Reflections from the 2022 Silverchair Summit

Silverchair is now (and will remain) a remote-first or hybrid organization, but we also know that gathering in person as a company is critical to maintaining our distinctive culture and sustaining the capacity of our teams for creativity, collaboration, and outstanding performance. That’s why we gathered together at our Hardware Store offices to:

• Promote strong team relationships, creativity, and ideation.
• Reinforce and enhance the trust on which our fun, inclusive, high-performing culture is built.
• Promote our company's ability to function effectively as a remote-first or hybrid organization.

Silverchairians were welcomed to the Summit with “passports” (complete with activity suggestions to help them explore the offices), followed by an opening plenary from CEO Thane Kerner and Chief People Officer Lily Garcia Walton. The Summit offered two days of in-person co-working, optional team-building activities, and company-wide events. "Neighborhoods" (designated co-working areas) were set up for each of our teams and they were encouraged to design their time together to optimize relationship-building, effective ways of working, creativity, and fun.

We're still in the process of collecting feedback from teams, but preliminary results indicate that the time together bolstered team connection and communication, added to feelings of cohesion as a company, and gave remote colleagues a deeper sense of the company culture. Here's what we've heard so far:

• "It was a great experience connecting with everyone. The details were really amazing, and all these made us feel that we were valued. The little details made a huge difference."
• "This week was amazing, energizing, inspiring, and exhausting (in the best way)!"
• "It was my pleasure to meet you all; thank you for all your kindness. You all are beautiful people!"

Some snapshots from our time together: