NewVoiceMedia
Baskingstoke, Hampshire, UK
Grade: A
|
Summary: “A fun, fast-paced company, which gives you big responsibility right from the start,” “The best place I have ever worked.” There is overwhelming evidence that this is an amazing work environment from turnover of 5%, great opportunities for travel, rapid growth, perks galore, work/life balance, charitable giving, advancement, training and benefits.
|
|
Intro: NewVoiceMedia is in the process of disrupting one of the biggest markets in the world – business telephony. Well-funded by cloud focused VC’s and led by a management team with more than a decade of cloud experience, we have a strong vision for the future and aggressive global growth plans. We also have a new brand identity that sends a fresh and crisp message to our customers, partners and employees. NewVoiceMedia is ideally positioned with a unique perspective on our market, where we will help brands to win in the age of the experience economy. Our products will connect digital experiences with live experiences in a set of elegantly connected emotive conversations. We know that hiring, developing and retaining talented and dedicated people is the best way to keep improving what we do. That’s why we keep innovating and improving our employee offering to make sure NewVoiceMedia remains one of the best companies to work for. Because we value our staff and understand they’re the drivers of strong growth and performance we:
|
|
Impact statements:
|
Advancement Opportunities:
- NewVoiceMedia Leadership Team internships
- Learning and Development Academy
- LinkedIn Learning
The NewVoiceMedia Leadership Team (NLT) is made up of executives and senior management that comprise the company’s structural leadership. NLT Internships are open to high-potential employees with an interest in leadership. The application process starts after performance reviews. NLT promotes building trust and empowering staff to simplify, remove road blocks and bottlenecks – enabling employees to focus on the right things that make the difference – to – teams and to NVM.
Additionally, we have our own internal Learning and Development Academy. It’s a cross-company, multi-level innovative initiative that delivers training and coaching for every employee. Staff can benefit from general training as well as training that’s tailored to their individual needs. The company continually looks for new ways of providing advancement for employees; offering staff LinkedIn Learning and various Lunchtime Learning opportunities.
We also encourage staff to keep looking outward to develop personally. If someone’s keen to take up an external course, we try to support them where that course brings benefits for the individual as well as for their work and contribution to NewVoiceMedia. In some cases, we can help with course fees and related costs.
Measuring satisfaction:
- Quarterly staff surveys
- Online collaboration tools
- We have state-of-the-art facilities
- We make space for relaxation and socializing (beanbags, de-stress rooms, games spaces)
- Team members have easy access to the executive team and CEO
We conduct staff Pulse surveys every quarter, with detailed questions on a wide range of employee satisfaction drivers, so that we really don’t know what’s working for our team members (and what’s not).
Our company’s ambitious growth targets and success also rely on the executive team, who are very visible to staff. They encourage team members to make comments, observations and suggestions at all times.
We also use online collaboration tools such as Salesforce Chatter, Slack and Atlassian HipChat to share ideas and monitor performance, changes in systems and also staff satisfaction.
We know that the physical environment makes a big difference to people’s everyday satisfaction, so we work hard to get it right. We’re always open to new ideas and suggestions from team members too.
Creative meeting places:
|
Ageas Bowl, Southampton |
|
Verbier, Switzerland |
|
Chewton Glen, UK |
|
AT&T Park in San Francisco |
|
Sydney, Melbourne and Perth |
|
Singapore |
|
Paris |
|
Copenhagen |
|
Poland |
|
Edinburgh |
NewVoiceMedia’s 2018 Sales kick-off was held at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton, followed by an awards gala/costume party at Grand Café.
Our London team has held meetings at the London Mathematical Society and Arsenal soccer stadium. And last July, the North American team hosted a conference at AT&T Park in San Francisco – Home of the SF Giants! But these are just the places we know formal meetings are held. On a day-to-day basis, team members find their own creative places to meet informally and share ideas and information.
Perks:
|
End-of-the-month lunches and quarterly team outings |
|
Free food and drinks in the office, and celebration of key holidays/festivities |
|
Every year, the company’s Peak Performers get a weeklong, all-expenses-paid holiday to Verbier, Switzerland, where they can enjoy a series of skiing or snowboarding lessons |
Fun:
|
Darts, table soccer, corn hole, ping pong, video games |
|
One-off fun events to celebrate achievements or attract new candidates |
|
Pie-in-the-face fundraising campaign |
We work hard to promote a fun and creative atmosphere across the company, where everyone is motivated to perform their best. Our CEO is very engaged with all team members. He takes time to get to know new people and have fun with them.
Our executive team is always sure to tell team members how much they and the company appreciate their hard work, and regularly celebrate special efforts or achievements. For instance, at the end of each Dreamforce (an annual weeklong conference that we sponsor), we organize a fun and relaxing party to thank everyone who has worked so hard to make the event a success.
Thanks to the atmosphere we create, fun is a daily feature of our workplace. There’s always a game of ping pong or darts going on, and the occasional game of corn hole.
This past holiday season, the North American team organized a pie-in-the-face fundraiser, in which employees could purchase opportunities to throw pies at colleagues, managers and executives, with the proceeds going to charities that support families and children. Our CEO even took a pie to the face!
How corporate vision is communicated:
- Through the induction process for new staff
- Through quarterly business reports, presented by our CEO
- Through the executive team being visible and easily accessible to team members
- At the annual Company Kick-Off (CKO) and Sales Kick-Off (SKO) events
The induction process for new starters includes a weeklong training boot camp in addition to online resources that explain what each team expects of its members and how they can contribute to the company’s overall growth and success.
Our CEO, Dennis Fois, also addresses everyone in the business on a quarterly basis, to summarize our progress from the last quarter, look to the coming quarter and relay any corporate updates.
The executive team is very visible and accessible to staff on a day-to-day basis. Putting the company culture into practice, they constantly encourage team members to meet their goals and objectives to support the corporate vision, and to be the best they can be.
Our annual CKO and SKO retreats provide staff with information about the product roadmap, marketing messaging and business strategy that is designed to empower our teams to meet the coming year’s goals.
Empowering employees:
- Monthly e-newsletter
- Salesforce Chatter
- Slack
- Atlassian HipChat
- Social media
- Traditional channels
- Announcements during CEO quartlery briefing
- Through surveys
- Through online collaboration tools
- Through regular discussions with HR
- Through having easy access to senior executives/HR
- Through the NLT Program
As we’re in such a fast-changing industry and environment, we use collaboration tools like Salesforce Chatter, Slack and Atlassian HipChat to update all team members about special recognition for the achievements of an individual team. We also use a range of social media as well as traditional channels for communicating success and recognition.
Our CEO also highlights top performers in the monthly e-newsletter as well as the company’s quarterly update briefing; after which, further details are circulated to all staff via email. These top performers will be in the running to win a place on the Verbier trip.
Self-organization allows team members to take on many of the functions traditionally performed by managers. The role of the manager is to ensure that these functions are being performed to the best of the team’s ability. Managers use the Career Planning framework to help their team members determine their long-term direction and thus the support they need to get there. This is reviewed at least monthly during regular one-to-ones.
At NewVoiceMedia, we pride ourselves on having an organizational culture that is very open and interactive. The executive teams are very visible on a day-to-day basis, encouraging team members to put forward comments, observations and suggestions at any time. As well as a full set of policies, the HR team spend much of their time talking to our staff, so they can understand any issues and problems and take quick action.
This culture encourages change. The rate of growth of the company also makes change easy, as processes need to be amended constantly. Our team members enjoy the challenges of being part of a successful business in a fast-changing industry.
We regularly hold ShipIt days, where team members are invited to share innovative ideas and problem-solve. They work out the detail and come up with solutions, testing them with other team members who they may not work closely with. If it works, we use it!
The NLT Program promotes building trust and empowering staff to simplify operations, and remove road blocks and bottlenecks, enabling employees to focus on the right things that make the difference – to teams and to NVM.
Ensuring well-being:
- By promoting a good work/life balance
- By offering free counseling to all team members
- By offering flexible working or home working to meet childcare or other family commitments
- By giving people regular opportunities to express their creativity or other family commitments
- By offering subsidized gym and golf club membership
- By organizing lots of fun social events
- By promoting an organizational culture that values its staff and their families
Dennis Fois, CEO, is an evangelical leader who has a passion for making NewVoiceMedia a world-class environment to work in. His engages easily with people at all levels, and truly believes the company is bigger than the sum of its parts.
We work hard to promote a good work/life balance, offering flexible working and home working when people need so they can meet important family and social commitments.
We encourage people to lead active and healthy lives, through subsidized gym and golf club membership, and a cycle-to-work scheme. We provide de-stress activities and spaces if things are beginning to get on top of people. We offer free counseling to any team member that needs extra support.
We regularly give team members the chance to contribute their creativity and ideas. ShipIt days help to engage all team members in finding solutions to problems in their team or elsewhere in the company.
Dennis and the NewVoiceMedia executive team has brought team members together for some fun social events to celebrate what they and the company have achieved. These have included:
- Company holiday parties
- Summer parties
- Trivia nights
- The world-famous Hampton Court Palace Flower Show
- A local Octoberfest event
|
Closing company statements: We are an organization with a purpose and ambition. We have a new strong brand identity that sends a fresh and crisp message to our People, Customers and Partners. We have new products coming out that will enable us to attract more Customers and make our Customers more successful in competing on Customer Experience. We have positioned ourselves to claim leadership in our market. In the next phase of our growth journey – “from start-up to scale-up” – we are simplifying and aligning ourselves around key priorities to ensure focus and success across the business. We win by working as one empowered team connecting the dots and dependencies across NVM, targeting the right customers that fit our product offering so that we can serve them for many years to come. We are NOT a copycat running to develop the same features as our competitors. We are ideally positioned with a unique perspective on our market where, with the contact center at the heart of the Customer experience, we will help brands to win the age of the experience economy. Our products will connect digital experiences with live experiences in a set of elegantly connected emotive conversations. Our employees are all empowered and accountable to do what it takes to drive towards that goal. As we scale, we will all share the success that this will create! We are always looking for qualified candidates with world-class talent and ambitions to help us achieve continually outstanding results. What better recommendation as to why the best people should join us than what our team members say:
Finally, the best people will always want to be part of a winning team. NewVoiceMedia has received numerous nominations and awards in recognition of its outstanding achievements in such a short space of time. These include the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in Europe, Stevie Awards, The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 and Forbes Cloud 100.
|
Back to the entire list of TMCnet 2016 Tech Culture Award winners.