Skillshare provides a number of touchpoints for our team to collaborate together at every level. As part of our operating structure, we’ve put together a Senior Leadership Team who report directly to management and come together biweekly to problem solve, ideate and strategize, and then have that work trickle down to the rest of the company. We find this structure has led to a very collaborative culture and allows us to both move quickly and prioritize, while creating a forum to communicate in both directions.
Separately, as an organization we do a lot of cross-functional collaboration in documents and using collaborative tooling like Miro boards to group brainstorm, even in our remote environment.
Skillshare is a ‘happy corner of the internet’ and our employees are proud and deeply connected to working on a product that is doing a lot of good for our users. Members around the world love Skillshare for discovering inspiration, learning new skills, and putting their talents to work in ways they care about. We’ve seen again and again how the seemingly simple act of creating can be a force for growth and change in people’s lives. We want to inspire creative exploration, and expand the power of expression, learning, and discovery.
Respect is a given and baseline here at Skillshare. We are extremely protective of the inclusive culture we’ve built and guard it very thoughtfully to avoid degradation of what makes it so special and unique to Skillshare. During every hiring process Skillshare conducts a values interview, where existing employees have been specially trained to assess if a candidate will fit Skillshare’s values. Our executive team also is key in cultivating our culture of respect, leading by example and setting a tone that starts from the top down, welcoming open feedback, authenticity, and willingness to admit mistakes and failures. Finally, at Skillshare we respect differences and a core part of our living DEI values are not just respecting but celebrating differences.
Skillshare sets out to nurture our employees and encourages them to honor and care for their full selves. One way we do this is by providing employees with a Growth & Creativity fund allotting $1150 to use on a variety of things within the learning, creativity and wellness categories. Employees can use the fund to go to a professional conference, take an art class or even things like going for therapy, meditation class or massage. We took an intentionally broad approach to support our employees in their own unique ways.
We also support professional development by bringing in external thought leaders to speak on industry topics and trends, host internal innovation workshops and grant promotions for employees twice a year.
Skillshare’s core values of Transparency, Impact, Community and Curiosity underscore everything we do as a business: how we approach our mission, product, and work; how we hire, manage, and promote; and how we interact and collaborate together day-to-day. Our core values are designed to be at the intersection of who we are--and what makes us unique--and where we want to be. They are designed to be effective both internally and externally, and come to life in all of our employee interactions.
We’ve instituted a number initiatives and events to intentionally cultivate our remote culture and drive connections across the organization. Each year we host a week long annual retreat, called ‘Skillshare Unplugged’, where the entire company comes together. The week-long event includes strategy sessions, professional development, team building and DEIB learning experiences.
Skillshare has also implemented a monthly “Pecha Kucha” tradition where team members give short presentations on themselves, offering a space for our employees to get to know each other in a fun and unique way. Each month our employees look forward to hearing fun and personal stories from their colleagues and we’ve found it is a great driver of connection across the organization.
Matt brings the perfect balance of operational excellence and an entrepreneurial spirit as CEO, helping the company drive global expansion and significant growth since joining in 2016. Matt is committed to equitable systems to support DEIB and under his leadership Skillshare has implemented specific practices to ensure fair pay and hiring aligned with our value of community. He leans authentically into Skillshare’s value of transparency by regularly sharing information openly with the company. He sets and holds a very high bar for leadership at all levels in the company and role models personal accountability aligned with our value of impact.
Skillshare offers employees a broad range of benefits including health coverage, unlimited PTO and a variety of resources to help them live their best lives. Some of our more unique benefits include a 1 month sabbatical after 3 years of service, paid time off for volunteering, 5 unplug days where the whole company is off in addition to closing during the last week of the year. In addition, every employee gets equity and owns a piece of Skillshare; this drives an ownership mentality along with giving everyone the opportunity to share in the company’s success. Finally, Skillshare also has a firm no-negotiation salary policy and set pay grade increase procedures to help ensure inclusion and equity in our hiring and compensation processes.
Skillshare is the world's largest online learning community for creativity. With more than 740,000 subscribers and over 30,000 video-based classes exploring a wide range of creative disciplines from graphic design to photography to painting and illustration to interior design. Skillshare is both a publisher of original content, and an open platform, where anyone who meets our standards and guidelines can upload a class and earn income. Skillshare's mission is to build the world’s most valuable creative learning community.
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Online Education
Matt Cooper
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