By R.T. Barcik, Mid Market Sales Manager, EMEA region

Like many Gen Xers, I thought we were going to instantaneously change the world with this whole global internet economy thing. As a result, I bounced around from one apathetic company/job to the next right out of college. 4 jobs in 6 years to be exact, none of which I thought made a real impact on anything meaningful. 6 years ago I was at the tail end of job number 4 when I found a little start up…

My good friend was an independent recruiter that said why don’t you interview with this company tomorrow, just to see one end of the spectrum. ‘’Yeah sure,” I said, “I’ve always been a big fan of options and why not start the job hunt out with having a plan B in the bag.’’ I went through a full day of phone interviews where I individually talked to one third of the company, just so I could make it to the final meeting with the CEO the next day. Right from the start it was a completely unexpected challenge, where everything moved a mile a minute, you could tell the people knew their stuff but weren’t hung up on it, and the big guy was one you just had to meet. I didn’t know what to expect around the next corner but I was intrigued. Around the next corner happened to be an interview with the CEO of this tiny little company at a Potrero Hill (San Francisco) coffee shop. ‘’What was I thinking, this little pinger of a company probably wouldn’t last another 6 months… ‘’ I thought as I asked for more and more coffee while I waited for my interview to start. 14 cups of coffee later and ready to run a marathon, I only had half the energy the dynamic Danish CEO had naturally. ‘’I think I’m gonna like this company…”

Six years later, I am ironically starting my 4th role with the company and am changing people’s worlds with that same global internet thingy. Just yesterday I watched the ‘’light come on’’ as I helped a customer who had historically been in a support role in HR see how they could have real measurable financial impact on their business and in doing so become a driver of revenue. She realized that our software is going to change her professional world completely, just like it has for the 1,950 plus companies we’ve brought on before her. But this time it was different. This time it was in London, my new home thanks to SuccessFactors. This is just ridiculously cool.

Along the way it’s important to note that every ‘’significant-to-me’’ professional milestone has happened while at SuccessFactors (see photo of ringing the Nasdaq bell). More importantly, I’ve worked with more people that have something unique that I can learn from. Just about every day my light comes on because someone I work with changes my world with a new idea I haven’t thought of. I am in a perpetual state of appreciation for the collaboration that happens naturally here. I am humbled by and motivated to keep up with the quality people I work with. This collective knowledge and focus on the same goal is infectious. Wait a minute, that’s what we sell… but that’s what we live as well!

I tell ya, I originally got into software sales just to earn enough money to open my own restaurant. I am now enjoying myself too much living the SuccessFactors life to downgrade to my old dream. That Kaizen value we proclaim isn’t BS and it applies to everyone at our company—well done, SuccessFactors. It’s also fun to admit many that things within our company are getting even cooler despite becoming a ‘’real’’ company with 700+ employees. It’s been a wild ride. No offense to bull riders who measure their success by 8 second increments, but it’s been 189 million seconds of a wild ride for me…bring on the next 189 million!

By Liz Gaither, Marketing and Event Manager

SuccessFactors recently attended the SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) National Conference, where we were able to meet and mingle with over 15,000 HR professionals from all over the world. SFSF was represented by 20 employees, a 20×20 booth on the show floor, and countless numbers of customers and partners at the event. Over 300 attendees stopped by the tradeshow booth in order to see a demo of our products for the first time, meet with a specific sales rep, ask questions about current implementations, or just to say hello as an existing, HAPPY customer!

The SHRM audience heard from keynote speakers such as Sidney Poitier, who spoke about the importance of diversity and motivating people to make a difference in the world, to Patrick Lencioni, author of books such as The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, who talked about the importance of making any job more rewarding and fulfilling for managers and employees alike.

All in all, the conference was a success with great content and ample time to work with attendees on the expansive show floor. The SHRM organization draws HR professionals from companies of all sizes, but this tends to be a show that many mid-sized and smaller organizations are sure to attend, because there is always something from every arena of HR in the room. We will continue to support and work with SHRM on events throughout the year!

Each year, SuccessFactors holds our Global User Conference, welcoming customers from around the world. With the conference usually being held at a large hotel, the hundreds of customers and SuccessFactors employees are bound to attract some attention as non-conference attendees encounter the masses. What a fun way to get the word out about our products!

The following story was overheard by Lori Brzakala, SuccessFactors Regional Sales Manager, in an elevator at the hotel where SuccessConnect was behing held. And, scene…:

I was in the elevator on the way back up to my room (the elevator was packed) and a woman not with SuccessFactors looked at my badge and said, “What is SuccessFactors anyway?” So I explained who we are and this man in the front turned around and said, “I LOVE SuccessFactors!” I asked if he was a customer, and he said he wasn’t here with our conference but he used to be the Chief Technology Officer with one of our customers and now he was with NBC. He said “I loved using SuccessFactors to write reviews when I was with [my previous company].” All the customers in the elevator cheered.

Very rewarding elevator ride indeed.

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 Terrance Seto, Associate Technical Product Marketing Manager

I remember those long days in the office at a previous organization that I used to work for back in 2006. The office was quiet. Almost too quiet I would say. Those 6 foot tall cubical walls blocked off quite a bit of sound. Working in marketing, I developed sales tools and managed trade shows that our company had attended. I enjoyed what I did, but I never received that pat on the back from my fellow colleagues. Did I do something wrong? Probably not. You went in and worked your 8 to 9 hours and just left. No “have a nice evening!” or “thanks for helping out today” from team mates. After a while, it just stopped being exciting.

Fast forward to June, 2007. It was summer, and I was just about to begin my first day at SuccessFactors. After finishing my orientation, I was given the tour of the office. The first thing that hit me was the noise. At first, I thought there was a party that I had just missed out on. But it was better. A deal was closed in sales, a bell on the wall was rung, and everyone cheered with joy. It was pure excitement. I had never seen, nor heard, anything like this before.

Fast forward to August, 2007. In my position here at SuccessFactors, my duties are to configure and develop product demo environments. This is an important tool, critical to the success of our sales team being able to demo a robust and compelling product to their prospects. The bell rang, a cheer went out, along with an email notifying the company of this new closed deal. Wait, what’s this I see at the bottom of the email? “Thank you to Terrance for providing an excellent demo! The prospect loved it!” Wow, what a great feeling to be recognized for your work! This is what keeps me and my fellow colleagues excited about what we do. The open office environment, the friendly people, and the passion are what drive us all each and 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.

SuccessFactors provides numerous opportunities for you to learn more about our products–and one particular team member is the powerhouse behind the events that happen all across North America. Planning to attend a local SuccessFactors event? Learn a bit about our Marketing Manager and these unique events.

Name: JD Davis

Title: Senior Marketing Manager

What do I do for SuccessFactors?
I am responsible for the SuccessFactorsLive events in North America. These events are for our current customers and potential customers to come network with other HR professionals, and focus on highlighting our customer’s successes and provide an opportunity for everyone to learn from industry experts and meet your local HR peers. You can check out our PerformanceConnect, PeopleConnect, IndustryConnect and RegionConnect events on the Events Calendar. I’ll be coming soon to a city near you!

How can I help you?
My goal is to bring you a variety of regional events to give you the opportunity to meet and network with other customers. I want you to walk away from our SuccessFactorsLive events with interesting, useful content that will help you learn more about our product, key players in your HR community, and the HR industry as a whole. We currently have breakfast seminars (PerformanceConnect), networking dinner events (PeopleConnect), Special Interest Groups/SIGS (IndustryConnect) and regional user groups (RegionConnect)….what else would you like to see? Are there people from SuccessFactors that you can benefit from spending some “live” time with at these events? Who are some of the industry leaders you would like to hear from? What topics are important to you? Let me know! I want to help make you and your organization more successful!

Upcoming Events
Thursday, May 1, 2008
PerformanceConnect Breakfast Seminar
New York, New York

Thursday, May 22, 2008
PeopleConnect Networking Dinner
Philadelphia, PA

June 2-5, 2008
SuccessConnect 2008
This event is ramping up to be SuccessFactors’ best event yet! With more customer speakers, more product tracks, more tracks for Professional Edition customers, more innovation, more networking and more partners, we’re gearing up for an event you won’t want to miss. More information about the agenda and registration will be coming in the New Year.

By Brendan Delumpa, Senior UI Developer

Before coming to SuccessFactors, I had worked in a variety of environments, ranging from small start-ups with less than ten people, to large, established companies composed of thousands of people. While many of those places claimed to have “open door” policies and said they embraced collaboration, innovation, and creativity, in reality, most engaged in various forms of knowledge hoarding and turf protection, and had cultures that were happy maintaining the status quo, wary of new or groundbreaking approaches to solving problems. So it was a bit unsettling for me to come to SuccessFactors where everyone collaborates, communication is generally direct and always honest, and where creativity and innovation are the norm rather than the exception.

There are many things we do here on a daily basis that support what I’ve mentioned above. For instance, in the engineering department, before we can check in any files we’ve worked on, we have to get another person to review our changes and demonstrate what effect they have on the application. While this is to ensure quality, it is also an opportunity to collaborate and share knowledge, as the reviewer may know of a more efficient method to accomplish some operation, or may provide insight into a possible enhancement in addition to your change. To me, this is phenomenal! I’ve never been in an organization that turns what is normally a very tedious task into an opportunity to be better – and it happens all the time!

I honestly spent the first few weeks of my employment saying to myself that this work environment was too good to be true. But over time, as I settled into my new role, I realized that it is good, and it is true. I work in a truly awesome culture! Now, I just couldn’t work in any organization that doesn’t operate this way! SuccessFactors has set a new standard for me.

By Gunn-Siri Stromme, Lead Generation Representative

It’s a given that SuccessFactors promotes the heck out of our own products—but to have our customers and prospects do it as well? Now that’s rewarding. The following story is no exaggeration.

I recently participated in an HR fair in Stockholm. During a lunch meeting, I sat beside someone from a potential client I had worked with and her VP of HR, plus several other participants. We had never met in person, so I introduced myself. They immediately replied, “Oh, it’s so nice to meet you, yes we have spoken a lot on the telephone, it’s nice to have a face behind the voice. We really liked SuccessFactors!”

SuccessFactors had lost the deal in question, because we had entered the running too late into the project and their IT department was not interested in a hosted solution. They ended up choosing another vendor, who they already had chosen when SuccessFactors entered the picture.

We then started to talk about tools to support Human Capital Management, and one of the other VPs of HR at the table said that they would soon be buying an HCM product from another large company this year. I was just about to jump in and sing the praises of SuccessFactors, but before I got a sound out my old prospects were saying to her, “No! You’ll have to look at SuccessFactors, they are the best, [that other company] is nothing, you can’t POSSIBLY choose them over SuccessFactors!” I did not need to even open my mouth during the discussion—and it ended with the new prospect enthusiastically asking for my business card!

How wonderful to be a part of company that has such a good product that even customers that did not choose you, sell you!

Let’s begin at the beginning. What’s a HappyFactor? Well, at SuccessFactors we struggle with helping people understand what a truly unique culture we have. Sure, every company thinks that – and you don’t have any reason to believe it from us either – unless we prove it, right? Well, that’s a HappyFactor. Something great about SuccesFactors that makes us unique. Special. Worth getting to know. A factor in our happiness and yours, too, if you join us as a customer, partner, or employee.

This blog is about sharing our happyfactors with you from the inside. Stay tuned for unique posts from fellow employees that, ideally, will help to give you a better idea of what goes on behind-the-scenes at SuccessFactors. Why should you care? SuccessFactors is a company that’s about more than software, it’s about success. We’ve got all the stuff you’re used to – datasheets, whitepapers, and the data that proves we’ve got the best Performance & Talent Management products on the market (and we do). But we’ve also got the company best prepared to help you achieve success. Real, measurable, meaningful success. This blog will give you insight into the art, science and magic of SuccessFactors and our people, and give you a chance to understand why success, not software, is our true passion.

Read on for the first of many HappyFactors!