At Joyn, we’re immensely proud of our corporate culture and the effort that we put into fostering a strong sense of community and connection among our team. We’ve always believed that a strong culture is the key toward helping everyone drive toward the same goal—success—while helping each other achieve their highest potential. If we’re going to change the insurance experience, that’s exactly what we need.
Of course, as has been well documented, fully virtual companies have to put in a much higher level of effort to create those strong and positive connections between team members. And at Joyn, our regular retreats and on-site opportunities have played an important role in our efforts to build culture over our first three years.
During our first year, our annual retreat came in the form of a barbeque at one of our team member’s homes. This was a purely social activity with no work agenda, but it was a great opportunity to get together and mingle outside of the video boxes we were used to seeing each other on.
In our second year, we brought everyone to New York City for a jam-packed day of process review and team building, followed by a team dinner (we wrote about it last year). Again, it gave us an opportunity to bond through icebreaker games, puzzle contests, and a scavenger hunt through the financial district that was fun for those who knew their way around the NYC blocks and those who were visiting for the first time.
This year, we continued to build on our in-person experience with a three-day retreat in the Catskill Mountains, renting a large and beautiful estate nestled along the valley of the Upper Delaware River. The estate accommodated the needs of our team across four different structures, including an old barn transformed into a main lodge, a former main house, the entertainment lodge, and a cottage.
We did not have an agenda, but instead took the opportunity to bring everyone together to work onsite—everyone kept their regular meetings but for the first time, meetings that we normally hold over Teams were held in person. And our team truly demonstrated teamwork at its best in every aspect of the three-day experience. For example, volunteers organized the dinners—the main event and the only structured activity—including taco night hosted by the tech ladies, grill night hosted by the operations team, and a fabulous Italian night hosted by our brother and sister duo. And breakfast and lunch were equally as good with hot and cold options to meet everyone’s needs and preferences. Those who were not cooking also pitched in to help get things ready or clean up.
When we weren’t working on our core mission of transforming insurance and showing our brokers how easy and fast the insurance industry can be, we also played games, did puzzles, socialized around a fire, and enjoyed many conversations and much laughter. More than 70 percent of our employees attended, including our summer interns, and all found it very productive to work in the same room across teams for a few days. Everyone on the team is already looking forward to future “on-site” events.
If you’re one of the insurance industry’s top professionals and are interested in joining our team, click here to learn more about open positions and apply.
