Velir’s Commitment to Making a Difference to Clients, Staff, & the Local Community
David Pictor, a Digital Producer at Velir, sat down with Amanda Strout, our HR Generalist, to discuss what makes Velir a unique place to work. Amanda shared her thoughts on our involvement with the community, attendance at different conferences, and involvement in a variety of activities.
In this episode, you will learn about:
- Velir’s commitment to making a difference in the local community. (0:45)
- How the variety of training workshops and annual conferences that Velirians attend and participate in has been vital to professional growth as well as connecting with clients. (1:33)
- How Velir empowers its staff members to connect with one another through company-sponsored events and activities. (2:22)
"Velir has a really big interest in community involvement. We offer paid coverage of volunteer time to staff each year and, as an organization, have volunteered with the Boys & Girls Club, Cradles to Crayons, The Food Project, and many other initiatives."
Video Transcript (Edited for Clarity)
David Pictor: Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Public Interface by Velir! My name is David Pictor and joining me today is Amanda Strout, our HR Generalist. Today we're gonna be talking about what makes Velir such a unique place to work, but before we jump in make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future discussions.
[Public Interface Intro]
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David: Amanda, coming from your last position, what stood out to you about Velir that made you so interested in it as a company?
Amanda Strout: Admittedly, I am not very technical myself, but I can really appreciate what Velir does as an organization and for their clients. But beyond that Velir has a really big interest in community involvement, which is very important to me. From the moment of getting my offer letter I noticed that Velir offers eight hours of volunteer time to staff, so we as an organization volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club, Cradles to Crayons, and my favorite—The Food Project. We go out onto a farm and help them prepare the farm or winter or spring whatever it may be and help them send those crops out to communities that may not have access to fresh food like that. Getting out in the community in the sunshine with our staff is pretty great.
David: Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of getting out of the office, I actually did my SCRUM Master training with a few co-workers last year, and that was good opportunity to get out and about in downtown Boston, which was kind of fun. Speaking of conferences, a number of other co-workers also attend some conferences annually like Sitecore Symposium, Acquia Engage, and Coveo Impact. I think you went to a conference earlier this year as well?
Amanda: Yes, I've attended a couple of conferences myself and the most recent one was SHRM, which is the biggest HR organization. Their conference was out in Vegas this year, and that was a blast. I learned a ton, so it was really difficult to come back, but luckily our office is in Davis Square, which isn’t that bad of a place to come back to. A cool thing about Davis Square is that there’s a huge music and art scene here and Velir is pretty involved in that as well. We display artwork from MassArt students, so they'll come in and switch that out a few times a year, which is great. We get to see them at work hanging all their own artwork and our staff members are really talented as well, enough so that we have a talent show every single year where people display their artwork and photography, and they get up there and perform with their bands or their family members. I'm really excited for that—it's coming up in a few weeks—and you have a pretty interesting hobby that's had did quite the impact on Velir.
David: Indeed, I do. I do some woodworking on the side, and I've done a few projects for Velir. With such a strong social atmosphere here at Velir, when we're hanging around the in-house kegs some of which is actually sometimes brought in by one of the co-workers who brews his own beer—I thought it would be kind of cool to make a custom Velir bottle opener, keg board, and tap handles as well.
Amanda: Those look great. I think they've added a lot to Velir, and I know new employees really like them. Some of my favorite events that we've done here have been our St. Patrick's Day celebration, apple picking, and the Easter egg hunt that we do every year.
David: That Easter egg hunt was wild! How many eggs did we hide?
Amanda: Like 200 or something ridiculous at least. And it was so fun after we hid them at night watching everyone come in in the morning and just run wild looking for the prized eggs that we hid.
David: Yeah, we have some seriously competitive people here at Velir and the ping-pong and foosball tournaments that we have are incredibly intense which is actually what gave me the idea for the most recent woodworking project that I did—a winner's plaque to put on the wall to display the names of the champions.
Amanda: There certainly is a lot of pride in people getting their names on those plaques.
David: There's certainly no shortage of exciting activities, experiences, and embracing of hobbies here at Velir. I think that's the beauty of what makes Velir—Velir. Thank you for joining us today, Amanda!
Amanda: Thanks for having me!
David: So that wraps up today's episode of Public Interface! Thank you for watching! Join us next time as we continue to explore other exciting topics from our work here at Velir. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter (@Velir), subscribe to our YouTube channel, or visit us online at velir.com. See you next time!
[Outro Music and Closing Credits]
Hosted By: David Pictor
Special Guest: Amanda Strout
Produced By: Velir
Directed By: Mark Stiles
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