If you know anything about Choozle as a company, you probably know that we tend to keep a strong focus on our company culture, aka, employee happiness and growth. Our unique employee perks are something that’s served as a strong base layer for all of the good and bad throughout the years, and we’re striving to continue to keep employee happiness and productivity front-of-mind as we grow even more.
…and it shows.
Employee happiness and productivity is about putting—and keeping—people first.
Just last year alone we won six top workplaces awards including #1 Inner City 100, #2 Denver Post Top Workplaces, and #9 Outside Magazine’s Best Workplaces. As a company, our five core values are Balance, Growth, Service, Attitude, and Ownership.
Balance
Enjoying the ride
Growth
Complacency is boring
Service
We are all the face of Choozle
Attitude
Be the place you want to work
Ownership
Step up
Although we’ll be the first to admit that we haven’t always kept an intense focus on our values in the day-to-day, we’ve always embodied them in everything we do, and it’s one of our goals this year to tie everything we do more closely to those five principles.
Here are some of the cool job perks we’ve implemented to create that award-winning culture and to encourage our team to keep learning, growing, and thriving along the way.
Quarterly education stipend
The Choozle education stipend is a perk we offer to help our team evolve and be the best version of themselves—both personally and professionally. Each employee receives $250.00 per quarter to spend on courses, classes, or workshops to further their personal and/or professional knowledge.
We want to help cover education opportunities that add value to our employee’s lives whether that’s furthering a side hustle, forming a new hobby, furthering their career at Choozle, helps them learn a new skill—all outside the walls of our office.
Rob Brockmann, Client Engagement Lead
Megan Dyer, Strategist
Jeremy Leiser, Data Team Lead
What are you currently doing with your education stipend?
For the past year, I’ve been taking Krav Maga classes, which is an Israeli self-defense system. It brings peace of mind to not have to worry about physical violence and it takes me far outside of my comfort zone, which is the only way to learn anything.
Ellen Nash, Inbound Account Executive
Super cool Denver headquarters
Having an open, positive work environment is key. We may be biased, but we’re pretty lucky to have one of the best offices out there in one of the best areas in Denver.
Our River North (RiNo) headquarters is located on the fifth floor of Catalyst HTI. It offers plenty of light, space, #views, and room for creative energy for our company to continue to grow. With eight conference rooms and a community area that can hold 60+ people, we’re thrilled to call this space home for the next five years.
A few highlights:
- A very well-loved Bevi machine, although I’ll admit, I was a little sad to let LaCroix go. Add plenty of snacks, cold brew, and beer on tap and you’ve got everything you need to power through your busy day.
- Call rooms with unique wallpaper patterned with things like gold cassette tapes, books, and cars provide space away for when you just need to be alone for a bit.
- Taking it back to the kitchen, we have two dishwashers, two refrigerators, AND two microwaves! (Obviously, these things are very important to us.)
- An office-wide Sonos system sends smooth tunes throughout our space all week long. Our favorite playlists include Spotify’s “Lush Lofi”, “Throwback Jams” (most appropriate for #bangerfriday), Maggie Rogers, Leon Bridges, and Lake Street Dive.
- Sweeping views of, and easy access to, Downtown Denver and the Rocky Mountains.
Bi-annual all-team summits
Each summer and winter, we fly all of our remote employees to Denver for a weeklong summit.
Our bi-annual summits serve as the perfect time for us to realign as a company, get to know each other that much better, set goals, and celebrate successes.
In our downtime, sometimes we put on our annual ping-pong tournament, sometimes we go to the mountains, sometimes we have a company-wide Hack Day, and sometimes we stay here in Denver & have game nights and take improv classes. Either way, it’s a week full of hard work, lots of goal setting (and crushing), and straight up team bonding.
Choozle Crews
Last spring, we decided to level up our team building game with Choozle Crews. The entire company is divided into four teams—Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter—to compete, mainly for bragging rights, sometimes for gift cards. Some ways we gain points: Attend or speak at a panel or meetup, wear Choozle swag somewhere 50+ miles away from the office, climb a 14’er, win one of our in-office bake-offs, have virtual coffee with a remote employee. The list goes on.
Employee happiness: more than perks
While our unique work perks certainly help to land us top spots on those Best Workplaces lists, at the end of the day, it’s our sharp, gritty, work-hard-with-a-smile-on-your-face team that keeps Choozle at the top of our employee happiness and productivity game.
We constantly keep our team’s growth, balance, and learning opportunities top of mind to ensure everyone is thriving both in and outside of the office. That, along with an overall positive work environment, is what matters most. We couldn’t imagine growing this company with a sharper group of people.
Think you’ll love it here? (We think so, too.) Check out our job openings.
