Nextiva
Scottsdale, AZ
Grade: A+
| Summary: Collaborative, amazing perks, really show care for workers, room for growth, great longevity, charitable, superior training and great two-way interaction between mangers who are called coaches and employees. |
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Intro: We believe that candidates are attracted to Nextiva because of our innovative culture, our amazing employee perks and benefits, and because of the growth opportunities we provide to our team members. Our culture truly is special. Nextiva believes that people make our company great, and so we work passionately to cultivate a culture of engagement. One way that we do this is though planning internal and external events at Nextiva. These events could be department appreciation days, movie days for the whole family where Nextiva hosts a private screening at a nearby theater, our annual flag football game, or our annual spirit day. Our team has a lot of vibrant energy, and these events really help drive our culture. When candidates look at Nextiva as a potential employer, they see that we value our culture and our employees in addition to our growth. All of these things make Nextiva an attractive employer to a potential candidate. |
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Impact statements:
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Compensation:
For Nextiva, the three main factors that determine compensation level for our team members is their level of experience, willingness to go the extra mile, and consistent representation of our commitment to providing the best customer experience in the industry, which we refer to as Amazing Service at Nextiva.
Yearly reviews are held as well, but we do not believe in limiting career advancements and compensation increases to a specific meeting. Hard work and effort are rewarded at Nextiva, and team members are encouraged to have an open dialogue with their manager about their career goals and advancement opportunities.
Advancement Opportunities:
At Nextiva, every department has a career advancement program that is focused on developing the skills and experience needed to move to the next phase of their chosen career path. One advancement program that has proved exceptionally successful is for our Tier 1 Technical Support. When someone begins their career at Nextiva in Technical Support, they build a strong technical knowledge foundation through our Apprentice program, which is recognized both on a state and national level. During this time, new technicians are guided through labs, live customer calls, and classroom lessons. At the end of this training program, they take a test that will help our coaches determine what areas that individual may still need to review, and it will also confirm that they are ready to take calls from the main customer support line on their own.
Once a technical representative is comfortable in their new role, they are encouraged to take additional training classes offered onsite, which give them an even deeper technical understanding of our products and services. These classes are intended to prepare an individual to take the test that will elevate this person from an Apprentice to Specialist. Then they have the option to take additional courses to advance to the Expert level. These courses provide team members with essential skills that not only make them successful at Nextiva, but in all areas of their life. The opportunities available to these team members is limitless, and they are encouraged to move along a path that aligns best with their interests and personal career goals.
Training opportunities:
In line with our Tier 1 Technical Support advancement program, we offer ongoing technical support classes so our technical representatives can gain more in-depth knowledge that will help them progress from the Apprentice level to the Specialist level, and then through the highest technical support level, which we call Expert. Classes are offered onsite, and are lead by a senior team member with vast technical knowledge. These classes are open to anyone, and if an individual desires, they can advance themselves through to the Expert level in one year at Nextiva. These classes are designed to give more to those who are looking to advance their careers.
We also hold ongoing product, internal systems, and sales related classes for our sales teams. These classes help them in their career path, and provide them the skills they need to become Sales Managers and Sales Engineers if that aligns with their goals.
We also have an extensive Wikipedia style internal website where team members can look up technical related questions and product information. This resource is always growing as our product offerings expand, and representatives find it very useful.
Finally, our managers, who we call coaches, are strongly encouraged to take one-to-one time with their team members every single day. These sessions are unique to each individual, as each person on our team has their own personal set of strengths and weaknesses. Coaches help identify areas on which a person may need additional training, and will then spend valuable, one-to-one time mentoring time with that team member. This not only strengthens a person’s skill set at Nextiva, but it also builds strong relationships and communication between our coaches and their team members.
Medical benefits:
Healthcare is a main concern for many of our team members, especially those with children, and Nextiva strives to provide the best coverage for team member’s that it can. As healthcare costs have skyrocketed in recent years, many employers have reduced their contribution to their employee’s health coverage. In contrast, Nextiva has increased its contribution every year in order to reduce the cost of health coverage for its team members. Nextiva offers medical, dental, vision, with company paid life insurance, short and long-term disability coverage, and an extensive wellness program to its team members.
Our wellness program is a cut above the rest with a full committee dedicated to our team members’ health and wellness. Each month our health coach from Wellness Council of Arizona comes in for individual sessions to assist team members in reaching their health goals, provides nutrition coaching, and tips that can easily be incorporated into their daily routine to improve overall mental and physical health. Additionally, we offer monthly in-office massages, an annual health fair, health screenings, blood drives, and other events that improve team member’s well being.
Special accommodations:
We devise generous and creative bonus structures for our team members that drive company success. We work as a team and provide everyone with the training materials and software needed to be successful and to become a top performer. We are committed to providing extensive training opportunities to help employees advance themselves and also provide value to Nextiva.
Our top performers, depending on their role within Nextiva, are offered the opportunity to attend off-site conferences to enhance their skills and propel their professional growth forward. This includes industry conferences and other focus areas. We allow for generous flexible work schedules and provide opportunities for travel as well.
We also have an extensive career path within our sales and operations departments where team members can grow from an entry level Account Executive or Technical Support Agent into any high level Operations or Sales leadership role by achieving goals, working hard and exhibiting a can-do attitude.
Community service/charitable causes:
Nextiva is dedicated to giving back to our local and national community through our corporate social responsibility program, Nextiva Cares.
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Cause |
Action |
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Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s new Pediatric Trauma Center |
In February 2016, we ran a social media campaign to raise awareness. In addition to increasing awareness, Nextiva used social media as an avenue to let others participate in Nextiva’s donation. Nextiva pledged $1 for every engagement the social media posts about the partnership received, and in total the company donated over $12,800. |
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ALS |
Our company also participates in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge every year to raise awareness and funds for ALS. Over the past two years, we’ve donated over $23,000 to the local Arizona chapter to help those in our community that suffer from the disease. |
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Mayo Clinic for Breast Cancer Awareness Month |
In 2015, Nextiva and The Gorny Foundation, our CEOs charity, donated over $25,000 to Mayo Clinic for breast cancer research and the new Mayo Medical School that will be opening in Phoenix in July 2017. |
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Families in need |
Our team donates turkeys every Thanksgiving. |
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Toys for Tots |
Collects toys in December. |
Measuring satisfaction:
We utilize a variety of ways to measure team member satisfaction, and we believe this begins with cultivating an open-door environment. At Nextiva, we want team members to share their feedback without fear. For example, managers, who we call ‘coaches’, schedule weekly time with their team members individually to discuss insights on the week’s successes and points for improvement. These meetings are kept casual and fluid to encourage a continuous exchange of ideas in both directions. Furthermore, our executive team always leaves their doors open so anyone can stop by, which further promotes a culture where our team feels confident that their feedback is valuable and heard.
Another unique exercise that Nextiva has organized is hosting town hall style meetings with our CEO, Tomas Gorny. The purpose of these town hall meetings is to encourage team members to bring any questions or comments to our CEO so that he may address these openly and publically. Team members are strongly encouraged to leave no questions unasked, even if questions include feedback for our CEO about how Nextiva can continue to improve.
Finally, directly asking team members for their honest feedback on different areas of our business and culture provides key insight for positive growth. We do this though anonymous surveying, which we thoroughly review. We find common themes in people’s feedback and then prioritize projects that will make the biggest impact at our company. We then earn our team member’s trust because they know that we listen to their feedback and make adjustments that will create a better environment for all.
Creative meeting places:
Internal and external team events are an essential part of our fun culture at Nextiva, and our aim is to continually excite and surprise our team members with every event. An annual event that is a highlight for all is the Amazing Bowl, our annual flag football tournament. It takes place every year following the Super Bowl, and there is a draft, team practices etc. People really look forward to it every year, and it gives our team a chance to participate in some friendly competition and bond outside of the office.
Another event that we added to our calendar this year was bringing the whole team and their families to a movie day. We have lots of Star Wars fans here at Nextiva, and we thought it would be a blast to rent out a couple of theaters on opening weekend this past December. This event turned out to be a huge success, and our team really appreciated that they were able to bring a family member and hang out with their coworkers. Due to its success, we will continue to host movie weekends for our team during the holidays in the years to come.
Perks:
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We offer free catered lunches every Friday |
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ice cream every other Wednesday |
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catered breakfast on Mondays |
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Beyond that we also have a snack cart that travels around the office periodically to provide refreshments or other items when the work week is especially busy or perhaps there is a cold going around the office. |
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We also offer perkspot to all employees so they may receive discounts on gym memberships, cell phone services, and other retail stores they frequently shop at. |
Fun:
We believe it is important to take time for play during the workday, and we encourage team members to take breaks, get fresh air, and reset. One unique way we do this is by hosting a Thursday morning and afternoon walking club. Our volunteer health committee leads a 15-minute outdoor walk around our office park, and anyone is welcome to join. We have received very positive feedback about this activity, and plan to continue this when weather allows.
Another way that we encourage a culture of fun is by hosting department appreciation days. We spotlight one department for the day, and really make a big deal out of the department’s contributions to our company. We host a raffle with great prizes, play games, create a special video, and provide massages to name a few activities.
Next, our sales department has a very fun tradition that was started a couple of years ago called 3pm Throwdown, and it takes place every Friday. At the end of the sales week at 3pm, our coaches will organize a 10-15 minute game, where any sales team member can participate. Games range from anything from wagon racing, to elastic band target shooting, to sack racing. This has been a great way to raise up the department’s energy at the end of the week and finish strong.
Finally, we also host a weekly internal news show, which we call NexTV, where the entire company participates in the different skits and news updates. NexTV is released every Friday over lunch, and it’s a great way to share company announcements and make people laugh. We include a variety of segments in each episode, and will even produce a SNL-skit style segment, with the single purpose of hoping to give our team something lighthearted to laugh about on Fridays. We haven’t missed creating a new episode since we began NexTV, and we have produced over 160 episodes!
Collaboration tools:
We use a few different communications channels to foster team member collaboration, and as a rapidly growing company, we rely on these to keep all team members up to date on our projects and goals. We use an internal CRM system that we refer to as the “Nextiva Customer Tracker” to collect all notes and interactions with our customers. This is used by all team members so that they can stay up to date on a customer’s activity in order to provide the best customer experience possible. This allows any team member to engage with a customer to resolve their issues, as well as communicate between departments and teams about a specific customer’s account.
Next, we would be lost without our internal instant messaging software. If someone needs help with something, or has a quick question, we encourage our team to use this messaging software rather than clog-up each other’s inboxes. We also use this software socially, and it’s great to be able to send a quick hello to someone that is possibly working off-site, or is across the building. Maintaining positive internal relationships helps foster collaboration.
Finally, we use a project management software product called Asana that we use to collaborate on larger projects, as well as everyday tasks. This allows us to track the progress of a project or task, provide feedback and receive notifications on any updates made. Further, individuals or supervisors can follow conversations within a project so they can quickly check up on where something stands without needing to call a formal meeting. Finally, this software keeps email free from multiple reply-all conversations, and ultimately helps an individual with project organization.
The physical environment in our office is designed to allow all team members to have adequate work space and privacy. We have recently expanded our office to accommodate our growing team. This new space is designed to encourage collaboration and increase productivity. Additionally, we now have a multi-purpose room that is used to hold town halls with our CEO, lunch and learns, hack-a-thons, and additional on-site training events to support our local community and business. The entire office features an open-floor concept for easy communication between team members and other departments. We are dedicated to the overall wellbeing of our team members and allowing creativity and professional growth whenever possible.
We believe providing a comfortable and unique environment will allow our team members to grow and succeed.
How corporate vision is communicated:
In addition to the monthly newsletter that our CEO, Tomas Gorny, authors himself, Nextiva holds quarterly strategic planning sessions and invites all levels of management to not only attend, but actively participate.
We believe communication is vital to the overall culture of our company. We also have our own internal news show, NexTV, that we host and show every Friday for all members of Nextiva so they can stay up to date on important information such as product launches, company growth, culture activities, new career opportunities, and some comedic relief courtesy of Saturday Night Live-style skits. We rotate hosts and guest speakers often to perpetuate a sense of inclusion and cohesion throughout the organization. Tomas often participates in this show so he can communicate with the entire company in a casual and authentic way. He often discusses where the company is headed and recognizes different departments and team members for their contribution to the company’s growth. NexTV is part of what makes Nextiva stand apart from other companies. It is one of the most unique ways we choose to share our company vision and values.
Empowering employees:
At Nextiva, team members are encouraged to effect change through our core values. We see ourselves as a very innovative and agile company, and therefore we greatly value team members who challenge us to always strive to do better. We make it known that we do not fear failing, but see it as an integral part of ultimately succeeding. With these core company values, we encourage team members to share ideas on ways we can improve our internal processes, products, communication, etc. All feedback is taken in to account and shared with the appropriate team. Everyone has a unique perspective and we have found that collaboration leads to advancements in all areas of the company. Finally, we promote an open door culture so that when a team member at any level in our business has a new idea to share, they are able to get face time with someone in our executive team.
Team recognition is a big part of our internal team culture, and we have a few main channels that we use to share this recognition. The first is through our internal community blog. The blog includes posts about internal promotions, photos from team events, and even a monthly birthday calendar so that you know who’s birthday it is in the office that week. This resource keeps people updated in real time with new posts added daily, and with a vastly growing company, the blog keeps people up-to-date on Nextiva news.
The second way people are recognized is through our ‘Kudos’ program. Customers often receive such fantastic customer service, which we call Amazing Service, and want to share this publically. Customers then head to our social media channels and share their positive experiences publically nearly every single day. Customers also send emails in about a team member, praising the customer service and experience they had, which are read by our management team. From these social media posts and emails, we choose our favorite kudos and post them on a huge board in the office. This way everyone, including the team member being recognized, can read about a job well done! It’s amazing walking past this corkboard in our office and seeing the rising stars in our company shine, as well as knowing our customers have had an excellent experience with Nextiva.
The final way that we recognize people here is through NexTV, our internal weekly news show. Each episode is about 6 -10 minutes long, and includes different segments to communicate the Nextiva news that week. One segment that we will always include is Department Discoveries where we interview a few people from one department to share more about what they do at Nextiva or how someone on their team really shined that week. The episodes are sent to every person in our company and it has become a wonderful Friday lunch tradition at Nextiva. Currently we have produced over 160 episodes and have not missed a Friday since creating our news show.
Teamwork:
We truly believe that we are stronger together and that people make Nextiva great. Our entire company participates in quarterly strategy sessions where each team determines the projects they want to focus on during the coming quarter to drive the business forward. Then each team asks other departments what they can do to help them achieve their goals for the upcoming quarter. This exercise has created genuine reciprocity, positive collaboration, and has helped us get the job done.
We also cultivate teamwork through one-to-one manager feedback sessions. These leaders are asked some basic but important questions about the current climate of their team’s moral, what support they need, and what their focus is on at the moment. This type of communication fosters collaboration and communication between departments. These feedback sessions help build information highways from one department to the next where other people’s insights, and unique perspectives are openly shared.
Ensuring well-being:
At Nextiva, we allow for flexible scheduling for the majority of our team members. For roles where specific hours are required, such as in sales and support positions, we offer morning and afternoon shifts specifically designed to accommodate families and other special needs. Nextiva’s hours are published within our employee handbook and on our website. For those roles that provide more flexibility in terms of location and hours, employees have flexibility with their schedule depending on their personal needs. At Nextiva what matters most is that the job is getting done, customers are receiving the best experience possible, and that we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the industry.
Depending on the position, team members have flexibility with their schedule, especially if they have a position that does not require direct customer interaction. Additionally, Nextiva offers a generous amount of vacation time of 15 days, 7 designated holidays, and an additional floating holiday that can be used at anytime. In total, team members can take advantage of 23 days of paid time off.
Nextiva actively promotes a healthy work/life balance in many ways. We offer team members the flexibility they need to accommodate appointments, family commitments, volunteer work, and other outside activities. We also host company activities that are all inclusive of family members such as our annual family picnic and flag football tournament we call The Amazing Bowl. We are a very family oriented company and depending on the position, team members are offered the flexibility to work from home.
The health and well-being of our team members are of the highest importance to us here at Nextiva, and we have several wellness programs to support our team in their health journeys. The first way that we do this is by bringing a qualified health coach on-site to Nextiva every month. Our health coach has been working with our company for over two years, and has been able to build personal relationships with the team through her coaching sessions. Coaching sessions are completely free for team members, and they are offered in slots of 15 minutes. This ensures that team members have the opportunity to get great advice and counseling on diet and exercise without leaving the office.
Next, we host an annual health fair on-site where vendors from all areas of the health and medical field offer free advice, free products and free screenings to our team for the day. These vendors include gyms, health products, chiropractic clinics, massage clinics, and more just to name a few categories. Our team members are able to have their biometrics tested, and we even bring mobile clinics on site for free breast and prostate cancer screenings. Finally, if the team member participated in the previous year’s health fair, they are able to compare their results from one year to the next with a health care professional who can point them to resources that may assist them on their health journey.
Lastly, we support our team through our insurance and health benefits. Our insurance is of very high quality, and we continue to invest more and more every year in to our insurance coverage program. Investing in our team’s well-being is extremely important to us at Nextiva. We believe that if our team is healthy and happy, they will perform better at work, reach their career goals and thrive.
Diversity:
Through our partnership with the Partnership for Youth Success (PAYS) program, we regularly attend diversity job fairs and have found great candidates for Nextiva. Through our relationship with AZ Best Companies we participate in diversity hiring events and seminars to help give back. We encourage applicants from diverse clubs through universities to apply. We also consider employing H1B candidates and assist with sponsorship. We focus on hiring the right candidate for the role, regardless of their background or educational level. One thing that makes Nextiva truly unique is that all individuals are celebrated, which is apparent when you walk around the office.
Currently Nextiva only hires full time employees. If a contracting situation were to arise we would make the hiring determination based on skill level of the candidate and contractor’s ability to complete projects within our designated time line.
Longevity:
Our leadership has been with Nextiva from the very beginning and many of the members of our management began in entry level positions and have moved in to leadership roles because of their hard work, dedication to the company goals and positive attitude. We consistently encourage and promote the growth of our employees. Additionally, many of our engineers have been with Nextiva since the beginning, and we have had very few members of this department leave the organization.
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Closing company statements: At Nextiva, we often look at whether or not someone is a ‘culture’ fit in addition to reviewing their technical qualifications or relevant experience. If we interviewed someone that was qualified based off of their resume, we also want to make sure that they share our core values. Nextiva’s culture is very much ‘work hard, play hard’, and while this may sound cliché, it really is how we are successful at Nextiva. We expect our team to give their all in the day-to-day, and that hard work should be rewarded. This is why we are always planning internal and external events, as well as holding department appreciation days. A can-do attitude is essential to succeeding at Nextiva, and we are always looking for people who take responsibility for their own success with the training, support and the resources that we provide for them. And finally, we look for candidates who believe in our principle of Amazing Service. This principle is about more than just delivering great customer service; it extends to the way we treat each other and the way we approach our projects and tasks. In short, whether it is our customers or a fellow team member, we believe we should always treat others the way we would like to be treated ourselves. |
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