By Brigitte Chan, UI Designer

It’s been two and a half years since I started at SuccessFactors, and I have to say–I continue loving it here! Why? It’s the people that make this place so special and fun.

Thanks to the open office layout we have, you feel closer to everyone sitting next to you. You can join in any conversation you want, or tune out to focus on your own work. You can even, right from your seat, greet someone who’s walking down the hallway. Some interviewees have asked me, “Don’t you get distracted by the conversations happening all around you?” “Sometimes,” I replied, “but I got used to it very soon. It’s great to be able to chit-chat with one another while working. I’d rather be able to relate to people in an open environment, than to be surrounded by four walls.” Just like one of our founding principles is “No Jerks,” there are certainly no strangers here either, as you get to know everyone so well.

One of the SuccessFactors core competencies is “not leaving any wounded soul behind.” I truly see that in the Engineering Department. As a User Interface Designer, one of my responsibilities includes enhancing the look-and-feel of the application by tweaking code in the development environment. If my environment ever fails to work, I know I’ll be doomed because the error message that pops up is like a foreign language to me. Fortunately, there’s always someone nearby to help me debug and fix the environment, even when they are in the middle of doing something. And most importantly, they make sure that everything’s working for me before they take off. How awesome is that?

I truly love the gang sitting around me—and I know that most people can’t say this about the people they work with. They are the motivation for me to come in every morning. They are the ones who turn a bad day into a joyful day. I love being here because of the thought and care I receive from my coworkers. I still remember the day when I faced several roadblocks, one after another, yet when I walked back to my desk after a break, I saw a cup of bubble tea sitting there—it was from a coworker who knew that this was my favorite. That just made my day! And this has actually happened more than once.

It’s simple interactions like this that makes SuccessFactors so special.

By Jennifer Boyd, Director of Talent

Welcome to HappyFactors! I’m the Director of Talent–what we call “Human Resources” at SuccessFactors–and lead the Talent Business Partnering group. I recall the day when I was the first HR person hired at SuccessFactors (waaay back in 2005) and built the HR team from zero. We now have 16 team members! The growth is energizing and truly phenomenal—an experience that can never be replicated.

Of my many experiences while here, one that I vividly recall is speaking about our company at a seminar for a local University. Carnegie Mellon University West (yes—they have a campus in Mountain View, CA…a little way from home base in Pittsburgh, PA) offers a class on managing software professionals as part of their Masters program in Software Management. They asked me to speak to a seminar class about terminations—not the most popular topic, but one that is a rich area of understanding for new and prospective managers. And a little scary, too.

The class had read Robert Sutton’s book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, for a segment on managing people. They loved the fact that SuccessFactors had incorporated so much of the “no asshole” concept into our daily work and culture and were eager to learn more about how we do this. We covered all kinds of topics—SuccessFactors’ Rules of Engagement, how to handle performance issues, cultural concerns in employee exits, analytics, and more. They were truly floored by how much of an impact a simple concept like well-articulated and well-executed company values can have on every part of the employee life cycle, and how we are able to use our own products to accomplish this! They were thrilled to see that SuccessFactors is able to weave our company values into our talent processes like performance, on boarding, and termination—the total blending of people, process, and technology. Stepping away from my desk at SuccessFactors for a bit allowed me to see the value in what we do through other people’s eyes, and this was truly valuable.

What a great gig for an HR person—working for a company that sells products that you WANT to use every day!

By Hilary Terrell, Associate Product Marketing Manager

There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned pat on the back. Or, in the world of Performance & Talent Management, there’s nothing like fair pay-for-performance. I recently completed my first review cycle at SuccessFactors and realized just what I’ve been missing.

I knew that coming to work here would be a (welcome) change in corporate culture, but I learned first-hand how valuable the concept of pay-for-performance truly is. Sure, I’m surrounded each day by materials that promote the values of paying for performance, aligning your workforce, and retaining your talent, and how our products are helping other organizations to do just that. But to truly experience a culture of pay-for-performance for the first time? Now that was educational.

Perhaps it’s the result of coming from a company that had no inkling of such a culture—seeing the stark contrast of night and day. For the past four years, I slogged away in an industry in New York City that people clamor to break into, but an industry in which the modest financial rewards come much farther down the line. For years, you try to make a name for yourself, all without getting much of the credit and for one of the lowest starting professional salaries there is (you might fall out of your chair if I told you…). But when you love the trade you’re learning, you convince yourself that it’s worth sticking through such a situation.

Until you learn that…this isn’t the way the rest of the world works!

Excuse me?!? Come again???

Up until this point my experience with yearly performance reviews was limited to filling out three questions on a Word document, including my “goals.” I’d discuss these items with my manager, having walked in eager at the chance of getting a promotion or raise and then…nothing. I didn’t know what my manager’s (or manager’s manager) goals were, or how mine fit into the larger picture. We didn’t discuss the previous year’s goals and whether they had been achieved. And I didn’t see my performance being rewarded in any tangible way, aside from increased workload and being told that I was doing a good job. Even more frustrating, I didn’t know if there was something I just wasn’t doing quite right that was preventing me from moving up the ladder. Since all of the feedback from my manager was positive, what were the missing pieces? And what was my team’s plan for the coming year? I would soon learn that there was nothing overtly performance-oriented about the slow crawl to the top—it was simply a case of too many qualified people vying for the same positions and a matter of whittling down the pool over time. Interesting. Did I want to stay in such a rat race?

I knew from friends in other industries that there were companies out there that valued their employees, and had heard of these wonderful things called “raises” and “bonuses”–and ones above the 1% range. But who got them, and how was it decided how much each person received? Was every person that met their goals rewarded? (what a concept!) I found out this and much more during my first review cycle at SuccessFactors.

Throughout my review process here, not only was it clear that I was being rewarded for a job well done, but it was clear exactly what I was being rewarded for. Specific goals had been set and achieved, numerous projects had been completed successfully, and we discussed all of this and more. I was able to wrap my head around the accomplishments of the past year—and what could be improved upon—and set my sights on the goals for the upcoming year. It wasn’t a mystery what my manager’s goals were for the coming year—quite the opposite, as we went through and made sure that our goals were aligned to one another. It was crystal clear what I needed to do over the next year, how I fit into the company’s larger goals, and what I would be evaluated on. What’s more, I knew that my work was being valued and I came out of my review motivated—really and truly motivated—to have a killer year.

It’s amazing what pay-for-performance—coupled with insightful goal alignment and meaningful face-to-face time in the process—can do for your employees’ productivity and motivation. It certainly made me a believer.

Post script…And it looks like I’m not the only in-house fan of our culture. Just after this post was written, SuccessFactors earned another well-deserved award for being one of the best places to work.

By Mary Poppen
Professional Services Practice Manager

My path to SuccessFactors has been a unique one–I have had the distinct pleasure of being both a customer and an employee of SuccessFactors. I believe this dual perspective provides me with a very special view of the SuccessFactors culture and mission, which I wanted to share with all of you.

As one of SuccessFactors’ first 25 customers (we now have 1750+!), I had no idea how lean the organization was until about two years into our contract. When I learned that they had just 12 employees upon our implementation, I was amazed. How could 12 people provide the kind of service and product that we were being provided? SuccessFactors was like no other vendor I had ever worked with. The implementation was extremely smooth and fast, the support team was extremely responsive and ready to jump on any issue that arose, and engineering was releasing enhancements every month that continued to make the product more incredible and applicable to our business processes. Being a customer of SuccessFactors was definitely more of a strategic partnership than the traditional vendor-customer relationship.

After four years as a customer, I decided that the people and products at SuccessFactors were really the place for me. I joined the SuccessFactors team in October of 2005 as a Professional Services Consultant, implementing the software for organizations of all sizes and industries. It didn’t take long for me to realize I had made the best career move of my life. The people, the customers, the leadership, the product…a culture like no other I have ever experienced! What makes it so incredible? Here are just a few reasons:

• Sincere, genuine, daily emails from a CEO who is extremely proud of the team and the product—whether it’s a spontaneous email celebrating customer go-lives; congratulating product managers and engineers on a challenging issue that was resolved; or following a customer experience and educating the company so others can learn and grow;
• Colleagues who will drop everything to assist with an issue because a customer is planning to go-live with our product the next day;
• Colleagues from all areas of the organization who will respond to a plea for help or a question day or night;
• Collaboration across sales, services, product management, engineering and marketing to ensure alignment on new and existing offerings;
• Innovations to remain an exciting, cutting-edge software company that recognizes that the software must change and transform with business needs to be truly valuable;
• The opportunity to learn something new every day (literally) and the chance to apply it as quickly as it is learned;

These are just a few of the things that make SuccessFactors a truly unique company, and just a few of the reasons why I feel so lucky to be here! And what’s more, all of these things don’t just provide value to the employees here; what goes on behind the scenes makes us all the more effective for our customers as well.