We want to improve the lives of our employees beyond offering good salaries. We think a good benefit is one that accomplishes that goal while also enhancing the business itself.
This isn't a benefit, but you need to know what it is to understand some of the benefits.
Insperity is our PEO. A PEO (Professional Employer Organization) provides HR services like payroll processing, payroll tax management, and insurance management to small and medium businesses like us. Legally speaking, the PEO arrangement means you are employed by both Insperity and Expected Behavior. Your paychecks will come from Insperity.
The Insperity portal is where you will manage most of your hiring documentation, insurance benefits, and salary information such as W-2s. Generally speaking, you won’t regularly interact with Insperity.
You are required to take at least two one-week vacations per year, but we encourage averaging one week per quarter. You are required to take vacation for two reasons
- Our work requires creativity. There is a limit to how long you can continuously work before your creativity erodes.
- It's an opportunity for the business to make sure it is well formed. The business should operate smoothly while you're on vacation. If it doesn't, that's something we need to address.
To schedule a vacation (or to note that you'll be traveling), add a new event to do the EB Travel & Vacation calendar with the format "{Name} - {Location} - {Vacation/Working}". It's especially important to note the difference between being somewhere else while you work and being on vacation.
It is your responsibility to ensure that you redistribute all your work obligations to others prior to your vacation (such as the DevOps pager or support management). If it doesn't disrupt your obligations, there's no need to ask permission or notify anyone! If it does have an impact, notify the relevant team members and discuss any potential complications.
There's no rule about how far in advance you need to announce a vacation. If your schedule allows, you could wake up today and decide you don't feel like it. It's almost always possible to redistribute work, but be aware that popular holidays can make it difficult to find someone to cover you. Consider planning in advance according to how important it is to you.
We strongly discourage working while on vacation. We realize there are spectrums of "vacation" and maybe you're just bored watching the kids for a day, but working while on vacation can complicate the lives of those that are not on vacation. If you work while on vacation, do not do things that might block others or force them to consider communicating with you. For example, do not deploy. Deploying could block other planned work or cause an incident that you, the person on vacation, have important knowledge about.
Lastly, because we all love to travel, we have a Travel Reports Basecamp where we share our travel experiences.
Holidays are listed on the EB Travel & Vacation calendar. We observe the following holidays each year:
- New Year's Day
- MLK Jr. Day
- Presidents' Day
- Memorial Day
- Juneteenth
- Independence Day
- Labor Day
- Indigenous Peoples' Day
- Veteran’s Day
- Thanksgiving Day
- Day after Thanksgiving
- Christmas Day through December 31
- Day after each quarterly Partner Meeting (this is almost always a Friday)
These aren't strictly necessary with an unlimited vacation day policy. This list exists because it got annoying to have a couple dozen perfunctory "this is obviously a holiday" conversations in chat every year. You can work on these days if you want, but you can't do anything that would induce someone else to work.
This is one of our "togetherness" benefits. A wise man once said that Expected Behavior only works if we all like and respect each other. Togetherness benefits encourage that by making it convenient to spend time together when we're not working. After work every Monday, all the willing Behaviornauts go out to dinner and Expected Behavior pays. We already have plenty of time together to talk about work, so work talk is discouraged.
Hungry? We have a variety of snack food like popcorn or snacky-bars. Thirsty? We’ve got coffee (drip or french press), tea (a variety), and water (bottled, dispensed, SodaStream).
We also have a fine whiskey selection and a smattering of other alcohol. Expected Behavior reminds you to please drink responsibly. We will always cover any and all work-related ride sharing expenses.
If there’s a snack or beverage you like that we don’t have, get some with your company card and share it with us.
There plenty of other times when Expected Behavior will provide free food: if we have a lunch meeting, if it's someone's first day, if we're celebrating something, if it's a really nice day, etc.
Food is a relatively minor budget item at a small company, so please don't worry much about cost. If you're still concerned about cost, order the greater of A) whatever you would order if you were paying for yourself or B) the most expensive thing someone else is ordering.
We like to share food, but sharing is not required. To simplify food sharing, it's fine to order things "for the table" without asking if anyone at the table wants any. It's also fine to order shareables and keep it for yourself. If it's unclear, someone may ask you if your order is intended for sharing. There is no wrong answer. They just want to know if they need to order their own.
Every 6-8 weeks, we take a day off and do something together during the work day. We take turns planning the goof off day, so everyone has a chance to show off their interests. You can find the current schedule in relevant Basecamp. When it's your turn to plan, it's a chance to share your interests with your coworkers or just have us do something together you think is fun. It's fine to repeat previous goofs. The only limit is yourself. And the budget (also found in the Basecamp).
From time to time, the company may take an all-expense-paid retreat to celebrate, to plan, or to unwind. We’ll fly somewhere, stay in a nice place, hang out, eat good food, and entertain ourselves.
Through Insperity, we offer a variety of healthcare plan options. After your initial selection, you can switch your plan only at the end of the year unless you have a qualifying life event.
Our healthcare benefit is equal to the cost of medical, dental, and vision, at the best available plan. Spouses/dependents can be added to your plan at your expense.
We provide life insurance and personal accident insurance (max $50,000 benefit for both). Through Insperity, you may purchase (pretax) disability insurance, accident insurance, and additional life insurance.
We offer 401k plans through Vanguard and will match up to 4% of your salary. We match contributions point-for-point up to three points (i.e. you contribute 3% of your salary and we’ll match 3% of your salary) and a half point each for the next two points (i.e. you contribute 5% of your salary and we’ll match 4% of your salary). You can find instructions for updating your contribution level here.
We’re a technology company and should be familiar with the popular and leading-edge software and hardware of today. To promote that, we’ll regularly provide you with new cutting-edge hardware so you’re getting the same day-to-day experience of technology a majority of people will be having in the next 1-2 years as the future becomes more evenly distributed. Specifically, you’ll get any/all of the following that you’ll actually use:
- A cutting edge laptop from every major generation or every two years, whichever is sooner
- A first-rate monitor for your desk
- The accessories of your choosing including mouse, keyboard, adapters, etc
- A cutting edge phone from every major generation or every two years, whichever is sooner
- A cutting edge tablet from every other major generation or every three years, whichever is sooner
After getting new hardware, we also allow employees to purchase old hardware from the company at a below-market-value rate.
You have two choices. You can put your phone on Expected Behavior’s phone plan at Verizon and use all the data you want at any time for any reason, period. Or, if you like your current plan, EB will subsidize it up to $75/mo. You will need to report your real phone cost to get reimbursed.
We’ll pay our accountant to do your personal taxes, if you’d like.
We have video game consoles, modern and classic, and have a monthly budget for adding new games. We mostly focus on group games so people can play together, but fun-to-watch single-player games also make their way in from time to time. You're welcome to buy games with your company card, but you might want to check on the best way to do it so everyone can use it. Each console has its own sharing system and we want for everyone to enjoy.
This is a recent experiment in increasing our convenience. We're gauging usage to see if we should keep it. The current implementation is somewhere around "nice hotel gym". We have a treadmill, dumbbells from 5-80lb, a bench, and various tools for yoga/stretching/correctives. Showers are available in our restrooms.