At DoorDash, teams are empowered to own all aspects of their work — from how they navigate career growth to how they manage their work-life integration.
Teams are encouraged to take advantage of our flexible vacation policy and have access to mental wellness resources, but Mariam Boni, Director of Regional Sales, saw an opportunity to get 1% better in supporting her team's work-life integration upon returning from maternity leave last year.
"Through analysis of employee feedback and internal surveys, we got a better understanding of how our teams were operating, and many of them were battling burnout," Mariam said.
"We are an organization of builders, which inspires us to do our best work every day. And we saw the benefits of having a winter slowdown, which coordinated time for our people to truly unplug from work in a coordinated way. That encouraged us to develop and introduce a pilot program called WeCharge days, where teams take the day to recharge, reset and come back to work even stronger."
WeCharge isn't just a day away from work. Mariam, Tiara Adams, and the SMB sales teams have developed the program into days of celebration, where the teams that participate commit to truly unplugging from work, documenting how they enjoyed their time away, and when they return, sharing their experiences.
For the pilot of the program, the teams strategically picked days that coincided with long weekends. The pilot was a hit, with Mariam and the team not only seeing an increase in employee engagement, but also in productivity, performance, and employee sentiment.
"We dreamed big, started small, and have been able to leverage this to make it an actual initiative across many teams for both salaried and hourly team members." Mariam continued. "I don't think when we rolled WeCharge out that we realized the impact this could have on our teams."
Following the pilot of the program, an overwhelming majority of those involved with the program reported feeling highly satisfied with the additional time away, directly correlating the program with an improvement in work-life integration and a motivation factor.
"To work at DoorDash, you have to have grit, you have to be a builder. Everyone here is focused on the one team, one fight mentality," Mariam said. "This program has really given us the data that shows when you invest in people as we have at DoorDash, they become more satisfied, more motivated, and even more productive."
Currently, WeCharge has rolled out to include nine departments, with others interested in joining the program in the future. As our teams build new strategic functions and initiatives, they're encouraged to continue identifying the best ways of working based on their respective needs, whether that means taking part in the WeCharge program or building something new entirely.
Our efforts to create a workplace where everyone feels welcomed, supported, and valued is one of the reasons we were recently recognized as one of America's Greatest Workplaces 2023 by Newsweek. To learn more about this award and how we've driven the culture our employees experience over the last year, click here.
