One of Clef’s core values is “Be better today than yesterday,” so it’s important that we support our employees’ efforts to learn, grow, and improve. These are some of the key benefits of working at Clef, and are central to our company culture.
Every employee has a company budget to support any learning activity that they want to pursue related to the work they do at Clef. This doesn’t need to be a class explicitly linked to their current role, but it should help them improve a skill that will be useful for them at Clef. Each employee has an annual budget of $4,000 which can be spent towards program fees/tuition, tickets, flights, and hotels for industry conferences, classes, mentorship programs, books, programs, videos, or other places that they feel will provide valuable learning experiences. These expenses should be discussed in one-on-ones and approved by the founder to whom the employee reports. This budget resets at the beginning of every calendar year and does not roll over. The learning budget will be limited to $2,000 during the first year of implementation and for employees joining the company after the month of May in the calendar year.
Employees can also use work hours to work on learning projects, though this should be limited to four hours a week.
Clef understands the value of mentorship. We will work with every employee to make sure they have a mentor in their field outside of the company who they can regularly meet with and get advice. Mentorship goals will be discussed in one-on-ones, possible mentors from our industry or networks will be chosen, and everyone on the team will help make and support the connection with the mentor. Employees are also encouraged to meet with their mentor during normal work hours. In the future, we will explore a more comprehensive resource or platform for helping employees find mentors.
It makes Clef look great when our employees speak at industry conferences, so we love to support Clef employees who are invited to speak to their peers about their area of expertise. For each event, Clef will pay for the flights and hotel up to $1,000 dollars, and employees are each eligible for this benefit 4 times per year (this budget is separate from the learning budget). Employees should get approval from the founder they report to about which conferences are appropriate to speak at, and to make sure that conference dates don’t interfere with important company dates.
Speaker support will be limited to two event during the first year of implementation and for employees joining the company after the month of May in the calendar year.