Fridays
After a full week of hard work, we celebrate our wins and accomplishments from throughout the week and touch base with other employees and departments. There are several ways we do this on Fridays:
Optimist’s Insider
Our Operations Coordinator, Sara, sends out a company-wide internal weekly newsletter called Optimist’s Insider every Friday. This newsletter tells of any upcoming events such as workaversaries or birthdays, policy changes, or other company-wide information.
Most Value-able Optimist
This honored title is based on something this person worked on or accomplished in the previous week that aligns with our company values. This is one way we hustle hard and celebrate often! The Most Value-able Optimist receives a $50 GrubHub or D’livery gift card to buy themselves lunch on Friday.
Weekly Wins
These are announced in our all-hands Friday meeting to highlight the accomplishments of our team. We love to show off what the Optimists are capable of in just one week!
Monthly Magazine
On the last Friday of the month, Flynn presents any business updates, and Sara presents upcoming events in our all-hands meeting. All departments present any updates from their department as well as relevant industry news.
M.O.N.E.Y.
Every quarter, each department presents one innovative accomplishment they have reached over the previous three months. This innovative accomplishment will be their submission to the M.O.N.E.Y. (Maximizing Optimizations, Nurturing Exceptional Yields) Program. Flynn will poll employees to vote for the winning department. Employees in the winning department will be rewarded with $250 added to each of their next paychecks!
Optimovers
Optimists split into teams and compete to see which team can rack up the most miles walked (or ran) throughout each month. Winners are announced at the end of the month and receive some cool fitness-geared prizes!
Social Responsibility
At Online Optimism, we take a holistic approach to bettering our community. We motivate our team to engage with their communities though volunteering, donating, and forming relationships with local non-profits in order to amplify our impact on their work.
Volunteering
Our team engages in one volunteer activity every quarter. Some of the organizations we’ve volunteered with in the past include:
Book Club
Our book club, called On The Same Page, meets regularly to discuss our currently chosen book. We created this book club to help us build a shared vocabulary for discussing a variety of important social topics. We select our books from a wide diversity of writers and genres to gain a broader set of perspectives on issues that impact our world and organization today. Online Optimism provides books, e-books, or audiobooks to all participants.
Books we’ve read in the past include:
- So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo
- How to Be an Anti-Racist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
- The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
Discos
We use Disco on Slack to show our appreciation for each other and raise money for charities chosen individually by each Optimist. All Optimists can use a special Slack channel to share our thanks to anyone who has gone above and beyond to make work better. Each thank you corresponds to one of our company values.
We tally these shoutouts and, at the end of each Trimester, calculate how much will be given to each individual’s charity. Optimists may choose any US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit to give our donations to.
Celebrate Often
True to our value of Hustle Hard, Celebrate Often, we certainly love to celebrate! Birthdays, workaversaries, new client kickoffs, contract renewals, website launches, and more are all occasions for celebration at Online Optimism.
Birthdays
All Optimists can take a half-day off any day during our birthday weeks outside of our regular PTO. In addition, Optimists should expect to receive a delivered birthday treat if we work from home or enough treats for everyone to celebrate with us if we’re in the office.
Workaversaries
Each year on each Optimist’s first-day-of-work anniversary, we receive a gift to commemorate our time with Online Optimism. The fifth-year workaversary includes an additional 5 PTO days.
Some cool gifts from the past include:
- Online Optimism Coasters
- Top Shelf Liquor
- An Optimistic Backpack
Client Kickoffs
Every time a new client signs a contract with us, we make sure to celebrate with the Account Executive by having a gift delivered to them, personalized to their taste. These gifts could include anything from a fancy cocktail kit, an assortment of chocolate, a wine tasting set, swag from their favorite brewery, or a self-care package.
Contract Renewals + Website Launches
Our Account Executives receive a bottle of sparkling wine when we successfully renew a contract or launch a website or other design project.
Parties!
We celebrate events both big and small! For National French Fry Day, we blind tested french fries from several restaurants and ranked the best. Of course, we had to do the same for National Guacamole Day.
Larger events like our company’s birthday call for a cake, a toast, and fun! We celebrated Thanksgiving with a company-wide potluck and had a socially distanced Diwali this year with traditional snacks and activities.
Our largest celebration of the year is our annual OOies party. It’s a huge affair, filled with food, fun, and most importantly, OOie awards. Optimists work hard through the year in hopes of winning one of these prestigious awards to add to their collection from years past. Speeches are made as we look back at all our accomplishments from the past year and toast in our honor.