Helping ourselves by helping others: how we’re boosting engagement by giving back

There’s a reason we call our employees the Dream Team. They work hard, never settle and do what they need to do to get the job done.

Recognising all of that is super important to us and something we think is vital to building strong and collaborative working relationships. So last year we launched dedicated Team Engagement budgets. These are for managers to arrange events and meetups or even to just buy their teams treats to say thanks or well done. After a tough couple of years, where some teams have never even met in person, we knew these budgets would be vital to help build collaboration, boost morale and motivate team members. We expected people would love it. What we didn’t expect was how some teams would use it.

Take Ewelina Strugacz’s Quality Control team. They thought: “what’s better for team spirit than making the world a better place?” So they put aside a big chunk of their budget to do just that.

What to do with the Engagement Budget?

Ewelina’s team works in the FinCrime department, making sure our customers’ funds are safe and secure. There’s around 60 people in the team, with staff in Poland, Portugal and Lithuania. It’s an intense and important job so when the team heard about the Engagement Budget they were thrilled. After a long time working alone from kitchens and bedrooms, it was amazing to finally get the chance to hang out socially and in person.

So in November, they organized dinners in two locations to bring everyone together. But when December rolled around, everyone was busy getting ready for Christmas and Revolut’s company-wide Winter Party was giving everyone the chance to finally meet. So they decided to give the dinners a miss this time. But what would they do with the money? Ewelina had an idea.

“ I asked the Team Leaders if they wanted to spend the engagement budget to organize something for charity.  We sent an anonymous survey to check people’s thoughts and it turned out everyone was very enthusiastic to spend the money on helping others.”  

The Dream Team get to work

First, the team had to decide who to help. They put their heads together and landed on two great organizations in Kraków, Poland, where the engagement budget could do a lot of good: a dog shelter called DogRescue and the Alma Spei hospice for children.

Zofia and Magda from the team took responsibility for contacting those places, finding out what they needed and organizing everything. Before they knew it, managers and employees were out in Kraków, shopping lists in hand, buying essential items for Alma Spei and DogRescue.

Building teams by wrapping gifts

Once everything was bought, the team in Kraków set up a meeting to pack the gifts for the kids at Alma Spei. With Christmas songs on the radio, the team spent the day chatting and laughing as they wrapped everything up.

“Due to COVID-19, we couldn’t participate in the meeting when the kids actually received the presents but we got beautiful photos from Alma Spei and our hearts melted.“

Gym or dog food delivery?

“Well, I have to admit that we didn’t wrap presents for dogs and cats ;)" - Ewelina says. "I don’t believe they would be interested in colorful wrapping paper and we wanted to be more eco-friendly. But there is a funny story about delivering more than 200 kg of dog and cat food. It was just after a snowy night and our car couldn’t go all the way up to the shelter … so we had to take everything and carry it in our hands. What a gym day it was :) But we had great dog companions running around so now we have only good memories from that day. “

Building teams that think about others

It can be hard to keep engagement levels high when you’re working remotely and in different countries but with the Dream Team we can do anything. Sometimes we focus too much on work and our lives and forget how great it feels to do something good for others. Especially when you’re doing it as part of a team.  Ewelina’s advice to other Team Leaders is simple:

"Just be the spark and soon you will see the great fire of people's goodness and happiness."

We're super proud to have them all on board our rocket ship!

If you also want to be a part of the Dream Team, take a look at our career’s page and apply.