I’ve been meaning to write a post for almost an entire year about the SentryOne Engagement and Leadership team, or SEAL (as we refer to it), and now I am running out of 2019 like everyone else. 😅
Earlier this year, SentryOne was named a 2019 Gallup Great Workplace Award winner. As Jenn Miller,
SEAL History
The SEAL team was created in late 2018. Prior to that, we had an events committee that was focused primarily on things like our annual holiday party and summer picnic. The SEAL team was proposed as a way to expand employee engagement across all areas, office locations, and remote work-from-home employees.
It’s been just over a year since we got started, and looking back, I’m so proud of everything we’ve accomplished together on this team.
Company Events
SEAL plans and organizes a wide range of events for SentryOne employees. Each year, we have a holiday party; the next one is a winter celebration at Discovery Place museum in Charlotte. Earlier in 2019, there was a summer BBQ/picnic at a Charlotte Knights baseball game. The Jacksonville office held a similar event at a Jumbo Shrimp baseball game (and I just Googled that again to verify that’s really the team name).
We organize smaller events each month, such as blood drives, corn-hole tournaments, and pumpkin carving contests. We do our best to schedule events at HQ when there are other events bringing groups of remote employees into the office (both work-from-home and those in the satellite offices). I occasionally host “Remote Coffee Talk” events which are Microsoft Teams calls with work-from-home employees who just want to chat, discuss a book, remote topics, and so on. Those have gone well, despite my introversion, thanks to my fun coworkers participating (we even had a singing dog on one call; amazing).
Wellness
SEAL’s wellness initiatives have included facilitating programs for employees with nutritionists, bringing personal fitness trainers to the office, having group fitness classes and yoga, sports leagues, and a MyVirtualMission program to encourage all employees to participate in a group distance mission. We started out going the distance from Charlotte to Dublin, then completed another mission from Dublin to Jacksonville, New England, and Charlotte to complete the office loop.
To celebrate our MyVirtualMission success, we completed some requests on DonorsChoose for classrooms across New England, and for a school near the Jacksonville office. We recently received a bundle of adorable thank you notes from one of the DonorsChoose classrooms:
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In 2020, we’ll be helping everyone start off the year right with a company health fair and related activities.
Philanthropy
Philanthropy and volunteer opportunities are another area where SEAL looks for opportunities to get SentryOne employees involved. Every employee at SentryOne has two days of PTO provided to them each year to use for volunteering. People can use those for the specific opportunities they are passionate about, or join a SEAL-sponsored event.
SEAL has been involved with Habitat-for-Humanity events, Catawba Riverkeeper cleanup efforts, Children’s Theatre of Charlotte volunteer days, school supply drives and donations for ClassroomCentral, canned food drives, holiday toy drives, and more.
Classroom supplies donated by the Jacksonville office to a local school
Foodie
The foodie focus includes not only catered Friday lunches in the offices, but also some fun food related events throughout the year: pancake day (a breakfast celebration), chili cook-off competition, ice cream socials, a Ben & Jerry’s hot chocolate bar with all the toppings, and cookies and biscuits delivered to remote employees.
Ben & Jerry’s Hot Chocolate Bar |
Cookies for Kids’ Cancer (gift for remote employees) |
Members
Thank you to everyone on SEAL working to make these events happen:
| 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 |
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