05/24/2018

This Company Lets Its 40 Employees Choose Which Benefits Are Important

How one startup is trading Ping-Pong for customized benefits

EvoText doesn't seem like a textbook example of a tech startup. Granted, its 40 full-time employees enjoy great benefits, a liberal time-off policy, and many of the other perks of techdom. But what sets EvoText apart are some of the things not on the menu. It's a company of computer geeks designing software for teachers to interact with students and dynamically implement curricula--and yet there's not a foosball or Ping-Pong table in sight. Don't go looking for the massage table, a pantry filled with organic food, or yoga sign-up sheet. Pushed against a whiteboard is a single stationary bike to which someone has playfully attached a sign: "EvoText Corporate Fitness Center."

When Johanna Wetmore and Christopher Robert launched the Burlington, Massachusetts-based education software business in their attic in 2012, the soon-to-be-married couple set out to build the sort of firm they'd want to work for. "If you pick the right people, treat them with respect, and leave them to their own devices, they are going to do what they need to do to get the job done," says Wetmore, now CEO. "People just want to be treated like adults." That's not to say folks at EvoText aren't fun-loving. They have their pub trivia night and annual retreat. The difference is when they're at work, they're kind of, um, grown-up.

So if you're into flash, EvoText isn't for you. But if you're sensible like a schoolteacher, then by all means get on the bus. Just consider where EvoText relocated once it outgrew the attic: a bland, suburban office building across the street from a car dealer. "I don't have a lot of respect for the practice of creating very expensive, elaborate office space, but not giving employees the benefits they need," says Wetmore. "We need a place to get together, but it's not going to be designer and I'm certainly not paying for downtown Boston."

Please select this link to read the complete article from Inc.