High Five for Five Times, C2 a Best and Brightest
By Hannah Svendor | Originally published at c2experience.com
Last week, for the fifth consecutive year, C2 was named one of West Michigan’s Best and Brightest Companies to Work For.
The Best and Brightest programs provide organizations with the opportunity to gain recognition, showcase their best practices and demonstrate why they are an ideal place for employees to work.
Amid a year unlike any other, C2 embraced a remote work model, doubled down on supporting our team and our clients, and sought opportunity amid the disruption. Throughout, we leaned heavily on our culture to help see us through.
Company culture keeps it all together
Culture, in our space, often gets associated with relaxed dress codes and beer in the fridge. But when we talk about big “C” culture, it transcends popcorn machines and arcade games.
Embracing our core values of intentionality, enthusiasm, and low ego helped us to trust one another and hold each other accountable. Keeping with our mission of enabling talented people to thrive provided the right focus and context for everything we did and the decisions that were made in 2020.
Embracing a “new normal”
In mid-March, like many other organizations, C2 fully embraced remote work. It has continued to prove a viable and attractive benefit to the team, with billable and utilization time exceeding those in the past, resulting in many team members preferring to work from home post-pandemic.
It wasn’t all business, though. Missing each other and in-office team interactions, we incorporated virtual happy hours, trivia, and even a virtual escape room helped us stay connected.
Taking care of each other
Early in 2020, C2 introduced a new Employee Assistance Program (EAP), offered at no expense to C2 employees, which offers confidential, around-the-clock services and resources related to mental health, substance abuse, finances, marital assistance, and other personal needs. Legal support was also added as an optional benefit plus revisions to accommodate extended flexible/remote work policies.
These extensions include the ability for full-time working parents with kids who have online learning situations to modify work hours. Additionally, giving full-time employees the option to reduce to part-time if needed, and ensure that healthcare coverage for themselves and their family is not negatively impacted.Beyond new benefits, we incorporated additional mental health days early in the pandemic as families adjusted to remote learning for children and increased stress and anxiety overall.
As a business, we set out to keep our team intact and have, so far, delivered on that goal. Since the beginning of the pandemic, C2 has not laid off an employee. In fact, we added seven new faces to our team (and successfully onboarded three 100% remotely)!
“Our teams were especially challenged this year during the pandemic,” says Katie Herrick, Support Services Director. “We’re extremely proud that this difficult situation did not diminish our ability to respond, but instead reinforced our abilities to pivot quickly and thoughtfully to meet the situation and support our clients as they navigate the digital challenges that many faced.”
The investment into building and upholding our culture, employee engagement, and team well-being resulted in C2, for the first time, being named a National Best and Brightest Company to Work For, and now, for the fifth time, as a West Michigan Best and Brightest Company to Work For.
Interested in working for a National and West Michigan Best and Brightest company? Check our current openings here.
[Grand Rapids skyline photograph by Exposure Triangle Photography] .
Hannah Svendor is a marketing associate for The C2 Group.
