Envato Officially One of Australia’s Best Places to Work

Great Place to Work is a global organisation that helps companies create and sustain great workplaces. Each year a study is conducted highlighting the best places to work in Australia. These workplaces aren’t defined by free food and ping pong tables (although some would argue that may help), but by the quality of the relationships within the workplace.

Studies such as Best Places to Work highlight what job seekers want in the workplace. “It makes workplaces better at engaging and motivating people, which in turn makes people happier about their work,” says James Law, Envato’s HR Director.

“The 50 Best Places to Work are at the vanguard of an emerging movement,” said Zrinka Lovrencic, Managing Director of Great Place to Work Australia. “It’s a movement of great workplaces for all-encompassing diversity and inclusion, and the 50 Best Places to Work and those that join them are enjoying better business outcomes as they continue to build a better society.”

As with previous years, IT and tech companies dominate the top 25. Included in this category are Salesforce, Atlassian, Adobe Systems, NetApp Australia, Autodesk Australia, SAS Australia, Ansarada, InfoTrack, Kronis Australia, PEXA and Odecee – A Cognizant Company.

Two retail beauty brands also made the top 25, with MECCA Brands coming in at number 4 and Estee Lauder Companies at 24. Mars Australia was the only Manufacturing and Production company to make the list, with the highest number of employees at 2,254.

This year Envato placed 17 in the 2016 Best Places to Work study. This is an exciting announcement for the Envato team.

“These studies are important because it’s good to know how people are actually feeling about their organisation, instead of wasting time on assumptions,” says James. “While the data is important, it’s the conversations generated by the data that produces the real results.”

So, what makes Envato a great place to work? Here are a few things we’re particularly proud of this year:

Sure, Envato has a lot of the bells and whistles now expected of a tech company: the requisite ping pong table in the kitchen, a pool table, a basketball hoop, and well-stocked kitchens. But games and snacks don’t make a great workplace on their own (though they don’t hurt).

At Envato, we make the extra steps to make these perks a little more meaningful. For example, proceeds from our ‘milk bar’ – the snacks on each floor – are donated to a different charity each month. As a values-driven organization, we try to positively influence the community around us, as well as our own employees.

In addition to a work-from-home policy for the team at HQ, Envato’s flexibility now allows team members to work from anywhere in the world for up to three months of the year. “We don’t want to lose people to travel when we know they can work online just as effectively as they would in the office,” says James.

We’ve seen that having the freedom to work outside of a 9-to-5 schedule has a significant impact on the happiness and productivity of our employees – and we think these policies can have a widespread impact on family dynamics within society in general. For example, offering increased flexibility to all employees means family duties can be more easily distributed. In Australia 71.6% of part-time employees are women, having more men work part time will presumably make it easier for mothers to return to the workforce.

Co-founder and Executive Director Cyan Ta’eed has been leading a number of initiatives to improve diversity within both Envato and the industry in general. These include incorporating a diversity value and bringing it into the regular discussion at Envato, as well as the creation and support of Envato’s LGBTI committee ‘Out @ Envato’ while ensuring inclusive language is used in recruitment practices and advertising is broadened to attract diverse candidates. Envato also sponsors events supporting women in the industry and encouraging women into tech.

The work on diversity and inclusiveness was acknowledged with Envato being named Coolest Workplace for Women in 2015. However, being a fully flexible workplace with industry-leading parental leave is not just a benefit for women. “Flexibility isn’t just a working mother’s issue, it’s a people issue,” says Cyan Ta’eed. “Everyone has commitments outside of their work, and we don’t want our team to feel compromised when it’s really quite simple to give them the freedom of flexibility.”

For Envato, being named one of the Best Places to Work also helps identify areas of advancement, as well as where there’s room for improvement. “I’m particularly proud that our results show improved communications and the ability to work from anywhere, as those were areas we didn’t score so well on last time,” says James.

“The characteristics of a good workplace are clear direction and goals, a purpose to what you do every day, a good manager and working with good people.”

_{This article was originally written by Selina Ife. Are you interested in joining the team at Envato? Check out our careers page.}