Bringing Our Values to Life in 2020
At SoFi, our core company values are at the center of everything we do — from how we serve our members to how we build our organization and how we work together. Even in our remote environment, we still found ways to celebrate our 11 core values, because we firmly believe they guide us toward our mission of helping our members achieve financial independence to realize their ambitions.
This month, we’re reflecting on all of the unique ways we celebrated them, from interactive programming to community engagement, inspiring speakers, funny videos and more.
JANUARY: Put our members’ interests first.
To pay homage to the reason all of us show up to work everyday, we turned it over to our employees to tell us what putting our members’ interests first means to them. The three winning videos can be watched here:
FEBRUARY: Make your footprint bigger than your foot.
At SoFi, our employees make their footprint bigger than their foot every day. To celebrate their efforts and this value, we launched a new program called “My Footprint” where SoFi leaders share their professional and life journeys and the impact others have made on their life (and vice versa)!
MARCH: Do the right thing. If you’re not sure, do the
harder thing.
March was the month we made the difficult but right decision to transition all employees to work from home. We also produced a light-hearted series of short videos with our Chief Risk Officer and Chief Legal Counsel, in a “Between Two Ferns” format, illustrating how everyone has a role to play in “doing the right thing.”
APRIL: Set ambitious goals, be gritty, be accountable.
In a new remote environment, being gritty and accountable became even more essential. We asked everyone to submit videos of how this value’s meaning shifted in the face of COVID-19 and compiled them into a compelling narrative during an historic time.
MAY: Take care of other people and help them grow.
To celebrate May’s Value of the Month, we hosted a fireside chat where leadership shared their career journeys, including their thoughts on imposter syndrome, maintaining balance and helping people grow both by giving and receiving feedback.
JUNE: Embrace diversity. Everyone should feel welcome,
included and able to contribute.
In June, we created a series of programming with each SoFi Circle (employee resource group), including special sessions on Juneteenth and Pride Month, and launched two new Circles. We also asked employees what it means to them to embrace diversity, and their response was inspiring . This value also happened to coincide with events happening at a macro level. In the midst of nation-wide social unrest, SoFi committed $1 million to organizations helping to dismantle systemic racism, chosen by our SoulFi employee resource group.
JULY: Be SoFi missionaries.
We aren’t one of those companies that says we care about innovation but never wants to make a mistake. At SoFi, we believe in failing fast and applying our learnings to create real innovation. At All Hands throughout the month, we highlighted product feedback employees have provided that we acted on to showcase the importance of learning, iterating and innovating!
We also talked with various leaders across the business on the importance of data in innovation, and we invited Ana Shapiro Queenan to share with us how the Olympic Games are iterating on their learnings following the games’ COVID postponement.
AUGUST: Learn, Iterate, Innovate.
In August, we hosted deep dive sessions on our newest product offerings to ensure employees felt inspired to amplify them. Our executive sponsors hosted a virtual panel about the power of being a SoFi missionary, and we created and shared a video with employees of real members sharing what SoFi means to them to further reinforce why we do what we do!
SEPTEMBER: Run After Problems.
We must build a culture of people who run after problems in order to ensure we execute with excellence and “things” do not fall through the cracks.
Running after problems is an essential part of working at a company that’s growing as fast as SoFi is. We encouraged employees to send in videos of them “running” (any kind of exercise!) after problems and how they implement this value in their work. We also chatted with a panel of external speakers across various industries to hear how they’ve pivoted in their line of work in a year as unexpected as 2020 for some additional inspiration!
OCTOBER: Don’t Forget to Smile.
By October, we all needed some serious comedic relief. Our executive sponsors delivered with a Halloween costume contest — and the winners witnessed a lip sync battle between our leaders! The rest of the month was peppered with guided meditations, inspiring employee stories and a “Pumpkin Patch Chat” on the power of happiness at work.
NOVEMBER: Get to the Truth and Make Principle-Based
Decisions.
SoFi recently implemented the DACI decision-making framework. Carrying over some of the comedic relief from October, we created a SoFi Sitcom that doubled as a training refresh on how to use DACI to help everyone make principle-based decisions. We also hosted a panel discussion with SoFi Board members to learn about their role in making decisions that move the company forward.
At SoFi, it’s not just what we do—but how we do it. And our core values lead the way for all of us. It’s just one of many reasons Why We SoFi!
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