive’s Culture and the Inspiration for a New Value

Back in August of 2017, we realized that as a growing company, Apptentive needed to define our values. This wasn’t a process of picking values from a board and painting them on our walls. Instead, our team reflected on our daily behaviors and identified seven values by understanding how we show up together every day.

Our shared values support our vision, shape our culture, and guide the decisions we make and the people we hire and promote. They give us the foundation that aligns us toward our purpose and success, and are demonstrated by the actions of our team members and our leadership team.

A new value in 2021

Since values don’t really change, you might wonder what drove us to add another value.

Our recent value addition was inspired by our teammates and our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. Last August, the DEI committee discovered Apptentive had a gap in our values: we didn’t have one that reflected the behavior of us being an inclusive, equitable, and diverse workplace. With that in mind, we made an OKR for Q4 to develop a new value.

First, we identified behaviors we embody as a team:

• Empathic
• Open-minded
• Safe
• Respectful
• Inclusive
• Make space for each other
• Curious
• Validating

These results made us curious, so we surveyed the rest of the company and asked, “What three words describe our culture?” Below are our survey results in a word cloud. “Inclusive” was number one, followed closely by “transparent.” And since we already had the value Be Transparent, we knew that inclusivity would be our anchor for this new value.

So, what is our new value? Drumroll please…

Be Inclusive

“We hold ourselves and each other accountable in building a fair, safe, diverse, and inclusive culture of individuals that respect and care for each other so all team members have the support and opportunity to excel.”

Our new value has now been woven into all our people processes, as well as the design of new policies and a D&I statement that highlights our commitment to creating and upholding an inclusive environment where all team members are engaged and able to thrive, and where differences in outlook, perspective, and background are seen as adding value. Our inclusive policies apply to recruiting, hiring, promotion, training, compensation, benefits, team activities and our general work environment. As a team, we work to make everyone feel welcome and to increase the participation of underrepresented people in our company.

We have always been proud of our culture here at Apptentive, and it’s because of our people. The level of empathy and care our team members show to one another and others is an attribute we look for in the interview process, which helps us to hire people who will add to our culture.

When interviewing candidates, I am often asked to describe our culture. First, I tell them that culture is not kombucha on tap, or catered lunches, and it’s not chili cook-offs (which are fun things we did in the office). Culture is how we treat each other, how we work together, how we communicate, and how we understand what is important, which are all guided by our values. Quite simply, our culture is a symptom of living our values.

Then, I share with them that our interview process has a value alignment portion; that we onboard our new team members with our values; that twice a year we individually reflect on our alignment to our values during performance reviews; and that we use our values to assess our managers and each other in our 360 Peer Feedback process.
Ultimately, I know that these candidates are inquiring if they will “fit in” with our culture, so I elaborate and share examples of how we Be Inclusive, Succeed Together, Bring our Best Selves, Take Action, Celebrate Change, Own our Results, and of course, Deliver Customer Love!

Our culture shifts and evolves based on the people we hire. This is to say each person adds to our culture by living our values while adding a new dimension to our culture. We all have a hand in building our culture, so we’re building a culture we love, together.

If you share our values and our enthusiasm for our vision of “A Voice for Every Customer,” you belong at Apptentive! Join our team today.