One of the things that draws so many folks to PERQ is the culture. While I realize that my bias will be getting the best of me, and I realize that there are a ton of great companies out there with equally laid-back cultures, our organization truly is one of a kind.

While many organizations have ping-pong tables, scooters and even free snacks, PERQ possesses a level of employee engagement that, in my humble opinion, makes it a unique and fulfilling organization to work for.

From a cultural perspective, everything that made PERQ awesome in 2017 involved a general camaraderie amongst team members to achieve the same goals for the organization as well as for our local communities.

Additionally, everything awesome that happened in 2017 wasn’t handed to us, but earned through thoughtful, hard work and a deep commitment to living up to our core values. I dunno about you, but earning things as opposed to being handed them makes them far more valuable to me. It means that our hard work paid off.

That being said, let me run down the list of some of the AWESOME things (and activities) that made PERQ an amazing place to work in 2017:

The Game of PERQ

Every year, the incredibly talented Matt Sumpter (with the help of his lovely wife, Stephanie) whips up an incredible-looking “game board” on the main PERQ wall that towers over the collaboration area in our office. The board contains a total of 30 spaces, and every employee at PERQ gets the opportunity to earn spaces throughout the course of the year. How do employees earn spaces, you ask? By exemplifying each of PERQ’s core values: Customer Value Creation, Smart Growth, Commitment to Our Community, Culture of Innovation, and Game On.

If someone does something that exhibits any one of those core values (Example: A client success manager retains a client; this exemplifies “Customer Value Creation”), she or he could submit a “space” to the gamekeeper. Once it’s approved, that individual can move one space. Along the way, as an individual continues to earn spaces, they’ll get cool prizes: Starbucks gift cards, a free lunch, a PERQ water bottle, and so on.

But the pièce de résistance is when someone completes the board! When team members complete the board, not only do they get one day of paid time off (PTO), but they’re entered to win a three-day, four-night all-expense paid trip to anywhere of their choosing. How cool is that? And the more times you complete the board, the more entries you get for the grand prize.

While you can argue that the game board is a great way to incentivize employees to do great things, it serves as a constant reminder of what’s important to the PERQ culture.

Green Vs. Purple Challenges

Another thing that makes PERQ awesome are the “Green Vs. Purple” challenges. When you’re hired on at PERQ, you’re randomly assigned to a team — the Green team or the Purple team. Throughout the year, there will be a number of different competitions between the Green and Purple teams. For example: every July, there’s a competition to see which team can donate the most school supplies for the “Backpack Attack” initiative. Different school supplies are worth a varying number of points. Whoever has the most points at the end of the competition wins. If your team wins, everyone on the team earns a space on the game board.

Now, what makes the Green Vs. Purple challenges so great isn’t the incentive to “earn a space,” but rather, the sense of community and camaraderie that these challenges create among team members.

As PERQ continues to grow, it becomes increasingly difficult (for me, at least) to learn people’s names and titles. I might remember a newly hired account executive’s face, but because I don’t work with them regularly, I don’t know their name. Green Vs. Purple challenges give folks the opportunity to make new friends and forge important professional bonds. Our camaraderie is just one of many reasons why PERQ’s culture is so strong!

Soda Machine

At the end of Q1 2017, PERQ had a soda machine installed in the office break room (also known as the “Player’s Lounge”) — something that would only further exacerbate my Diet Coke addiction … but I digress!

Lots of great tech companies here in town have free snack and drink programs in their office as a perk. We have an awesome healthy snack stand, but we were lacking Diet Coke…I mean, a lot of us agreed that we wanted some tasty beverages to wash down the copious amount of granola we were consuming. Of course, soda machines are expensive to purchase, install and maintain. How could we justify getting a soda machine on a whim?

Well, I don’t know we necessarily could. But if we were doing well and we hit specific financial goals, it just might be in the cards. To reward every single person in the organization for helping reach our quarterly bookings and services gross profit (GP) goal, we had the means to purchase, install and maintain a soda machine. What’s particularly cool about this reward method is that it gives us employees full transparency into what our financials look like. We always know what’s going on. It’s something Scott Hill, Andy Medley and the rest of the executive team value dearly.

We’ve had it for about one year now and even though, at face value, it’s just a soda machine, it’s much more than that. It serves as a reminder to every person (a new hire or seasoned veteran) that if you work hard, live by PERQ’s core values (in the building) and do your very best, you can be rewarded for your efforts — especially if it’s a team effort.

Y’see, all the work that was put into hitting our quarterly bookings and services GP was achieved by every single department. If you get rid of even one department from the equation, none of that would have been possible. We didn’t just get the soda machine. We EARNED it. Oh, and remember that snack stand I mentioned earlier? We earned that a few years back too!

PERQ is a company that takes its core values seriously. Even though our office screams “playground,” and our casual dress screams “we’re chill,” everyone inside our building possesses an incomparable drive to succeed not only for themselves, but for others.

If you want to learn more about our core values, or learn how YOU can join the fun, check out our careers page right here! You can also reach out to PERQ’s Talent Acquisition Specialist, Michelle Watts at mwatts@PERQ.com.