Bsquare
Bellevue, WA
Grade: A+
| Summary: Located in the center of this mouth-watering gastronomic Mecca, Bsquare blends start-up culture with public company transparency while providing experience in a fast-growing area, IoT. |
| Intro: In many ways, Bsquare offers the perfect balance between a high-tech startup and a larger, more established public company. Bsquare is small enough that it exhibits many of the characteristics job seekers look for in a startup: an entrepreneurial environment, broad equity sharing, a focus on cutting edge emerging markets like the Internet of Things (IoT), a casual work environment, and a high degree of collaboration. |
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Impact statements:
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Compensation:
Bsquare benchmarks compensation ranges for all positions in order to ensure competitive offerings. We target experienced individuals in most areas and, as a result, offer compensation packages that are generally at the high end of benchmarked ranges.
The three main factors that determine compensation levels for our team members are: level and uniqueness of skill set, the employee’s effectiveness of applying such skills in the workplace and ability to achieve results.
Bsquare takes a comprehensive view of compensation for purposes of talent management and determining pay for performance including merit and bonus opportunities.
Training opportunities:
Bsquare invests in employee skill empowerment by supporting on-the-job training and paying for technical, creative, managerial and leadership development courses.
Bsquare also employs an onsite certified professional in Learning and Performance to assist with internal development needs. Our in-house trainer and coach is certified in a multitude of leadership and employee development programs such Situational Leadership II, MBTI, DiSC, Strength Deployment Inventory, Leadership for Results, Interaction Management, Targeted Selection – Behavior-based Selection Systems, Career Development programs such as “It’s Your Career” and “Career Coaching,” and The Profilor.
Medical benefits:
Bsquare pays 100% of the employee premium for our PPO medical plan. Our medical plan covers 100% of all preventive care visits, has low annual deductibles and out of pocket limits and also offers a wellness program with $200.00 in reward incentives for following healthy life style options. With a focus on a healthy life we also sponsor an onsite Biometric Health Screening event every year. We encourage our employees to participate in free Online Health Assessments, Health and Wellness Coaching and the option of conducing Virtual Visits with a medical provider. For our new and expecting parents we offer ParentGuidance which is a program that offers new and expecting parents with multiple support options.
For employees who choose to participate in our Health Care Flexible Spending Account their account is awarded a positive balance of $150.00 per year when they sign up.
Our dental plan covers 100% of preventive maintenance care and our vision plan offers low co-pays and a discount on laser eye surgery.
We also offer every employee $50,000 in group term life insurance, short- and long-term disability coverage at no cost.
Importantly, with healthcare insurance premiums rising at an alarming rate, Bsquare in the most recent fiscal year absorbed all of those cost increases itself.
Special accommodations:
Once we identify top notch candidates for which we think there is a good match, both for them and for us, Bsquare goes the extra mile to accommodate the employee’s needs. In addition to attractive relocation packages, Bsquare supports individuals who prefer to commute on a weekly basis from out of state.
For local employees we also offer the flexibility to work from home when conditions warrant and set their own hours.
Community service/charitable causes:
Yes, Bsquare is extremely involved in our local community. We are a table sponsor at the Celebration of Youth fundraiser for Friends of Youth, we sponsor the Washington State Future City Competition, we sponsor NoHomelessKids.org, and we hold collection drives throughout the year for the YMCA and Friends of Youth.
Bsquare is an active participant in Friends of Youth and the March of Dimes, contributing money and employee time to help enrich underprivileged members of our community.
Measuring satisfaction:
Bsquare holds quarterly all employee meetings where employees are asked to share feedback related to their satisfaction and needs. We utilize our performance management processes such as goal setting, mid-year check-ins and end-of-year performance discussions to meet with employees and assess their overall satisfaction and determine their future needs.
Creative meeting places:
The spacious, multistory Bsquare foyer functions as a communal gathering space consisting of lounges and closed-off seating areas that feel more like a series of living spaces than an office space; comfortable television viewing areas; and a large rooftop patio that overlooks the Cascade mountain range featuring an assortment of Adirondack chairs and picnic tables. These areas make the entire Bsquare office complex feel less like an office and more like a common area at a resort. In addition to the actual workspace itself, it’s not uncommon for team meetings to be held at nearby Downtown Park which is an urban oasis of green spaces and trees just two blocks from Bsquare. Bsquare routinely leverages nearby Lake Washington for quarterly meetings where we rent boats and spend the afternoon discussing the previous quarter’s highlights.
Perks/Fun:
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Gym |
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Downtown Park |
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Fresh fruit |
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Free fruit juice |
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Monthly catered lunches |
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Located in “Mouth-watering gastronomic Mecca” |
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World-class shopping |
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Northwest-inspired coffee shops |
Collaboration tools:
With major employment centers in Europe, North America, and Asia, along with frequent work-from-home employees (see above!), Bsquare uses a number of collaboration tools in order to ensure productivity is maximized. These include Basecamp, Skype, Google Hangouts, Salesforce Chatter, and many others.
How corporate vision is communicated:
A core Bsquare belief is that with frequent, constant, and open communications throughout the company, a mutually shared corporate vision is permeated and constantly reinforced. By the way, we also feel that companies that periodically need to issue mission statements to their employees don’t communicate very effectively.
Empowering employees:
Bsquare places an emphasis on the best ideas floating to the top which fosters an atmosphere of inclusiveness and empowerment. Very little is decision by committee, from the tools we use to produce webinars and presentations down to the processes we use to make the best decisions.
As the User Experience (UX) team gathers to design the layout and wireframes for our new software product, team members from across the organization are invited to sit down and offer their impressions of what workflows they find most intuitive and help advise the UX team on the look and feel to truly inform a product designed and inspired by the whole organization. In designing videos for internal training, members from the data science team collaborate with the marketing team to produce videos leveraging one another’s skills and insights. Since data scientists are different than sales people, the process of letting ideas and presentations styles vary helps to engender genuine, appealing videos that are not only fun to make but are informative, original and, truly driven by the various personalities that help make Bsquare a fun, thriving work environment.
Longevity:
Many team members have been onboard for a decade like our Director of Products and key personnel on our sales team. Bsquare boasts many long tenured experts who cannot imagine working any place else.
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Closing company statements: It’s like this. EVERYONE wants to work for a startup but not everyone can personally accept the risk. Startups are fun, entrepreneurial, and dynamic. Startups have flat organizational structures so you can walk into the CEO’s office any time you want. And startups offer the potential to make serious money on your stock options. But startups are risky. Most startups fail and when they fail they simply close the doors and you walk away with nothing. And benefits at startups can be skimpy (forget about a matching 401k). Many people, young people with families for instance, can’t easily take on that level of risk. So they go to big companies. Big companies are less risky. They’re safer. But big companies are boring. They’re stodgy. Things move slowly, lots of meetings are required to make decisions, you could go your whole career without meeting the CEO. You’re basically a small cog in a very big machine. And forget about stock options and equity upside. Bsquare represents a unique blend of startup and big company. Despite the fact that we’re a profitable, public company with great benefits (yes, including a matching 401k) and operations on three continents, we’re also a small, nimble, and innovative company. We’re working on really cool things (like the Internet of Things!) and we’re having fun doing it. But best of all, equity is shared among all employees so we all have the potential to make money on stock appreciation. |
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