Our ever-evolving company values (and how to create your own)

Company culture is not created by simply filling an office with ping pong tables and free food, offering yoga classes, and allowing dogs. These are perks, not culture.

Organizational culture is a reflection of behavior. And what guides a team's behavior? Shared team values.

Team values are the fundamental beliefs, philosophies and principles that guide your business. 

At The Remote Company, we worked hard to develop the strong values that bind our team. They help us find the right people to hire, improve collaboration and create a sense of “togetherness” within the company.

Today, we’re proud of our company’s culture, and we have our team values to thank for its success. As we evolve, so do our values. Read our story and learn how to craft your own company values that will grow with you too.

Why every company should have shared team values

Any company can benefit from sharing core values. At The Remote Company, we’ve written down our team values and the way we work. In fact, every new team member will sign under them, along with their job contract! It’s that important to us. 

These team values keep us all on the same page—especially as we’re a remote team spread across multiple time zones with multiple products!

Good team values help us strategically plan an effective work/life balance.

For example, if someone wants to work out at 1 PM, they do it. As long as they set a status on Slack telling us when they’ll be back, they can structure their day in a way that works best for them. We believe people are 10x more productive when they can work how they want, and we want our employees to take care of their wellbeing. 

The Remote Company’s core team values

So, without further ado, here are The Remote Company’s team values:

1. We focus on people: We all come from diverse backgrounds, and we let our company personality shine! At the end of the day, we’re dealing with people, and we want to add value to their lives and make them feel extra special. 

2. We’re passionate about our products: Every team member cares about our company and our products. We’re all on a mission to show the world what we can do. 

3. We communicate with purpose: Tools like Slack, Notion, Github, 15Five and internal newsletters help us to stay in sync. We believe in intentional, asynchronous communication. Our employees should be able to structure their days in a way that works best for them, so we don’t expect them to reply straight away. 

4. We’re ready to grow: Change is inevitable! But that’s OK, because we’re always ready to learn new things, make mistakes and experiment. It’s all part of the growth curve. 

5. We simplify: We want to provide straightforward, time-saving and intuitive solutions for complex tasks. Overcomplicating things is a big no-no for us. People are happiest when we accomplish our tasks in the simplest and fastest way. 

6. We care about long-term goals: We don’t invest in shortcuts—we do whatever it takes to add sustainable, long-lasting value to our projects. For example, our MailerLite team once spent over a year rewriting code to make it more scalable and bulletproof. 

7. We take responsibility: Everyone trusts each other to get their work done (no micromanaging here). But our freedom is tied to responsibility, and we take our roles seriously. We communicate before something turns into an issue, and we keep our customers informed every step of the way.

8. We’re positive: Positivity and good vibes are the best vibes! Positive thoughts will make us more motivated and productive. We celebrate our wins, give positive and constructive feedback, and spread joy wherever we can (we even have a Slack channel devoted to dad jokes, so that we can make each other smile)!

9. We treat people right: We treat people as we want to be treated, and show respect and empathy for everyone, regardless of their situation. No office politics, no gossiping, and definitely no insults or name-calling. Everyone is treated equally. 

10. We take care of ourselves: The overall success of our team is directly connected to each individual’s well-being. We do our best work when we feel good. That's why we strive for a great work-life balance at The Remote Company by encouraging self-care throughout the day. Whether that be through meditation, exercise, spending time with family or visiting a therapist. Work can wait an hour or two, especially when you come back refreshed and energized.

Do you identify with our values? If the answer is yes, you might be a great fit to join The Remote Company.

Take a look at our current job openings!

As our company grew, so did our core values

Company culture is not permanent, nor should it be. For example, when you have a small team, you expect everyone to be available to help you with multiple tasks. But when you grow, team members have their own specific roles.

This is exactly what happened at The Remote Company. 

We grew to the point where we needed to revise and change our workplace values, especially as we began to launch more and more products.

Storytime!

Our first product, MailerLite, focused on customer support for a long time. They even had a policy that once a month, every team member worked in customer support. At the time, it was a super fun idea and customers were constantly surprised. Depending on the day, you could have had a chat with the CEO, a designer or someone from marketing.

What changed?

With a bigger team, MailerLite struggled to prepare everyone to cover support. In the end, they realized that they preferred it when everyone focused on their specific jobs and attained excellence in those roles, rather than spreading themselves too thinly.

Now, developers improve the product while the support team talks with our customers. Support agents collect all customer requests and project managers decide how to implement them.

Today, they are very proud to say that their 24/7 customer support response time is under 10 minutes. MailerLite’s team is an industry leader in the customer satisfaction category among other email marketing companies.

MailerLite’s journey led us to review one of our old values: “Deliver WOW through customer support”. 

While this was still true, we realized we wanted to adapt it to “Focus on our current customers”. It showed how our dedication to our customers goes beyond customer support—it’s a company-wide mission that applies to all our products!

Fast-forward to today and we've evolved this value again. It's now: "We focus on people". We realized that it's not just our customers we focus on, our focus is in everything we do! We want to make our customers feel like our #1 priority, as well as the people we work with.

Developing new team values

In the last five years, we had some major challenges. Only in bad times do you get to know what matters the most. We’ve learned that issues can be solved much faster if you know about them as early as possible.

That’s why we added “Take responsibility” to our company values. Before there is a problem, we expect team members to communicate concerns. We also expect everyone to take responsibility for their actions. If there is a problem, we admit it and we fix it.

Business moves fast. Being able to adapt to new challenges and situations is essential.

It’s been said the only constant in life is change. Change is positive because it forces us to reflect on and reevaluate everything from our habits to interactions to goals.

Change is even better when it’s initiated. At The Remote Company, we are constantly figuring out ways to make our products better and implementing new approaches to make working together a more fruitful and enjoyable experience.

We recognized how important embracing change is, and added the team value “We’re ready to grow”, meaning we want the team to experiment and try new approaches. Sure, it means failures, but that’s the only way to move forward and initiate change. 

For example, as we launched other products like MailerCheck, MailerSend and Ycode, our marketing manager Indre started forming smaller marketing teams around each product. This was a big change in our approach! But everyone embraced the new structure, and it allowed the marketing team to adapt to a growing number of products. 

How to craft your own company values

A strong company culture isn’t built with “stuff”, but with different people from different places who all share a common set of values.

For us, our company values are paramount, but they are never set in stone. They are a compass for success and indicators of our culture that evolve with time, growth, and experience.

When you are defining your company culture, you need a strong set of values to keep you and your team on track (check out our values page to get inspired)! Before you get started, ask yourself these questions:

• What do I want my team culture to look like?

• What does my team need for them to be able to complete their tasks effectively?

• What practical steps do we need to take for all this to happen?

• What categories/values do these steps fall under?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you’re well on your way to defining your company values. But remember—change is inevitable! Be ready to let your workplace values grow and adapt along with your business. 

How to get your team excited about company values

It’s one thing to develop team values, but instilling them in the minds of your team members is what transforms them from nice words in a job description to a genuine part of an employee's positive experience at work.

Here are four ways you can get your team pumped about company values.

1. Introduce workplace values during the hiring process

Strong values help a lot when hiring new people because applicants know what to expect and understand how your team works towards a common goal.

Every new employee should be comfortable with the team values you have set. If someone isn’t able to align their values with yours, you know they’re not the right fit for your team.

For instance, at The Remote Company, we won’t work with a rockstar developer that doesn’t respect teamwork.

In return, new employees have a strong understanding of the work environment, workplace culture and how they can make a positive impact on the team.

It’s a win-win!

2. Include team values in a company handbook

Having your team values in your company handbook allows employees to reference them when in times of decision-making.

Just ask our Content Writer, Erin!

“I regularly go back and look at the company values while I’m working. It not only helps me to convey the company’s voice when writing, but serves as a reminder to work effectively. If I’m feeling off, our newest value “We take care of ourselves” reminds me that it’s okay to take a break and come back to it when I’m feeling better. In fact, I’ll be more productive.”

Displaying a list of values where the whole team can see them helps employees perform at the highest standards and do the right thing.

3. Involve your team when amending company values

Team values unite your company. If everyone is hired on the basis that, along with their skills and work ethic, their own values align with your organization’s values—then everyone should be consulted if you plan to change them.

If someone disagrees, you can brainstorm together and come to a uniform decision.

This allows everyone to stay united as the company grows and evolves.

4. Remind your team of the company values

Now, you don’t need to copy and paste your values to Slack every month. But you can find fun and creative ways to reinforce a shared understanding of your company values as a team.

During one of our virtual workations, the entire team made a video that embodied one of the 10 Remote Company values.

Here are a few of our favorites. →

The Remote Company values

More ways to get your team excited about important values in the workplace: 

• Ask employees to list their favorite value (and why) in a team meetup

• Have your team create something (a graphic, presentation, video, website) based on your presentation and perhaps even award the best one

• Recognize and reward positive examples of team members demonstrating company values

Good team values are at the core of every successful team

Personal values and beliefs may change over time, but your core values should remain strong and consistent. 

The bottom line is, if you stay loyal to your company core values, and keep your team excited about these ideals, your company will stand the test of time in an ever-changing marketplace. 

At The Remote Company, we constantly strive to adapt and embrace change, and our business is all the better because of it!

Do you have company values? Have you ever changed them and why? Please share in the comments!