{"id":23389,"date":"2020-07-15T16:48:32","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T23:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/?p=23389"},"modified":"2020-07-28T09:13:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T16:13:09","slug":"alkamis-culture-compounds-pave-way-to-continued-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/alkamis-culture-compounds-pave-way-to-continued-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Alkami’s Culture Compounds Pave Way to Continued Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alkami Technology\u2019s platform humanizes digital banking so banks and credit unions can confidently grow, adapt quickly, and build a thriving digital community. The company ensures clients are successful in the digital banking age by delivering the nation\u2019s most successful cloud-based digital banking platform. Founded 10 years ago, Alkami is one of the fastest-growing privately held technology companies in the U.S. With every Alkamist having ownership in Alkami, they are obsessively intentional about their culture: optimistic-perseverance, caring-collaboration, transparent-communication, courageous-innovation, trusted-accountability, and real-fun. Beyond intentional culture, their commitment is to attract and retain amazing talent by fostering a high-growth, dynamic and rewarding environment; providing great benefits; making meaningful investments in learning and development; celebrating successes together in remarkable ways; and, ACTing together by taking time to give back and volunteer. We spoke with Alkami\u2019s Chief HR Officer, Adrianne Court, about how their business operations were altered in response to the Covid-19 crisis, as well as the culture attributes that helped them to successfully transition, even thrive during this pandemic period, and what she\u2019s most excited about Alkami accomplishing over the past year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Comparably: How has the pandemic shifted the way Alkami operates and how have your people responded?<\/b><\/p>\n

Adrianne Court<\/b>: <\/span>In order to answer this question, it is important to understand some of the fundamentals necessary in terms of how companies can survive in a pandemic environment like this. To me, there are three fundamentals \u2013 financial, type of service or product, and company culture. To begin, the first is, does the business offer a service or product that is needed or critical during a period such as what we are in with COVID-19?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

At Alkami, we innovate, build, and deliver tools and technology that offer banks and credit unions the ability to connect with and serve their customers in a digital way.\u00a0 This is what is known as the digital banking channel (in essence it is their \u201cvirtual\u201d bank branch).\u00a0 During the pandemic with banks and credit unions temporarily shuttering the doors of their branches to help stop the spread of COVID-19, offering the digital ability to bank is an essential service. A digital \u201cbranch\u201d allows the bank and credit union employees to work remotely and safely while continuing to offer banking capabilities to their customers.\u00a0 In fact, the digital \u201cbranch\u201d was quite important when the U.S. government issued billions of dollars in COVID-19 relief funds. Consumers could access the funds they needed immediately digitally with our bank and credit union clients instead of waiting for physical checks to arrive in the mail.\u00a0 Even if they did receive a physical check,\u00a0 having the ability to deposit digitally was extremely important.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The second is the financial backing and the ability to sustain the trust of your investors during a crisis period. Alkami is fortunate that our investors are connected with us as long-term strategic investors that believe in building and are not short-term thinkers. They understand the great value in investing in the people and an organization like Alkami and the return this brings longer-term. In fact, our investors made additional investments in us during the pandemic.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The first was offering a product or service essential during a crisis period and the second is having the financial backing. The third, and I would argue the glue for the first and second, is having an intentional culture that can sustain an organization and carry it through a crisis period.\u00a0 This is the way an organization thinks, acts, and interacts.\u00a0 This is tested in times of great crisis and stress.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

At Alkami, trust, collaboration and caring are fundamental to our culture in how we work and connect physically together, so this naturally helped us to transition, and not only to survive working remotely but to thrive together.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

So, back to your question \u2013 did the pandemic shift our business operations? You know, actually it hasn\u2019t shifted as much for us as we may have thought it would prior to the pandemic. We continue to collaborate, connect, care, and demonstrate optimistic-perseverance \u2013 it has simply stretched us to rethink and re-imagine how we express this together remotely and virtually.\u00a0 As an example, we had never completed a fully virtual implementation with our clients prior to the pandemic \u2013 we always worked together on-site. Our Alkamists across the organization came together (virtually, of course) to re-imagine and re-invent our approach to implementations with great grit, perseverance, and fierce collaboration. Not only were we successful in doing this within the first week of working remotely, but we have also now duplicated this many times and it has become a competency to successfully launch and implement with clients virtually.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Comparably: How would you describe Alkami Technology\u2019s workplace culture, and what attributes would you say contributed to your success amid the COVID crisis?<\/b><\/p>\n

Adrianne Court:<\/b> Culture and intentionality around our culture is top of mind for us all the time. It is a competitive differentiator for us and clients tell us this. When you think about prospective clients that are selecting technology partners, most SaaS company contracts are 18 months to two years on average compared to ours, which on average are over six years. For clients that consider partnering with us, it is critical for them to understand who they will be hanging out with as their digital banking partner for multiple years instead of the typical mindset of, \u201cHey, if it doesn\u2019t work out, we can look for a different provider in a year or two.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Our clients being community banks and credit unions are hyper-focused on culture and how they connect in their communities. They, therefore, seek out partners like Alkami with intentional cultures. In fact, our sales team at Alkami will tell you that 80 to 85% of our clients consider culture within their top final decision factors when selecting us.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

How do we describe our culture? It is articulated in our Culture Compounds. \u201cCompounds\u201d are defined as things that are combined and are mixed together to form a whole. For us, our Culture Compounds mix together to express how we think, act, and connect with our Alkamists, clients, and communities. This is how we unite together:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n