Diversity and Inclusion is Key for Top Growing Companies
How we achieved 3,677% Growth Over 3 Years
Last year FreshWorks Studio was #20 on the list of Canada’s Top Growing Companies from The Globe and Mail. This year we moved up to #15 with 3 year revenue growth of 3,677%.
What’s our secret?
We believe our key to this kind of growth was diversity and inclusion. 2020 was a year of incredible growth for FreshWorks in a number of ways.
Remote & Inclusive
Along with many other companies our team moved to be fully remote in March. This meant virtual meetings, virtual interviews, and getting more comfortable than ever with our remote collaboration tools While we’ve always had an inclusive workplace, becoming 100% remote friendly has made this more true than ever.
Resourceful & Diverse
Several times this year our client partners called on us for a rapid response project due to COVID-19. By helping unlock the power of open source code for digital government we were able to provide solutions to the governments of both BC and Alberta in a number of days or weeks.
5 years ago quick pivots like these would not have been possible for us. In that time our team has grown in diversity, and so has our ability to get creative and be resourceful.
Something else that helps? Through it all, everything we’ve done this year is well aligned with our mission:
2020 is NOT cancelled
This year is far from all bad. You might have discovered Zoom or other new ways to connect with people. Perhaps you started using a virtual care application because the doctor’s physical office was closed. You probably have better hand-washing habits.
At FreshWorks we assisted with COVID-19 response initiatives like BC’s Traveller Screening System, helped build an app to deliver digital health services to First Nations communities, and created a place for health care workers to find mental health support and resources.
Now more than ever, technology continues to transform our world. For us that has meant the work we’re able to do is helping real people in our communities. And that feels pretty good.
Growth = Change
The future has been bright at FreshWorks for a while. When I joined 3 years ago, the company already had 25 people and was outgrowing its roots as a tech startup. The client list was growing, and the projects we took on were quickly increasing in complexity.
That growth was very new though, and we’ve tripled our team size since then. Like any organization that has grown so much and so quickly, it was still a much different place than it is today.
As we’ve matured, exactly what that bright future looked like has evolved over time. But the mission — why we do it — has always been the same.
This is why it’s even more rewarding that for the second year in a row, FreshWorks Studio has made the cut in The Globe and Mail’s list of Canada’s Top Growing Companies.
And still growing…
Thanks to this growth we’ve also been able to continue hiring throughout this year’s pandemic. In the last year we created over 20 new jobs and still have 9 open roles for technology roles — software developers, delivery and product managers, and analysts — as well as operations roles like recruitment and marketing.
Diversity and Inclusion as Growth Drivers
Our company was founded by 2 people that immigrated to Canada in 2013. This is certainly a big part of why diversity has been baked into our culture. But the reason it is part of our foundation for success runs deeper than that. There are many places where diversity and inclusion are integrated into our practices and thinking.
HR Practices
Very early on our People Ops team started making considerable efforts to ensure everything we did eliminated the potential to prejudice candidates and team members.
Job postings were rewritten. We now follow guidelines to ensure they are as inviting and inclusive as possible for all genders, ages, and demographics.
Recruitment and hiring practices were optimized. Our multi-stage hiring process ensures candidates are evaluated by many people in FreshWorks. The entire recruitment and hiring cycle is highly democratized.
Performance evaluation methods are constantly updated. We have skills matrices that help us make more objective apples-to-apples evaluations. The skills and contributions of our team often span different roles and recognizing the value of that diversity is important.
A map with pictures of everyone and where they’re from has been up in the office kitchen for a few years now. This celebrates our diversity and is a testament to every effort we’ve made to achieve it.
Embrace Personalities & Preferences
Everyone takes a Myers-Briggs style personality test (16 Personalities) when they start at FreshWorks.
Not surprisingly, we have people that represent every different personality type and we celebrate that as well. There is an infographic up on our walls and we created custom desk tags for everyone as well.
When planning company trips or events we are meticulous with our considerations to be inclusive for people of different abilities, interests, and dietary preferences.
Culture and Experience
We intentionally seek talent from different parts of the world and from people with diverse backgrounds.
We’ve been able to bring in a number of talented people from outside the country through Canada’s Global Talent Stream which is a program that aims to increase diversity in the workplace. Today, our team collectively speaks 25 languages, and comes from 15 different countries.
We have people in the first 2 years of their career, people with 25+ years of experience, and everywhere in between. In 2018 we hired a 16 year old intern for the summer and set him up with a mentor who ended up learning as much as he taught.
Families
There are plenty of parents on the team who need to look after their kids. There are also kids on our team who need to look after their aging parents. Family needs will always be accommodated at FreshWorks in any we can. Because we want to retain people with different perspectives and that’s part of what it means to be inclusive — at least to us.
We are fortunate, because both of our co-founders have advocated for and endorsed diversity and inclusion initiatives at every opportunity. This has made every action feel very natural.
Diversity & Inclusion are not just buzzwords — I truly believe that once the concepts are fully embraced, an organization, a community and a society can reap benefits of having different perspectives. As an immigrant to this amazingly welcoming country I’ve learned quickly that by equipping our organization with different perspectives and combining the best of all the options, we can succeed at a tremendous pace.
– Sam Mod, CEO
One of our core values at FreshWorks is humility, and we know there will always be more to learn. If you have ideas for ways we can improve, please send them my way.
Last year we prepared our first diversity and inclusion report so that we can have a baseline to work from for improving. One of our established goals for this coming year is to build on our report and turn it into our first formal diversity and inclusion strategy.
This will then be integrated formally into our overall company strategy and objectives. With this plan 2021 is already looking like it will be another great year, and I’m excited to see where it takes us.
About FreshWorks: FreshWorks Studio specializes in designing and developing elegant and high-quality mobile and web apps for enterprises, non-profit organizations, and the public sector. Their team of analysts, consultants, designers, developers, and other technology professionals are headquartered in Victoria BC.
