There’s something truly unique about culture in the workplace. It is shaped by the people within an organization, but it is also reshaped by the services the people provide and how they go about doing this work. There is a bevy of words that get thrown around; collaboration, cohesion, communication, and openness to name a few. However, when leaders and teams try to introduce these terms through initiatives and goals, they quickly learn that these ideas aren’t always tangible. These concepts are experiences not to be written and spoken, but to be lived and felt through actions and connections.
At Schub, the culture is palpable. Our energy is kinetic. The smiles, joy, laughter, and familiarity are all too consuming to resist. This is true for newcomers, clients, and the legacy founders who have dedicated themselves to shaping Schub to be a home for all.
“Tranquility and humanity. Schub promotes a very friendly work environment where it doesn’t feel like we’re in a company but rather in a trust-based setting where we can work comfortably” - Abdias Peña Rodriguez.
Picture this, 30-something brilliant IT professionals scattered across the world all on one video conference call smiling, laughing, and supporting each other's ideas, identity, and opinions. It is striking, the sense of realness and unity hits hard and immediately sucks you in. There’s this sense of psychological welcoming, that allows all our unique quirks and personalities to stand together and be our authentic selves. These interactions aren’t limited to times when we are all together, the comfort and familiarity can be seen when it’s two people discussing a technical problem, exchanges over slack, and even when more challenging conversations occur.
Schub’s culture wasn't constructed overnight, nor did it occur by happenstance. From inception, the founders had set out to build an organization for the people within it, as well as the clients we serve. Jaded by antiquated and soulless organizational structure, they designed an organization that put People First, a core value later memorialized through strategic planning and embodied through every vector, action, and correspondence. We search for technical prowess in cloud, data, and security, but hire even more so for cultural fit. It comes as no surprise that our People First core value has breathed fresh life into Collaboration and how we Learn together – two additional core values we live. Any organization can write down words like collaboration and learning then champion them as values. But it is much harder to observe how these ideas are lived throughout every aspect of a business. At Schub, it is in the way that new team members learn rapidly through personalized coaching, balanced feedback, and human-centered encouragement. We know these observations aren’t simply momentary phases, because many of our team members quickly grow into leaders, technically autonomous engineers capable of tackling some of the most complex tasks, and coaches in their own right.
It also takes real intent, thoughtful, and creative ways to shape and maintain this culture. At Schub, we aren’t merely a team of coders, engineers, and programmers. As we’ve grown, we’ve made strategic hires and restructured roles to include non-technical coordinators and strategists that allow everyone to continue to maintain our robust culture as our work expands. We’ve even built a communication program to help solidify the final fastening pieces of a cohesive team. A program that helps maintain a spirit of open communication, that has become part of our DNA.
“More delegation and trust throughout the organization, which made people grow while removing load from overloaded people. We also started communicating better, enabling our team members to develop themselves.” - João Moura.
This is who we are, it is what we have, and it is why we are happy to call Schub our home. We communicate beyond work, carving out times to chat, vent, and play together. For sure we are a group of coworkers, but more accurately we are friends through empathy, honest and open feedback, and spending time together where we get to know each other outside the scope of work. Voices and opinions are heard, alternative perspectives welcomed, and the way we engage with one another, as well as our partnerships, is empowering.
“Communication programs were really effective for us in the way that we face clients, but also in the way that we communicate and listen to our teammates. That really created a better environment for all of us to be listened to and, at the same time, feeling freedom to speak and be corrected.” - Andres Dominguez.
Talk to anyone on our team and you’ll quickly see how our culture includes our partners. We simply don’t see clients as us and them, we are all together with the same business goals in mind. Our trust and openness are directly reflected in our work with our clients. Our friendliness, backed by technical mastery and a shared vision, allows for straightforward and easy communication that established a collective view. This is why we continue to retain all our partnerships throughout the life of their businesses. It's the relationships, the bonds, and the idea that you can rely on us to ‘get it’. Like everyone on our team, we lean into deeply understanding clients’ needs. This is how our culture became an immense asset for our clients, we understand who they are, where they want to go, and work openly to leverage technology to get you there. And this goes beyond technology, it is the whole process of business growth, everything, and we do mean everything, needs to be together - us and the clients.
“Teamwork...I believe that the key to our work team is that they promote the idea that clear and timely communication and collaborative work equals the quality and value we deliver to clients.” - Benildo Rodríguez.
Schub culture is made of the people, the processes, and a bit of magic. As coworkers become friends, new hires become mentors, and meetings become placeholders for joy and connection, we continually reaffirm our identity. As we grow, we never lose sight of who we are and what makes us special. Our growth and momentum have created this snowball effect in which we find fun in our work, collaborate effortlessly, and feel ease and comfort amongst our team members and partners. At Schub, the felt experience is that we all are welcomed, everyone is heard, and we are valued.
Credits
Writer: Peyton Craig
Editor: Luis Vinay
Illustrator: Dai Fiorenza