Customer.io

Customer.io is a messaging platform that allows marketers to take an idea and turn it into a powerful automated message campaign. The world never stops growing and changing, and neither should your data. Our powerful logic-based tools help you capture every edge case and connect to the real people in your audience. Built for flexibility, designed for usability, and affordable for everyone.

We are a remote-first company. The majority of our team works from their homes, while a few team members split their time between a home office and co-working spaces/shared offices. We have flexible working hours for everyone so that our team members can choose a schedule that works best for their lives, their health, and their families. We also encourage all team members to set their Slack and email notifications to match their typical working hours, and to turn off notifications when doing focused or heads-down work.

On a quarterly basis, our team works collectively to make improvements and iterations to our company vision and planning. We encourage all team members to weigh in on the decisions that impact everyone’s day-to-day work. 

Our internal communication and company culture rely on both asynchronous and synchronous work. When we resort to synchronous work, we make sure that all main stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute to planning and decision-making.

Last year we partnered with DEI consultants Paradigm to facilitate their Inclusive Workplace Culture workshop. Upcoming workshops for 2021 include Managing Unconscious Bias, Growth Mindset Culture, and Allyship. We've also had other external speakers talk to our team about the importance of empathy, and two speakers talked to us about mental health. Also, through our partnership with Paradigm, we are providing impactful diversity, equity, and inclusion e-learning so that our team has access to DEI training on demand.

Before we begin candidate interviews for open positions, we talk to hiring teams about unconscious bias and promote a structured interview process that values diversity, inclusion, and an equitable candidate experience. In addition to PFJ, we post all open positions to POCIT, BlackTechPipeline, Remote Woman, Diversify Tech, and Tech Ladies. We know our pipeline is still not reflective of the company we'd like to be, but we continue to prioritize recruiting as a priority where we can make the most impact.

We are a part of the TechForBlackFounders initiative to provide access to our product. (The purpose of TechForBlackFounders is to provide concrete, long-lasting support by coming together to make our software completely free to U.S.-based, early-stage startups led by Black founders.)

A small DEI internal committee meets weekly to discuss challenges and opportunities, and provide updates on our DEI initiatives. We've also been working with a DEI consultant for the past six months, to audit our policies and processes, develop a new diversity statement, and identify and implement new programs that will further our goal of being a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace.

We conduct regular engagement surveys that provide feedback on our DEIB efforts and helps us evaluate what we're doing well and what we can be doing better. This informs not only People Ops priorities but our company priorities, too.

We've held companywide "all the amis" meetings to have open and honest conversations around racism and bias. We've discussed what we as individuals and as a company should be doing to be better allies and mitigate systemic racism.

Last, we use Donut's Lifelab integration in Slack - Allyship - opt-in program. It's small group check-in where we can talk openly about how to be better allies, and how we can hold each other accountable.

We encourage all team members to take ownership of their careers, and support their development in numerous ways. 30/60/90 day plans are developed for each new team member before they start, and managers meet with their direct reports weekly via 1:1s to discuss longer-term career planning, performance feedback, and to discuss any obstacles or blockers to success. Customer.io encourages professional development by giving you $2,000 a year for courses, conferences, coaching, or workshops related to professional growth. The continuing education budget can also be used towards books, an e-learning subscription, or anything that will help our team members develop professionally.