The word “acquisition” can spook many tech employees, who might associate the word with a difficult transition and new colleagues and managers to contend with.
Unless, like Service Manager Trusew Meaza, who experienced a similar situation with AIR Communities, you plan ahead and start gathering feedback early on.
“The main point we raised was the importance of building trust and respect between team members,” Meaza said. “The feedback was received in a great way. We had an honest and open discussion and leadership truly welcomed our ideas on how to improve communication in the future.”
The lesson that can be learned from Meaza’s experience is simple, and echoed by Belvedere Trading’s Director of R&D Jordan Kaye.
“Feedback is a gift,” Kaye said. “Negative feedback in particular can be difficult to receive, but receiving it well is critical to our continued collective improvement as a firm. On the other hand, positive feedback is important to foster well-being in our team members and to let people know when they’re doing a great job.”
Built In spoke with Kaye and Meaza to hear about times when open and honest feedback were welcomed — and what we can all learn from it.
AIR Communities is a real estate company focused on the ownership and management of apartments in the United States.
Tell us about a time when you were able to share feedback — either positive or negative — with your company. How was it received? Explain why you felt supported in sharing this feedback.
My building was being acquired by AIR Communities, and we spent about a month and a half working closely with the AIR team to prepare for the transition. During that time, we were still following previously determined protocols, which focused mostly on saving money and less on the resident experience. After AIR officially took over, we had a chance to share feedback during a management meeting. Both our existing team and members of the AIR transition team gave honest input about challenges during the transition and how we could be better. The main point we raised was the importance of building trust and respect between team members. We wanted people to take time to understand each other, not make assumptions. The feedback was received in a great way. We had an honest and open discussion and leadership truly welcomed our ideas on how to improve communication in the future. I continue to be in awe of how much care and time this company takes to ensure its teammates feel heard and are set up for success.
How did your employer take action on that feedback? What did this changes demonstrate to you as an employee?
Following that feedback, AIR created the AIR Bud Program, a one-on-one mentorship between new and existing team members to help build trust and share knowledge. They also set up new ways to give feedback — including a dedicated email and hotline — so everyone can speak up in a productive way. These changes made me feel seen and respected. I trust management and their vision. They don’t just say the right things — they take action. It’s a breath of fresh air.
How does employee feedback influence your company culture and how you feel about your workplace?
Today, I feel comfortable at work. I know I can reach out for support, even from the co-presidents, and people will be happy to help. The culture is respectful, kind, supportive — a peaceful place to work. My team feels like family. We have daily meetings and open discussions and it’s clear we’re all here to help one another succeed.
Belvedere Trading is a proprietary trading firm specializing in equity index options and other derivatives.
Tell us about a time when you were able to share feedback — either positive or negative — with your company. How was it received? Explain why you felt supported in sharing this feedback.
Founding Belvedere’s Boulder office was both an exciting and difficult project for me. One of the more difficult elements that I wasn’t expecting when we first started the effort was managing our onsite benefits for parity and equity across our physical locations. After we got the office up and running, it quickly became clear that trying to use identical benefits between the two offices wasn’t going to work out well, even though it had been our initial plan. Ensuring that our employees have access to first-class benefits is very important to Belvedere, so I was confident that management would be receptive to the idea that we were going to need to customize how we handle our benefits for each physical location that we support. Despite the complexity that was sure to be involved with making a large organizational change like this, management quickly agreed that we were going to have to make some changes after I presented them with the difficulties that we were facing outside of our Chicago flagship. They were eager to address the problems that we were experiencing as our first larger branch.
How did your employer take action on that feedback? What did these changes demonstrate to you as an employee?
One of the things that I’ve always loved about working at Belvedere is the level of autonomy and ownership that we’re given over our projects and responsibilities. Given this, I wasn’t surprised when the first thing that management asked me after agreeing that change was required was, “What do you think we should do to solve this problem?” I had worked closely with our facility manager in Boulder, Katie Cogan, to come up with some suggestions on how we could best manage benefits by location for Belvedere’s branch offices. We were able to present these ideas for feedback and quickly arrived at a set of solutions that worked well for everyone involved. Boulder was going to get the benefits that we needed in a manner that was fair and equitable to everyone at the firm. Changes like this demonstrate to me how much Belvedere cares about its people and our feedback. Situations like these are easy to gloss over, especially when most of the management team isn’t physically located close to the problem at hand, but that didn’t prevent us from taking quick action to improve the well-being of our team members in this instance.
How does employee feedback influence your company culture and how you feel about your workplace?
One of my core beliefs as a leader is “Feedback is a gift.” Negative feedback in particular can be difficult to receive, but receiving it well is critical to our continued collective improvement as a firm. On the other hand, positive feedback is important to foster well-being in our team members and to let people know when they’re doing a great job. Personally, I have always felt comfortable providing feedback of all kinds to anyone at the firm. The ability to help others by letting them know what they’re doing well and how they can improve is extremely important to me.
I’ve also been consistently impressed with the feedback that I receive from others within the firm, both on my teams and from others. Effective feedback can be difficult to give, especially when the stakes are high, but ultimately a healthy culture around constructive feedback is one of the most important elements of building high performing teams with the ability for continuous improvement.
