The ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ is thriving at these hiring companies

Innovation and progress don’t happen in a vacuum — they require support to generate a constant influx of fresh ideas and creativity.

While these ideas can often take the shape of a new company, existing organizations can also be fertile grounds for cultivating this “entrepreneurial spirit.” The safety and stability of an established company can provide resources and freedom necessary to experiment and develop creative solutions.

The results of this experimentation can be beneficial not just for individual employees and companies, but for broader communities as well. And if a tech scene is to evolve and grow, then entrepreneurship cannot be limited to founders and those with the ability to set off on their own — it should be available to everyone. In turn, this spirit of progress can drive success for the environments and organizations in which it thrives.

For the month of May, Technical.ly’s reporting has explored the theme of Evolution of a Tech Scene via our editorial calendar. For some additional perspectives, we asked our Technical.ly Talent companies the following question:

How does your organization encourage an entrepreneurial spirit among employees? 

This could include things like providing paths to leadership within the organization, allowing employees to pursue side projects and personal passions during work, supporting employees and alumni with tech/financial resources and networking, or educating employees on business areas outside their main responsibilities.

Here are some replies from their hiring teams, and if you like what you see, follow the links to companies’ Culture Pages to learn more and explore open roles.

Kleer

“Entrepreneurship is a Kleer core value and we celebrate it by awarding every employee with equity. We believe that as a startup, attempting to disrupt a billion dollar insurance industry, every employee should have skin in the game and be treated as business owners. In doing this, we ignite creativity, inspire innovation, encourage collaboration and ultimately drive our success. The entire Kleer team meets virtually biweekly to hear from our CEO as well as leaders and individual contributors from every business unit, to openly discuss company financials, wins/losses, product roadmap and strategy. In sharing this data, we are able to empower our employees to use their voice by raising questions and expressing ideas.” — Melissa Richardson, VP of team success

PNC Financial Services

“Innovation needs to be a core part of our DNA and not something special that we do on the side. When you talk about ideation, don’t worry about the net present value or how much it will cost. Go experiment. That’s the only way we can compete in today’s world. Once that happens, people naturally stop doing the status quo and begin to invent and reimagine the work they do each day. And it is that culture of shared innovation that really sets PNC apart.” — Ganesh Krishnan, executive vice president and enterprise chief information officer

Think Company

“An entrepreneurial spirit is important to us since our work with clients involves solving complex business challenges as part of the design and technology consulting we do. To cultivate this, we’re always looking to find connections between an employee’s long-term skill aspirations and company project work. There’s a lot of internal support for side projects Thinkers are pursuing because we know that knowledge will often elevate our approach to our work. We also recently launched a Think Alumni program focused on staying connected to those who leave the company and facilitating tailored networking opportunities and continuing education with our network.” — Dan Busey, VP of brand and strategy

URBN

“I think an entrepreneurial spirit is embedded in the culture at URBN overall, so we invest heavily in providing creative opportunities for the larger organization to foster that spirit. Within our technology group, we hold hackathon events that provide teams with an opportunity to dedicate a week to ideation, collaboration, planning and execution of a feature or product that is pitched to the URBN executive leadership team. We present, vote and award winners in various categories. Over the years, we have seen roughly 5+ different ideas from the hackathon teams planned on our annual roadmap to be designed and developed as a production-ready feature enabled across our three largest brands.” — Darielle Schott, senior manager of engineering solution delivery

Vistar Media

“Entrepreneurial thinking is a cornerstone of our culture. Employees are encouraged to explore ideas, punch above their weight and take on projects both in and outside of their scope that excite them. One example includes grant projects; anyone on our engineering team can propose a project they find interesting and want to pursue. If approved, we can take them off some of their current work to give them more time to spend on their grant project.” — Vicki Garcia, director of talent acquisition

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Feeling entrepreneurial and looking for a new outlet? Check out all the Technical.ly Talent companies here, and learn more about their cultures and open positions.

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