So – I’ve been with Worldline just over a year and a half, and a happy Worldline customer for about just as long, but I found out something really cool about my digital home phone just the other day. (Clearly I have to pay more attention in meetings)
It’s called Voicemail to email and it does exactly what it sounds like it does. You get your voicemail dropping in your inbox wherever you are, right when it’s left on your home phone.
How cool is that? If you are a Worldline home phone or bundle customer, call 611 and we’ll set you up. Check out the video for other calling features as well.
Besides offering unlimited Canadian long distance, Worldline also offers a full suite of advanced calling features on our digital home phone – and they are all free.
We put together a series of videos, presented by our Customer Experience Analyst Smikey Vujik, that help Worldline customers maximize the use of their digital home phone.
Look for more to be rolled out over the coming weeks, plus other Worldline features and products all featuring our newly discovered star, Smikey.
We all come from someplace. Every successful company has humble roots, and in Worldline’s case, it was two buddies working on a secret project in a lab in Kitchener, Ontario that led to the first VoIP call made in the world…(Insider tip – John in the gym is an inside joke).
Why we introduced this video at last week’s “I’m In” culture event was to remind us all where we came from and our entrepreneurial roots. When the company was first formed everyone was “In” because they had to be. A start-up survives and thrives on the concept of all hands on deck. There are no thoughts of politics, perks, corner offices or even salary. It’s just a case of getting stuff done in order for the business to get off the ground.
Now that Fibernetics, Worldline and NEWT are all successful businesses with a happy and growing customer base things have been cruising along. But at the start of the year, John and Jody asked themselves, were they satisfied with just “cruising” or do they want to take it to another level.
For two business guys who cut their teeth on start-ups, that question really didn’t need to be asked as neither were satisfied. Nor will they ever be. That’s what the “I’m In” concept is all about. A singular focus on making an already great company better every single day.
Both Worldline and NEWT are dedicated to being the most customer-centric telecom providers for both residential and business customers, but to become the single best telecom provider in Canada we need to re-invigorate and rededicate ourselves to the spirit that was in place over 10 years ago when we were just getting started.
As John said in the event, “I’m in” means we strive to deliver happiness and connections everyday by being awesome. We promote the company’s purpose and philosophies by being an example to others and honouring the following core values:
Innovation – disrupting and challenging the status quo while having an entrepreneurial spirit by taking risks and dreaming big.
Accountability – taking responsibility for our own actions while understanding the impact on the organization.
Just do it and find the solution – taking initiative with a game plan for solutions.
Trust – building trust through transparency and open, honest communications.
Teamwork – working well with others while respecting values and differences.
The I’m In event is a new culture launch for Fibernetics, Worldline’s parent company. “I’m In” is an endeavour to collectively up our game when it comes to our commitment to each other, the company and ultimately, the most important member of our team, our customers.
9:00 AM:
Amanda Little leads the company in a group stretch to get everyone ready to rock it out…
9:10: CEO Jody Schnarr thanks everyone in attendance for getting the company to where it’s currently at and to introduce John Stix, his fellow co-founder and leader of the I’m In initiative and mantra.
9:12 John Stix on the development of the I’m In concept. As a company grows and evolves for it’s first entrepreneurial stages, something is lost when it comes to engagement. When everyone is in start-up mode, it’s all about the dream, where nothing matters like a bigger office, or additional reports, or all the small day to day details that go into a working.
9:22: The birth of Worldline – in comic book form?
9:20 – 9:35 Debbie Downer Videos – A series of videos showing how some of us are “not in” (I’ll post them in a bit)
9:35 – 10:05 – Happiness in the workplace – Jim & Jenn Moss discuss how developing and maintaining connections with co-workers doesn’t just improve workplace atmosphere, it injects happiness into everyone.
They developed a platform called Plasticity, that encourages employees talking about what is right in an organization, and what’s wrong. It’s a social platform that enables co-workers to learn about each other, thus deepening relationships and improving connectedness. The program also helps stimulate discussion about company values so that every last employee knows what they mean and how they are being lived out in the workplace.
John Stix has engaged with Plasticity to help Fibernetics and Worldline with our culture development. As he said, “Investing in our people and their individual happiness is key to maximize our efficiencies and successes as a company. In the beginning when we were small it was easier to convey the vision. As a founder of a very fast growing business I felt we lost control of maintaining those critical connections. Plasticity is the only tool that allows for this and can scale with us. To me as a superuser of salesforce, Plasticity is to culture as salesforce is to operations. It’s a crucial tool.”
Plasticity collects and correlates data that will uncover what makes our employees the happiest, most grateful, resilient, optimistic and highest performing.
10:05 – 10:20 Fibernetics Contact Centre in the DR puts out their own Happiness Video
10:35 – 10:50 Wellness with Dr. Henry Pan – Henry has been providing his patients with an integrative approach to health by treating them holistically. His overall goal is to improve wellness with his patients, and he’s helping us improve ours. Workplace health and wellness programs are part of our overall company strategy for a healthy workplace including our in-house gym, sustainable vegetable garden, training sessions including yoga, stretching, pilates. We are also introducing training sessions for various areas of interest outside of work like digital photography, financial management & writing.
Henry starts by asking a quick question, “How many people in this room are truly, truly happy?”
“And then, if you are happy, why are you happy? And if not, why aren’t you?”
Trying to define happiness is up to each of us, but considering a third of our lives are spent at work, it’s essential to have a wellness program in the office. A huge part of that is the corporate culture and working in a negative environment is poisonous both to the employees, but to the customers as well. The last person a customer wants to talk to is someone who hates their job. That’s what focusing on improving wellness and culture cures. A happy, well balanced working environment is just good business.
10:50 – 11:05 Culture Lifts the organization – Jackie Laurer has been working with Fibernetics for the past 6 months evaluating our current culture environment, and working with management to develop a culture strategy that resulted in today’s I’m In session.
Culture done right breeds extraordinary success. Do you think organizations with great cultures like Zappos, Apple and Google are isolated cases with the budgets to magically create great culture? It’s simply not true. Companies like these are committed to culture as the core of their business from the start and are dedicated to culture as the core of their business strategy.
Fibernetics is one of the fastest growing companies in Canada and expanding and scaling a company is a tough enough climb already – but impossible to attempt it without embracing and articulating values and culture needs.
11:05 – 11:35 Culture/Core Values – John Stix explains what he and the management team sees as the company’s core values that will help Fibernetics go to the next level.
“I’m in” means we strive to deliver happiness and connections everyday by being awesome.
We promote the company’s purpose and philosophies by being an example to others and honouring the following core values:
Innovation – disrupting and challenging the status quo while having an entrepreneurial spirit by taking risks and dreaming big.
Accountability – taking responsibility for our own actions while understanding the impact on the organization.
Just do it and find the solution – taking initiative with a game plan for solutions.
Trust – building trust through transparency and open, honest communications.
Teamwork – working well with others while respecting values and differences.
Happiness – honouring satisfaction and well-being 🙂
12:07 – Closing comments and our very own Happy Video on our Youtube channel
What is it like to be a co-op student at Worldline?
It might be best to begin with some background information about myself, so I will begin this in the exact same way that I began the interview that got me here. My name is Brendan Mann, and I just finished the second year of my Business Administration degree at Wilfrid Laurier University. As a result of my efforts in my first year, I was accepted into Laurier’s Co-op program, giving me the opportunity to earn valuable work experience during the semesters in which I do not attend classes.
It is very difficult to judge a company based solely on a job posting, so the only glimpse an applicant gets into what their life at work may be like is during the interview, if they are lucky enough to be granted one. For me, the interview for Fibernetics won me over.
It has now been 6 months since that interview, and almost 2 months since I began working here, and the same things that got my interest during the interview are what keep me happy and engaged at work. To put it simply, it is fun to work here. The office is efficient and professional but never seems to take itself too seriously.
My job title is “Marketing Analyst – Co-op”, and the majority of my work is focused on the residential brand, Worldline. Much of what I do is based on numbers and spreadsheets, raw data and charts. What I have learned during my short tenure here, however, is that there is so much more to these numbers than what is immediately apparent. My job is to derive from these numbers a story of how the company has done, how we are currently doing, and predict how we are going to do in the future. Changes and decisions are then made in order to steer the company along its desired path.
That being said, while I greatly value my job, and the responsibility that has been given to me, when I think of “what it means to work at Fibernetics”, my job description is not the first thing that comes to mind, as it is only a small part of the bigger picture. The most prominent characteristic of working here is, without a doubt, the culture. Working here is being part of the team and part of a family. It seems that I started at a great time, with CMO John Stix making a big push to promote workplace culture. Everyone is “buying in”, from the management and ownership, down to the interns. BBQ’s, parties, lunches, contests, videos and random dancing are all fair game when you work here. It is a unique combination of meaningful, real-world working experience, and goofing around and having fun, which I find to be so fulfilling. It is the textbook definition of “work hard, play hard”, and I love it.
It is going to be a sad day for me when it’s time to leave Fibernetics and go back to school in the fall, but I will be somewhat comforted in knowing what I take with me. The experience I get here is unlike that which many students get at other places of employment. Many companies use co-op students for menial tasks such as filing or copying piles of documents, but I have yet to even be asked to do something like this. Getting real-world experience doing real work is all that I can ask for from Fibernetics, and they deliver beyond what I could have ever have imagined for myself. I’ve learned how to not only take responsibility for work, but also take pride in it, and I’ve learned how to work well on my own as well as working together in an office.
Working here has been, and will continue to be a great adventure for me, and when it’s over it will have helped me prepare for my next big adventure.
Intern abuse at Fibernetics – Brendan Mann and Eric Morelli forced to dress up against their will
9:20 – 9:35 Debbie Downer Videos – A series of videos showing how some of us are “not in” (I’ll post them in a bit)
