People Love Month
February may be the shortest month of the year, but it is by no means the least eventful at HoneyBook. February 2024 in particular provided a unique opportunity to capitalize on a trifecta of events converging. One, we were hot off the tails of a very successful Product Love Month (you may know it as “January”), during which time we launched no fewer than 30 features focused on supporting every part of our members’ clientflows from capturing & qualifying new business leads, to maintaining relationships with their customers. Two, for better or worse (depending on your point of view), February has long been tied to the idea of love. Three, it’s a leap year, which means no matter what you’re commemorating this month, you get one extra day to celebrate it! If you think about it, not dubbing February People Love Month would have been an unforgivable miss on our part.
So what do we mean when we talk about this idea of “People Love”? What did that actually look like? Quite simply, it meant that although we want HoneyBookers to feel appreciated and loved throughout the year, we decided that February was a moment in time in which we were going to double down on that feeling. That meant announcing new perks, creating opportunities for people to come together, and enabling a culture of appreciation for one another.
It began with announcing a new benefit for our US-based employees: a company sponsored DashPass for all those nights when the only viable answer to the question: “should I cook or order takeout?” is, “order takeout”. People come first at HoneyBook, but let’s face it, food comes before everything.
That announcement was followed days later by an event designed to show our remote employee community some love: a virtual candle making class. Over the course of an hour, our remote employees learned about the history of candle making, shared laughs over melting wax, and walked away with not one, but two keepsake candles. More importantly, they formed new connections with one another and were reminded that one can still have fun on Zoom, even in 2024, and that being a remote employee doesn’t have to mean feeling like you’re on an island.
Mid month, we launched HoneyGrams, a take on the valentines many of us exchanged at school as kids. We replaced the romance with our values, and encouraged employees to share words of appreciation with one another. The program ran for a full week, overlapping with Valentine’s Day, and whether handed in person, or delivered digitally, the valentines were a great way to recognize the everyday efforts and impact we make in each other’s work lives and on the company overall.
The People Love didn’t stop there! As Valentine’s Day drew to an end, we hosted a People Love Month Happy Hour. This provided an opportunity for our hybrid (i.e. San Francisco Bay Area), team to come together and bond over mocktails, adult drinks, and appetizers. Complete with “speed dating” (think: get to know a fellow HoneyBooker), and mocktail mixology course, this event provided an opportunity for us to socialize with intention. We learned together, sipped (responsibly) together, formed new connections, and strengthened old ones.
Finally, and to culminate this month of People Love, we revealed yet another perk for our US team: a Togetherness Budget available to our remote employees who are co-located (i.e., they work out of the same geographic area, but work from home 100% of the time). This budget will enable our co-located remote HoneyBookers to explore ways of connecting with each other in person, even when they can’t be in the office. Whether they spend a day working together out of a co-working space, or decide to take a pottery course together, our hope is that these funds continue to foster connections and strengthen the relationship capital that makes HoneyBook, HoneyBook.
We hope you enjoyed learning about some of the initiatives we rolled out this month to show our people some love. How does your organization show you love? Let us know in the comments!
