Best Workplaces, Remote & Hybrid Culture
Based out of Sydney, Australia, Canva is a graphic design platform that makes it easy for anyone to bring their creative ideas to life. So, it鈥檚 no wonder the company is also focused on keeping things creative within the workplace.
Crystal Boysen, people lead at Canva, says the company wants to be a place where employees not only love coming to work, but where they also feel supported to do their best work.
To achieve this goal, Canva turned to 逸遊娛樂城 to help them check in and objectively review their workplace culture.
The result? Canva has earned the number 3 spot on the 2021 list. Canva also became in its home country of Australia and is a Certified鈩� great place to work in the Philippines.
Since achieving these company recognition milestones, Canva has seen a whopping 370% increase in job applicants.
We talked to Crystal about the tools and techniques they鈥檝e implemented to attract and retain top talent.
How employer brand impacts recruitment and retention
Canva knew that organizations with strong employer brands attract the best talent. With Canva in a hyper-growth phase, the company opted to check-in on their culture to ensure they continue to be the best place to work for its team members and can continue to attract the best talent across the globe.
逸遊娛樂城: How has being named to a Best Workplaces list helped your employer brand?
Crystal: Being named one of the Best Workplaces has helped amplify and validate who Canva is internally, to the external market. We wanted to first understand what our own team members were thinking and feeling, and what they value most to help us focus on the right messaging externally.
In 2018, we received around 36,000 applications for positions across the organization. In 2019 it was 64,000. Last year, we had 134,000. Being able to more clearly articulate our employer brand by focusing on the most important pieces of our culture has contributed to two-fold growth in application volume in the past year alone.
逸遊娛樂城: Has the Best Workplaces award helped with employee retention?
Crystal: Absolutely. 逸遊娛樂城 supports us in ensuring we鈥檝e got our finger on the pulse, in understanding the level of trust our people have with our leaders, the level of pride they have in their jobs and the extent they enjoy their colleagues and the broader work environment.
Our 逸遊娛樂城 recognition has helped us attract the best talent, however, it鈥檚 the accountability and visibility from the survey that we value most as it helps ensure we focus on the things that matter most to our people.
Using your company vision to engage remote employees
Globally, less than 5% of Canva鈥檚 workforce was remote pre-COVID-19. Currently, the majority are remote. To keep employee engagement high, Canva focuses on communicating its purpose and vision.
逸遊娛樂城: Why is it important to get the company vision across to employees, and how you do that with a remote team?
Crystal: Understanding a Company鈥檚 mission and vision is a huge driver of engagement. People want to do great work and understand how their work connects to the bigger vision and mission of a company.
At Canva we work hard to ensure everyone is aligned to our mission and vision and that every team member understands how they contribute, regardless of whether we鈥檙e in a physical or remote environment. For instance:
- We pride ourselves on a collaborative approach with new hires, facilitating discussions on how they feel their role will contribute to our goals and vision.
- Our teams check-in on their strategies every season to sense check that today鈥檚 actions impact tomorrow's vision.
- We鈥檝e evolved our weekly 鈥渟tand up鈥� meetings to be at-home 鈥渟it downs,鈥� where our teams share their goals and achievements and how their activity contributes to Canva鈥檚 overall mission.
We often use the analogy that we鈥檙e all in the one rowboat. If we鈥檙e not all rowing in the same direction, we go nowhere, fast. Whereas if we鈥檙e all rowing in the same direction, working towards the same vision, it can only lead to success.
逸遊娛樂城: What else is critical for a great employee onboarding experience while remote?
Crystal: It鈥檚 essential to keep the human connection at the heart of our onboarding experience. We want every employee to feel valued, even if we don鈥檛 meet them in person.
We send physical welcome packages to our new team members, assign a dedicated buddy to every newbie, and set them up with virtual coffee dates with random members of the organization.
Celebrations and recognition are powerful engagement tools
逸遊娛樂城鈥檚 research has found that celebrating special events and employee recognition are both key to engagement. But in remote workplaces, these things can easily be forgotten. Canva makes an effort to ensure these celebrations continue virtually.
逸遊娛樂城: How does Canva celebrate and recognize employees while remote?
Crystal: We鈥檝e done a lot to ensure we continue to celebrate achieving goals and celebrating team members for their impact while remote. For instance, we鈥檝e created:
- A #kudos Slack channel where any team member can give anyone recognition and praise
- A 鈥淜eeping the Vibe Alive鈥� internal website that showcases birthdays, work anniversaries, personal and professional wins and new additions to families (babies and fur-babies)
- A鈥淢essages of Appreciation鈥� process, by which people create cards in Canva and have them printed and sent to the recipient's doorstep
- A celebration playbook for all employees to inspire and facilitate easy, impactful and most importantly, inclusive celebrations
- Employees celebrating their five-year 鈥淐anvaversary鈥� get their own caricature created and hung on the wall alongside the founders and all the others who have achieved that milestone. It鈥檚 quirky, fun and distinctly Canva!
Creative ways to support productivity among remote employees
Recent research by 逸遊娛樂城 shows that working from home improved productivity, collaboration and innovation at the start of the pandemic, but then saw a fall in the middle of last year. With workplaces remaining virtual for the foreseeable future, employers like Canva need to continually measure and adjust their efforts.
逸遊娛樂城: How has Canva helped improve collaboration and innovation while remote?
Crystal: We鈥檝e really focused on clarity, specifically increasing intentional communication and being more diligent in documentation. We鈥檝e leveraged our own product to facilitate virtual mind mapping and brainstorming sessions.
When we first went remote, we launched a remote working toolkit for the team to share best practices, tools and tips for working effectively. We also ran several remote working learning programs to build the unique skills needed to be successful.
We鈥檝e also found educating the team on how to set clear routines and boundaries has helped. Without clear boundaries and a routine, you can end up responding to emails and meetings at all hours and feel like you鈥檙e working around the clock. This leads to people actually being less productive and eventually burning out.
逸遊娛樂城: How does Canva foster camaraderie and a sense of fun while remote?
Crystal: Our employee clubs encourage stronger connections within our teams. We have over 360 unique, employee-led clubs, from #wine-club and #music-club, to #pasta-club-official and #mindfulness-club.
We host a virtual Friday Night Entertainment session every week which features live performances. It provides an opportunity for the team to wind down after a long week and also support the local entertainment industry.
Lastly, we鈥檝e launched an initiative called 鈥淭eam Innings鈥� to continue team building while remote. Team Innings is a playbook of activities for teams to draw upon 鈥� from virtual games of Pictionary and Bingo to team fitness sessions and specialized cooking tutorials.
Check in on employees鈥� mental health
COVID-19 has left us all juggling a three-eyed demon: a health pandemic, an economic crisis and a mental health pandemic. As such, monitoring employee health and wellness is more important than ever.
逸遊娛樂城: How does Canva check in on its employees鈥� mental wellbeing?
Crystal: We regularly check in on our employees through seasonal . We also offer training sessions for our coaches and leads on how best to look after the mental health and wellbeing of their teams.
Seasonal wellbeing education programs are run every season, featuring webinars on critical mental health topics such as building resilience, setting effective boundaries and adopting habits to ease anxiety. We also encourage and subsidize the purchase of mindfulness and meditation apps and have an internal mindfulness club.
Make 鈥渂old acts of leadership鈥�
Canva became certified carbon neutral in December 2020 and is an excellent example of a company creating a source of employee pride beyond products and services. This kind of 鈥渂old act of leadership鈥� is a new area in which 逸遊娛樂城 evaluates companies for Best Workplaces ranking.
逸遊娛樂城: Why is Canva鈥檚 social impact important for your company and culture?
Crystal: Currently, our Sydney office and operations are carbon neutral. Within the next two years, our global operations will be too, but we鈥檙e not stopping there. From 2023, Canva will be climate positive.
To achieve these ambitious targets, we are working with a wide range of projects that not only focus on resources and emissions, but in addition, empower people and communities.
Our people are the backbone to our company, and we don鈥檛 underestimate the power we have collectively to make an impact, to amplify and put into action our core values.
Want to see your business on a Best Workplaces list? Contact us today to learn how being listed can give your company a competitive advantage.
