The MassTLC Leadership Awards recognize and honor “the best and the brightest” of the Massachusetts tech ecosystem each year. On July 18, after months of nominations and judging, the finalists in each of fifteen different categories were announced (learn more about the selection process, here).
Who will be crowned the winners? Find out on October 3, 2018, at the 21st annual Mass Tech Leadership Awards Gala.
In the meantime, let us introduce you to our finalists and the great work that they are doing here in Massachusetts.
In the words of their nominators, meet the 2018 “Building a Better Workforce” finalists.
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Formlabs prides itself on a diverse and enriched company culture. Formlabs Hey Girl Speaker Series is a monthly event where they invite incredible women leaders from technology, science, business and beyond to share insights from their professional journeys in an informal interview format. Previously an internal Formlabs event, Formlabs has now opened the series to the larger Boston community, as well. They also aim to empower our employees through resource groups like our Thursday Technical Talks. These are open to “Formlings” (employees) and their guests to share deep dives into focused topics like scuba diving, how to sharpen knives, how to train for a marathon, and experts in other technical fields as well. In addition, there are a plethora of employee-driven groups that hone in on people’s specific interests; such as Gamelabs (Formlabs’ board game night), FormLANS (video game night), Bikelabs (fixing bikes, workshops for support), Paintlabs (model making and painting support group), etc. Groups of Formlings also volunteer in the local community for various initiatives. They aim to foster an environment where employees are able to try anything – if they want to plan an event, Formlabs will help them out.
At Formlabs, all internships are paid, and interns are able to receive resume feedback and job interview training from our People Operations team to prepare them for career steps after Formlabs. Formlabs has implemented structured feedback in a yearly cadence for full time employees, to review the past year’s work and think about what can happen in the next year, both in terms of personal growth and what that can look like at Formlabs.
HubSpot’s diversity and inclusion programming includes active ERGs led by employees with an executive sponsor. The PoCAH and LGBTQ+ groups each meet weekly to discuss trends, issues, and opportunities to promote racial and sexual orientation diversity, respectively, within HubSpot. They also host internal and external company events featuring inspiring speakers, networking, and more. For example, the LGBTQ+ Alliance sponsors the annual Pride Parades in three of our global regions, hosts ‘Out at Work’ discussions with our local communities, and more. The Women@HubSpot program has a dedicated program manager to plan creative content, events, programming, and initiatives for all of our female employees, including: a bi-weekly newsletter featuring interesting articles and a ‘Wonder Woman of the Week’ profile of a HubSpotter, ongoing internal networking events for women cross-functionally, annual International Women’s Day celebrations, female-led Master Classes on confidence building and negotiation, and more. ParentSpot is a very active resource group led by our Culture and HR teams to create a community for parents and families through lunches, Q&As on company benefits, Bring Your Kids to Work Day, and an active Slack group where parents share photos of their newborns, offer baby clothes and toys to one another, and give advice to new parents.
In 2018, HubSpot improved parental leave policies and introduced an egg freezing program for women, as well as, increased the percentage of women in leadership positions.
Under the “Rooney Rule,” which the company implemented last year, “ for every Director-level and above open position, the hiring managers for that role must: interview at least one candidate who is gender or ethnically diverse in the face-to-face stage, have 50% of their initial candidate pool be from outside of the city or state of the local office area, and publish one piece of written content about a topic of their choosing related to work/life balance or career growth.
HubSpot is proud of it’s “always be learning” culture, which includes initiatives such as master classes, tuition reimbursment, a free books program, manager trainings and workshops, a fellows program, wiki resources, a career development matrix, HubTalks, and both internal and external events.
Mimecast supports an inclusive and open organizational culture where staff are comfortable bringing their whole selves to work. All North American staff have completed a mandatory Respectful Workplace training, which focused on prevention of harassment and discrimination within our workplace.
In the past 12 months alone, Mimecast has hired two additional women to their C-Suite and an additional woman to our Board of Directors. These changes in their talent portfolio underscore our continued drive to enhance representation of women in leadership at the organization. To further enhance diversity programming, Mimecast supports employee resource groups (ERGs) dedicated to the advocacy and support of women and LGBTQ Mimecasters. The company was a proud corporate sponsor of Boston Pride for the first time this year.
To support civic engagement and community involvement, all Mimecast staff are provided with five days paid volunteer time off. These days may be used for any individual service opportunities and are an addition to our corporate group volunteering events. Our Global Citizenship program is also inclusive of charitable donation matching program, which many Massachusetts staff members have taken advantage of.
Mimecast as a global employer is committed to employee development that provides upward mobility to employees as they build skills and demonstrate capabilities. Learning opportunities are provided through the global Learning and Development team, which focuses on professional development for Mimecasters through an array of modalities. Live, in-person training on various areas of skill development are held on a regular basis with all staff encouraged to participate.
Mimecast has an enduring commitment to supporting the communities in which we live and work.
PI is in the human capital business; at their core, they believe that people and their development is the key to their success. Every manager at PI is responsible for having a career discussion with their employees every quarter, and this is communicated to employees. The philosophy is to ensure that employees are also empowered and expected to to also be forthcoming with their managers around their expectations.
PI partners with Year-Up, which pairs companies with interns that have been brought up in circumstances that have not afforded them those opportunities. They have also sponsor efforts for City Year. PI has also started a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee whose sole focus is to ensure that we are developing our human capital efforts towards a diverse population.
PI has been growing significantly and firmly believes that the best teams are made up of diverse teams. Examples are some of the programs they have initiated include, monthly book clubs, lunch and learn, and tuition reimbursement. They recently converted to an ATS (applicant tracking system) that offers a Diversity and Inclusion package in it’s offering.
Wellist was founded on the values of “Refreshing, Empowering, Empathetic, Trustworthy, and Adaptable (REETA for short),” which continue to serve as living, breathing, daily reminders of their commitment to patients and families. These values guide everything they do: from the way they hire to their commitment to volunteerism and professional development. They’ve developed a corporate culture that is designed to serve others.
All Wellist employees are encouraged to pursue the opportunities that are right for them. Talent development pursuits of our employees include RailsConf, Professionals of Color Career Summit, PULSE Summit, Boston Speaks Professional Development, Dartmouth Health Care Conference, Journey Mapping, Product Camp, Opioid Crisis, Design Thinking in Small Organizations.
Wellist has trained candidates lacking experience in order to create a diverse work space. They evaluate every job description to ensure there is no gender bias.
