5 People Outcomes for a Strong Company Culture

For some organizations, building a company culture used to be as simple as providing lunch and having ping-pong tables available for employees to blow off steam during a stressful day. In some cases, culture was epitomized by people’s proximity to leadership or willingness to put in long hours at the office. 

But here at Untapped, culture is so much more than that—mostly thanks to our Head of People, Savannah Barker, who has been the shepherd of our culture for the last year and has helped us seamlessly make the transition to a completely digital-first work environment.

In the current episode of our DEI podcast, Savannah chatted with host Tariq Meyers, our Co-CEO, about the following five outcomes we wanted for our people and our culture in order to move the company forward.

5 Outcomes We Want For Our Employees At Untapped

1. I Know Why I’m Here

Untapped is a mission-driven organization, so before employees even begin their first day on the job, we want them to know exactly what our mission is and why we do what we do.

“Every single person here at Untapped is here for a mission. That's it. You have to know why you're here,” said Savannah. “That's a non-negotiable for us through the hiring process, and I think I can say confidently that every single person here is here for that reason.”

2. I’m Proud to Be Here

This outcome piggybacks off the first because we want a culture where people not only understand what we do here, but they’re also proud to contribute to our mission.

“That's kind of going that extra step of taking pride in the company you're part of,” Savannah said. “You take pride in your team. You take pride in the work you're doing every day. I think this is really, really important and sometimes overlooked, but I think that's where you get that stickiness and that retention.”

3. I Have What I Need

As much as we want our employees to know what they’re doing here, we want them to have the tools they need to do it. This outcome embodies our dedication to ensuring that everyone here is empowered to do their job. 

“You have the tools. You have the onboarding. You have the learning and development to be able to be successful in your role because there's nothing worse than feeling like you haven't been set up for success,” said Savannah.

4. I Know What I Do

This outcome entails explicitly spelling out every individual’s role, so they know how they fit into our mission and why their position is an important piece of the puzzle.

“How is your performance measured and managed? How do we promote and reward people? How do we set goals and OKRs? This is really, really important to be able to articulate so folks understand what their role is in the business and how their work rolls up to the big picture in our company strategy,” Savannah said.

5. I Know What We Do

This outcome was developed to ensure everyone here is able to take a step back and understand what our products are, as well as who our customers are and what we do for them. 

“Sometimes when you're in the thick of it, you can find yourself getting away from the core problem a little bit, and you need that reminder that snaps you back into why we're doing this work,” said Savannah. “I think there are certain folks who have those conversations every single day, which is awesome, but really everyone across the business—whether they're in engineering or operations or people—having that proximity to what we do is so important.”

Celebrating Our Data-Brave Mindset

We have always advocated for a data-brave approach to hiring, which informs companies on exactly where they stand in terms of representation so they can make strides in hiring talent from underserved communities. And with that spirit guiding us, we recently released our own diversity report, where we take a deep dive into the representation within the Untapped team. We created a holistic picture of our talent from not only a racial and gender perspective, but also characteristics like neurodiversity and cultural background. We’re extremely proud of our report, and we hope that it raises the bar for diversity data—and ultimately helps organizations improve their workplaces.

“One of my mentors once told me that diversity attracts diversity. If someone comes and sees your Head of Engineering is a Black or Latino man, they think, ‘Okay, maybe I am welcome here. Maybe I can belong here.’ It's a lot harder to make that argument when you go and look at a leadership team and you don't see yourself reflected anywhere in there,” said Savannah. “It's not just, ‘Oh, we hired a few new people at the entry level who are kind of diversifying the team.’” 

To hear about the methodology of our new diversity report, as well as Savannah’s views on creating a strong company culture, equitable pay and benefits, and the future of work, listen to the latest episode of the “Untapped” podcast. 

‍