Today is Certification Nation Day, and for its tenth consecutive year Cloud for Good was recognized as a Great Place To Work Certified® company in the United States and in Canada for its third consecutive year. Having received this honor for multiple years speaks volumes about the strength and consistency of our team and culture. In honor of this recognition, we’re reflecting on our incredible people, experiences, and culture that make Cloud for Good such a great place to work at.
About Great Place to Work Certification
The Great Place to Work Certification is said to be the most definitive “employer-of-choice” recognition. This certification is awarded based on real, employee feedback from the Great Place To Work’s Trust Index™ Survey and Culture Brief™. To then earn a Certification, the average score across an organization’s survey results must show that approximately 7 out of 10 of employees are having a consistently positive experience at work.
Our People and Culture
Cloud for Good’s long standing as a Great Place to Work is a huge accomplishment. It demonstrates how serious and dedicated we are to building a positive, thriving culture at Cloud for Good and a workplace where our people feel valued and engaged. In the Great Places to Work Survey, our employees consistently rated Cloud for Good above industry and geographical averages.
93% of our employees rated Cloud for Good as a great place to work.
That percentage is impressive compared to the average 57% of employees at a typical company that rate their employer as a great place to work. Even more impressive is having 94% of our employees being proud to tell others they work at Cloud for Good. Instilling a feeling of pride in working at our company in our employees is a great priority at Cloud for Good.
95% of our employees reported they are given a lot of responsibility within their roles.
We work hard to make an impact for our clients in the nonprofit, higher education, and public sector spaces, but this work itself is made possible by the talent, time, and energy our employees put into delivering great services. Each employee is given the chance to make an impact, and each role at the organization is an important part of our consulting engagements and overall organizational goals.
96% of Goodies expressed feeling welcomed when they joined Cloud for Good.
Last year, Cloud for Good updated our onboarding process. We have continued to develop and strengthen our onboarding program. We have twice-monthly new hire start dates so we can introduce new Goodies to the company in small groups, along with group, individual and some self-service onboarding modules and trainings. We also encourage virtual coffees to get to know team members and colleagues and getting new hires involved in staff connectivity options like Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).
Here We Grow Again
Since 2021, we’ve seen tremendous growth in our staff numbers, with over 230 Goodies on our distributed team across the United States and Canada. In particular, our Canadian staff presence has grown from 10 members to 60 team members.
With this growth comes a considerable amount of change. However, we’ve always been and will always be committed to building and fostering a culture of support, engagement, diversity, inclusion, collective innovation, and celebrating individuals and within Cloud for Good. This safe and encouraging environment has led to our employee base becoming more diverse in its racial, ethnic, and gender demographics—an impressive feat that makes us stand out from similar organizations in the Tech industry.
Continuing to diversify our team is something we care about and are proud to have made a lot of progress on, and since 2021, we have seen the racial diversity of our team go from 16% to 27% of staff members identifying as Latino or Hispanic or BIPOC (Black, Indigenous or People of Color). We are also proud that our team consists of over 50% women and nonbinary staff members, who are historically underrepresented in technology careers.
Our Experiences
Receiving a Great Place To Work Certification is also a reflection of Cloud for Good’s success and investment in creating outstanding employee experiences for our people. While not exhaustive, there are a number of Cloud for Good experiences that are worth highlighting.
Career Pathing and Development Initiatives
We want our employees to see a long-term career path at Cloud for Good. To support this objective, we launched a new addition to the Cloud for Good employee experience – mapping career paths and development for our employees.
When we first launched our career pathing and development initiative, our Delivery team members were the first participants. We developed competencies and career path steps for all the roles in the Delivery team, which would serve as resources to discuss their career path plans and aspirations with their People Advocates and team leaders at midyear and annual performance reviews.
What we learned and discovered consequently was that career pathing and development helped with Delivery excellence, kept people engaged, opened more pathways for upskilling, upper mobility, and making an impact, and ultimately encouraged and boosted employee retention. Retention is crucial to Cloud for Good’s continued growth, so investing in career pathing and development efforts empowers our people to see themselves growing along with the business, which in turn helps Cloud for Good grow too.
Employee Resource Groups and Zoom Channels
Our Employee Resource Groups (ERG) program and Zoom spaces are among the highlights of the Cloud for Good experience, allowing our Goodies to create and maintain close connections with one another amid our virtual and distributed team environment.
Cloud for Good first launched its ERG program in 2023, with the aim of the program to provide spaces for Goodies to Gather, Give and Grow together. By the end of its first year, the ERG program had 60+ staff members involved. This number has grown since then, with 84 members of our staff currently participating in the ERG program and many participating in more than one ERG group. We plan to add more groups to the ERG program, which currently consists of the Black Employee ERG, Women in Tech ERG, and Mind & Motion ERG.
In addition to our ERG program, our many Zoom spaces have provided opportunities for staff can interact with one another. These groups are based on general interests, hobbies, locations, and more. We have groups for Goodies who are pet lovers, sports fans, working parents, gardeners, Anime fans, Canada-based, Florida-based, the list goes on. Our Zoom groups provide opportunities for staff to learn and get to know about fellow Goodies beyond the gifts and talents they bring to the workplace.
Goodie Summits and Virtual Gatherings
Because we are a virtual and distributed team, we lean on our annual Goodie Summit and our many virtual employee gatherings and activities throughout the year to build culture, relationships, community, and other opportunities at Cloud for Good. One of my favorite parts of our annual Summit is celebrating and awarding Goodies who were nominated for exemplifying Cloud for Good’s core values in their work; it’s a great way of creating visibility on our recognition of the contributions our employees have made.
Our virtual gatherings and activities throughout the year, such as our annual Take Steps challenge to benefit the Crohn’s Colitis Foundation (one of our clients), our Halloween costume contest, virtual team lunches, and monthly book club discussions have been notably impactful. The impact that these have is a huge attraction point of Cloud for Good’s culture, contributing to employee retention and engagement.
Celebrating National Certification Day
As we celebrate this achievement, we’re reminded of the power of a positive workplace culture and the incredible things we can accomplish when we work together.
At Cloud for Good, we take immense pride in creating an environment where our team can thrive, innovate, and make a real difference in the world. Our success is a direct result of the exceptional individuals who make up our organization.
To our amazing team: Thank you for making Cloud for Good what it is today. Your dedication, creativity, and passion are the driving forces behind our success. We wouldn’t be here without you!
Here’s to many more years of being a great place to work and continuing to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the Salesforce ecosystem!