A glowing review from Glassdoor reads “I envision myself working with Athena for more than a decade, honestly.” What do you attribute to your ability to keep employees happy and engaged at work?
At Athena, we attribute our success in maintaining high employee satisfaction and engagement to a people-centric approach. We prioritize the well-being, development, and satisfaction of our workforce by encouraging open and transparent communication, regularly recognizing our employees’ contributions, fostering feedback, and providing competitive compensation and benefits.
What are the challenges of facilitating a large, remote-first workplace?
Facilitating a large, remote-first workplace comes with its own set of challenges, which can include:
- Ensuring effective communication and collaboration: Overcoming time zone differences and language barriers while maintaining seamless communication and collaboration across different departments.
- Building team cohesion: Addressing feelings of loneliness and isolation, especially for new employees who may miss out on the daily interactions of a physical office.
- Monitoring employee productivity: Ensuring work gets done without micromanagement and finding the right balance between trust and accountability.
- Overcoming work disruptions: Dealing with potential disruptions caused by internet and power outages that can affect remote work.
These challenges are just a few among the many faced by organizations operating in a remote-first model. We have successfully navigated these challenges and continue to find solutions by leveraging effective leadership, technology solutions, well-defined policies, and a strong commitment to maintaining a positive work culture that supports remote employees.
Beth Villon
Senior Manager
Why are regular 1:1s important within your company culture? And how do you ensure employees engage in them?
With our strong commitment to maintaining a positive work culture that supports our employees, we put a lot of importance on 1:1 sessions. We believe that 1:1s provide an opportunity for managers and employees to discuss individual goals, challenges, and career development. This personalized attention can help employees feel valued and supported.
It’s an effective way for us to provide constructive feedback, recognize achievements, clarify expectations, set priorities, address issues and concerns, and ensure that employees understand their role in achieving organizational objectives.
We ensure that employees engage in 1:1 sessions by primarily holding managers accountable for conducting regular 1:1s with their team members. Our Data Team sends out a monthly report on the number of 1:1 sessions per manager. We make sure that our teams prioritize and promote 1:1 meetings as a valuable part of our company culture.
How do you promote a healthy culture of upward feedback at Athena?
Don’t be afraid to keep trying new things! Startups are constantly evolving as people come and go, meaning the culture today might be very different from what it was six months ago. Stay tuned in, embrace feedback, and keep trying new ideas. Not everything will work out, but you’ll always gain valuable insights and grow from the experience!
How else do you support managers at Athena?
Don’t be afraid to keep trying new things! Startups are constantly evolving as people come and go, meaning the culture today might be very different from what it was six months ago. Stay tuned in, embrace feedback, and keep trying new ideas. Not everything will work out, but you’ll always gain valuable insights and grow from the experience!
What are your favorite aspects of working with Small Improvements?
Don’t be afraid to keep trying new things! Startups are constantly evolving as people come and go, meaning the culture today might be very different from what it was six months ago. Stay tuned in, embrace feedback, and keep trying new ideas. Not everything will work out, but you’ll always gain valuable insights and grow from the experience!
How do you communicate the importance of 1:1s and upward feedback?
Instilling the importance of feedback, including the value of 1:1 meetings and upward feedback, requires a combination of communication, leadership, and cultural elements.
We make sure that we clearly communicate the purpose and benefits of feedback, 1:1 meetings, and upward feedback to all employees. We use company-wide meetings, emails, and other channels to explain how these practices contribute to personal and organizational growth.
Most importantly, we ensure that leaders and managers lead by example. When our employees see that our leaders actively seek and value feedback, it sets a powerful precedent.
Wilson Hung
Head of Growth
