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- The CEO of a $3.5 billion security company said he pays his employees to socialize.
- The “3-3-3” program allows employees to go out to eat and drink and claim the cost as an expense.
- Verkada president Philip Calizan said it’s actually boosting business.
At cloud-based security company Verkada, employees are paid to interact with each other.
“The traditional way to do this is happy hour,” Verkada CFO Kameron Rezai told Business Insider. “We wondered if we could do better.”
Verkada CEO Filip Kaliszan recently went viral on TikTok for discussing the 3-3-3 perk on his podcast. The company started this system in April last year, and it subsidizes the cost of food and drinks if three or more employees go out together after 3 p.m.
“The idea is that the three of us will go out and spend time together in the afternoon. We might talk about things that are relevant or work-related, and in the end that will benefit us. ”Karrizan said in an interview.
As a start-up, this kind of interaction is critical for Verkada to remain competitive in an industry crowded with $100 billion-valued tech companies, Rezai told BI.
Rezai said the 3-3-3 program costs up to $30 per person and does not require pre-approval. The only requirement is that employees post photos to the 3-3-3 Slack channel when they’re done.
Rezai told BI that all 1,800 Verkada employees have participated in the program at least once. Typically, users post to their Slack channel 4-5 times a day, and employees are encouraged to use this perk 1-2 times a week.
Karizan said in the podcast that before 3-3-3, even if employees went out together, it could cost the company money. But he said making the name and program stick by advertising them on posters in the office made the difference.
“It wasn’t a money issue, it wasn’t a budget issue,” Kallizan said. “Everyone knows this is something they can do and gets excited about it.”
Founded in 2016, Verkada is valued at $3.5 billion. The company started selling security cameras and now offers six different product lines including access controls, alarms, air quality detectors, guest management devices, and intercoms.
This security company is known for having strict and sometimes controversial policies regarding office culture.
During the pandemic, Verkada resumed in-person operations after a two-month closure. Calisan said remote work has caused friction between engineers who are “writing each other’s essays” with arguments over text.
“If you want to grow as fast as you want to grow, you have to bring people back,” Calisan said.
By June 2020, the company implemented a strict in-person policy requiring all employees to come to work five days a week. Since then, Verkada has taken steps to avoid hiring remote workers and prevent all situations from becoming remote.
The CEO said one of those steps includes planning how long it will take for employees to work on offer letters.
Verkada places great value on its relationships with its employees, and the CEO said this even influences where the company builds locations. Verkada has been building offices in “cool” downtown areas of the city, which has been a big success, Mr. Calisan said in an interview.
Rezai said if business performance deteriorates, the company will need to reconsider employee benefits. However, the idea of a 3-3-3 program is to decentralize this type of employee interaction, allowing employees to plan on their own without involving an office manager.
California-based Verkada has 15 locations around the world. In 2023, the company announced that it will expand by 60% and open five new offices.
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