On Monday, March 9th, 2020, during Veritas (our weekly all-hands call), we hired our 67th employee (Lauren Stenstream, Indomitable Controller), we named Luke “Snakeman” Talltree the Voltan of the Week (Luke installed our technology at seven new customer sites that week), and we celebrated International Women’s Day. Oh yes, and we announced that we were moving our first ever customer conference, scheduled to be held in Times Square on April 1st, to a virtual meeting. On March 9th, 2020, the world had changed.

We’ve now been living in that changed world for over a full year. 8760+ hours. It’s a year – for obvious reasons, for many reasons, for countless virtual conference reasons – that we don’t ever want to repeat.

Yet today, we hired our 104th employee (Jesus Martinez, Production Technician), we were publicly lauded by one of the world’s largest companies for helping them manage February’s Texas energy crisis, and we closed a deal with an important partner. Oh yes, and we hired Jon Wellinghoff, the former FERC Chairman (since you’re reading an energy blog, I suppose that last clause was unnecessary).

2020 threw haymaker after haymaker…and we came out stronger. The following seven reasons help explain why, and we hope they will help others lead through times of adversity as well.

1. We share. We share family photos from weekend adventures, thorny problems we’re struggling to solve, successes that help others succeed, and dog pictures. Lots and lots of dog pictures. Sharing leads to trust, and trust leads to winning as a team.

2. We support. Especially this year, we support. COVID has been long. People go through COVID troughs at different times. Especially this year, we pick up and support our teammates.

3. We make mistakes. Because our final work product is of such high quality, we sometimes feel like we can’t make mistakes. We actually have to coach people to make mistakes, so that we continue to take appropriate chances and stretch our capabilities.

4. We innovate. We value nimbleness, creativity, and finding a better way. We understand that the antiquated electric grid, lack of customer choice, and less renewable energy than is possible are simply unacceptable.  

5. We get after it. We are working on urgent problems that demand hard work. Work hard, succeed.

6. We celebrate. Celebrate the little victories, celebrate the big wins. You have to have fun at work, c’mon!  

7. We love. We say aloud to every Voltan that we want Voltus to be the best professional experience of their lives. Making that happen is a two-way street. For our part, we think very deliberately about creating an atmosphere in which people can do their absolute best work. Part of leadership compensation is tied to a quarterly “Happiness and Productivity” three-question survey taken by every Voltan.

We did something else today: we booked an actual, physical, in-person location for VoltusFest, our semi-annual company-wide off-site. We’ll be in Austin, where we’ll share, support, make mistakes, innovate, get after it, celebrate, and, yes, love. We can’t wait. We cannot wait.

We’re hiring. View all open positions at www.voltus.co/join-us.

Questions? Reach out to our team at info@voltus.co.