Employees thrive on opportunity, transparency, and empowerment at AWS Premier Consulting Partner
Onica, an award-winning technology firm providing cloud consulting, infrastructure solutions, and managed services has been named one of 2017’s Best Workplaces by Inc. Magazine.
“Onica is one of the highest-scoring businesses with standout employee engagement,” Inc. said in a statement. The 2017 Inc. Best Workplaces Awards are featured in the June 2017 issue of Inc. magazine.
Inc. selected just a handful of winners from thousands of entrants, calling the awards “a magnifying glass on how innovative companies can truly raise the bar in hiring and retaining the best talent.”
It’s been a breakout year for us, as the company has emerged as one of the most decorated Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Consulting and Managed Service Partners. It earned a spot on CRN’s 2017 MSP Elite 150 list of top cloud managed service providers, on the CRN 2017 Tech Elite 250 list of cloud consultants with the most premier certifications, and made the Inc. 500|5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S.
What do employees love about working at the company? Is it the unlimited vacation? The free food? The lavish company outings? The perks are great, but…
“What people really love about working here is the challenge of working on some of the most sophisticated cloud projects in the world. Our team members say that they can get a three years’ worth of career experience in less than six months.”
– Stephen Garden, CEO
For one client, the team moved 15 years’ worth of business infrastructure to the cloud in three weeks. “The world’s largest and most dynamic companies are reinventing their businesses before our eyes,” Garden said, “and we are helping them do it, often on a massive scale.”
The company is at the cutting-edge of one of the latest trends to disrupt global business – cloud services. Recent analyst reports have shown that businesses can achieve a ROI of a staggering 500 percent by moving infrastructures from data centers into the cloud. The benefits of technical transformation are real and powerful.
The opportunity to be at the center of this transformation is the main draw for our employees, Garden says, and the company boasts some of the best tech talent around. He also points out the company culture emphasizes transparency and empowerment. “We have a couple of unofficial slogans here,” Garden said. “‘Speak your mind,’ is one. We always want employees to let us know what’s working and what’s not. ‘Make it happen’ is another important value. We want people to be empowered to take initiative to help the company grow.”
Garden points to two recent initiatives that came from employees – opening a new office in Texas and launching a new big data and analytics service worldwide. “Employees came up with the business cases for these plans. The plans made sense, and we funded them,” Garden said.
The company is also known for its elaborate employee outings like performance go-kart racing and a casino yacht party, and the unlimited vacation frees people from worrying about having to bank time for personal needs. “The vacation policy is part of transparency and empowerment,” Garden said. “If we didn’t trust people to use their time well, we wouldn’t hire them.” Some employees have used the policy to tackle “bucket list” trips like hiking the entire John Muir trail.
The 2017 Inc. Best Workplaces Award comes at an opportune time as we are looking to aggressively hire and expand into new markets, building out a national footprint.
“With such compelling economics, cloud services and cloud migration are experiencing huge demand. As cloud growth is exploding, we’re growing with it.”
– Stephen Garden, CEO
About The 2017 Inc. Best Workplaces Awards
The 2017 Inc. Best Workplaces Awards assessed applicants on the basis of benefits offered and employees’ responses to a unique, 30-question survey fielded by each of the applying companies. Responses were evaluated by the research team at Quantum Workplace. For its results to qualify, each company had to achieve a statistically significant response rate based on employee count. Survey scores account for employer size to level the playing field between small and large businesses. All companies had to have a minimum of 10 employees and to be U.S.-based, privately held, and independent – that is, not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies.