A collaborative environment and a healthy work-life balance aren’t just “nice-to-haves” — they can have actual positive downstream effects for employees.
For example, VIZIO Director of Engineering Leif Norcott said the company’s focus on strategic and collaborative growth has allowed him to expand his knowledge base in order to build relevant and quality features for their customers. Additionally, employees at the company say a healthy work-life balance allows them to feel empowered in their roles.
VIZIO, along with five other fast-growing companies across Colorado — Hotel Engine, KPA, TruU, Freshworks and BillGO — are actively hiring. In addition to sharing what it’s like to work in highly collaborative environments, leaders at these companies share why they’ve stayed at their respective companies and what they’re excited to accomplish in the future.
What they do: Hotel Engine provides hotel booking solutions designed for business travel.
What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?
When I decided to join Hotel Engine, I was most excited about the opportunity to make an impact on a company with such momentum. We’re 100 percent committed to creating value and making lodging management as easy as possible for our customers. As we continue to innovate our hotel booking platform, I have an opportunity to make decisions that influence the direction of the platform to make it even better. I was thrilled to accept a job at a company where I know my voice is heard and my hard work is recognized.
I was thrilled to accept a job at a company where I know my voice is heard and my hard work is recognized.”
Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?
It’s a great time to be at Hotel Engine and I am super excited about our growth. Despite the global pandemic, Hotel Engine has managed to thrive and overcome all obstacles. We doubled our revenue and executive leadership team just in the last year. The company is also planning to double the size of many departments next year — including ours — with additional plans to expand our footprint to downtown headquarters.
As we continue to add to our team at an accelerated rate, I am looking forward to contributing to a company we can all be proud of — one where collaboration, customer obsession, bias for action and ownership lead to great results. I look forward to setting up resources for new developers to continue to make the onboarding process easier and to moving forward in a more unified direction across the entire department.
What they do: KPA provides environment, health and safety (EHS) and workforce compliance software and services to mid-sized businesses.
What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?
For me, the deciding factor in joining KPA was the chance to continue to build the company’s sales program and to grow and develop the team. Yes, working in sales is about increasing revenue, but it’s also about supporting people at the various stages of their careers and helping them become more successful sales professionals. I find that work motivating and, in my experience, doing so can help naturally improve sales.
The deciding factor in joining KPA was the chance to continue to build the company’s sales program and to grow and develop the team.”
Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?
I’m excited about a few things. Building on the 30-year foundation that KPA has in safety consulting and EHS software is incredibly exciting — particularly as businesses navigate COVID-19 and work to keep their employees healthy and safe.
The pandemic has put such a spotlight on safety so it is motivating to leverage KPA’s regulatory expertise to help automotive businesses navigate those issues and expand the conversation to several new markets. And as a sales leader, I’m excited to bring structure and support to KPA’s sales program. Bringing tools and training to sales reps will turn this company into a first-rate sales organization, and it will set the team up as better sellers and sales representatives, whether they stay at KPA or move on.
What they do: Machine learning company TruU provides businesses with security solutions to protect their data.
As a tenured employee, what has been the biggest reason you’ve stayed at your company?
I love working at TruU because everyone shares a common vision and drive to create an innovative product. Each employee brings their own unique knowledge and energy, pushing us to collaborate creatively and come up with truly amazing ideas. When we are in a (Zoom) room together we grow as a team and as individuals.
Each employee brings their own unique knowledge and energy, pushing us to collaborate creatively and come up with truly amazing ideas.”
Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?
I’m excited about the mission of changing the way we as employees experience work in a more frictionless, secure way, and how we are combining machine learning with mobile, desktop and cloud components to make that happen. On a personal side, I feel that at TruU we are a family and I have a voice. We value one another and we work together to make our dreams a reality!
What they do: Hardware company VIZIO designs and sells televisions and soundbars.
As a tenured employee, what has been the biggest reason you've stayed at your company?
I’ve been at VIZIO for four years and, in that time, the evolution of what we are building and how we keep our edge on the market has allowed me to grow while being able to build relevant and quality features for our customers. Allowing for our engineers to have the room to try new things, make mistakes, redefine practices organically and understand that calculated risks are core to innovation and better quality.
Also during that time, the focus on strategic and collaborative growth has kept the work-life balance healthy, while further empowering us with new ideas from external expertise as the new teams are brought onboard.
I love being able to work across the company on vertical, cross-platform team initiatives that mix common usages with brand new innovations.”
Looking to the future, what kind of work are you most excited to do in order to help the company reach its goals?
I love being able to work across the company on vertical, cross-platform team initiatives that mix common usages with brand new innovations coming from explorations in an integrated IoT household. Finding a way to leverage open initiatives from other major companies while working on pragmatic solutions allows for the best of both worlds and plenty of room to bring my own innovation to the table.
What they do: Using a proprietary SaaS solution, Freshworks provides customer engagement software in order to help teams acquire, close and retain customers.
What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?
In my experience, the question that typically arises is, “Should I stay or should I go?" Despite advice, guidance and a handful of sleepless nights, there are — in reality — many factors at play when making a change: monetary, geographic, relationships, products, services, culture, reputation, advancement opportunity — the list goes on. Obviously, we are all unique individuals and have disparate motivations for career movement so everyone’s list will vary.
The single most important personal factor for me is company culture.
Company culture is at the root of how we operate across all levels within the organization and extends through to our current and future customers. Our vision is to “enable businesses to create customers for life.” We seek to delight our customers so that they may utilize our products in turn to delight their customers. Beyond mere words, Freshworks culture is not simply talked about, but lived and breathed daily. As a result, the customers, employees, products and ultimately our performance all benefit.
Beyond mere words, Freshworks’ culture is not simply talked about, but lived and breathed daily.”
Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed or, more specifically, the work you’ll do to help your company get there?
First, the people which comprise both the current and future teams we will bring aboard. We employ and seek people who embody both purpose and passion and it’s amazing to see how everyone applies this to both their personal and professional lives. It’s incredible to see how this manifests in our team as Freshworks continues to grow across the globe.
Second, I am impressed to see that Freshworks is recognized both for its huge growth potential and its quality work environment. Recently, Freshworks was ranked No. 16 on “The Forbes Cloud 100” list of private companies. We were also ranked No. 22 by Battery Ventures/Glassdoor as a top company to work at during COVID-19.
In my role, I plan to focus on three main areas to advance Freshworks objectives. First, the opportunity to nurture, coach and ultimately grow the careers of current and future team members. Second, driving efficiency in our processes to make the lives of our people easier. And thirdly, ensuring the sales and marketing teams’ performances have powerful and efficient processes to make them as successful as possible.
What they do: BillGo lets users manage and pay any bill right from their phone as well as keeps track of due dates, supports bill splitting with other users and allows the use of debit, credit or specific accounts for payment.
Every day, I get to work alongside visionaries and technology experts that are truly the best in the industry.”
As a tenured employee, what has been the biggest reason you’ve stayed at your company so long?
There are many reasons why I have stayed at BillGO, but the biggest reason is easily the caliber of people I work with. Every day, I get to work alongside visionaries and technology experts that are truly the best in the industry. This means that every day I learn something new as BillGO challenges the status quo of how things have previously been done in the bill payment space.
