While we would love all FullStory employees (affectionately called “FullStorians”) to work at FullStory forever, we well understand the modern career can progress through multiple “tours of duty.” At FullStory, it’s our fundamental belief our team members should feel encouraged and supported in their journeys to grow their careers—not just for their current tour of duty, but for future tours as well. In fact, one of the best compliments we receive is, “I learned a lot when I worked at FullStory.”
Earlier in 2022 we set a company goal that embodied this belief, titled “Learning Never Stops.” Specifically, the goal was to “build a rich library of skillbuilding resources that over 90% of our employees utilized and found useful.” This goal includes not just curation and creation of relevant content, but (more importantly) providing the psychological safety and clearance to further their education. Indeed learning never stops at FullStory, and it is important to us that all FullStorians feel they can grow their careers while on our journey.
Towards this end, I thought it might be interesting to share some resources we’ve developed to support our team and some recent wins towards this goal. I do this partly out of (admittedly biased) pride in the team, but also out of hope that this example of our culture resonates with future FullStorians.
Skill-building library
Self-starters are the norm at FullStory. In fact, it's a trait we actively look for when hiring. Self-starters are endlessly hungry to learn more, both for their current role and their future career path.
We work hard to support this motivation, and clear the way to provide opportunities. At the time of this writing, this includes the following:
Learning Subsidy: $500 yearly for self-directed learning
Book clubs: Frequent and across a variety of subjects
Listening and Alignment Week: The first week of every quarter, we cancel all recurring meetings and take a step back to reflect, plan, strategize, and grow
Courses: Access to frequently scheduled, live self-improvement courses from external knowledge partners such as LifeLabs
Skills Coach: Opportunities to use Culture Amp’s Skills Coach for brief, actionable training on developmental skills like resilience, productivity, and leading change
Thought Industries:A rich set of internally generated on-demand content
Internal “Match-Making”: Low-stress connection and cross-functional collaboration access for all FullStorians through the tool Donut. This tool also connects our managers for intentional coaching opportunities, even in departments other than your own
Internal jobs board and transfer program: Giving FullStorians the opportunity to make career jumps internally
Industry conferences and online seminars: Step outside FullStory to improve your craft with industry peers
Skills Learning Library: A rich and ever-growing catalog (see example below)
In addition to general career skillbuilding and coaching, we work hard to provide access to resources to level-up FullStory specific skills. In fact, in recent company surveys, this was reported as a top area where FullStorians are hungry for more knowledge. We take survey results very seriously, and strive to respond purposefully to the needs of our team.
Towards this end, I also wanted to share a particularly exciting resource we’ve made available to our customers and our team: the FullStory Product Certification Course.
Product Certification Course
We have some pretty smart people at FullStory who know our product super well (and use it on a daily basis!), but as the size of both the team and product has grown over the years, it becomes an increasing challenge to be an expert in all areas. Our team of self-starters does not settle for the status quo; they want to learn more!
Fortunately, our amazing Product Enablement team recently created a 10-part course for our customers to learn the ins and outs of how FullStory works. The perfect solution! This course provides a considerable amount (4+ hours) of vital information you’ll want to know in order to get the most out of FullStory. Not only that, but it challenges your wits with a thorough (but fair) 35-question certification exam. This fits the bill!
In the spirit of Learning Never Stops, in our recently completed second quarter of 2022 we set aside time for all Product and Engineering FullStorians to take the course. Four two-hour “meeting free” study blocks were created, and additional space was held within each team to learn. This represents well over 100 people—a substantial investment of time and resources.
No bribes or mandates were made. No t-shirts or snack bribes were needed. Instead, we just collectively rallied to get it done.
The results were astounding. In just three months, over 99% of the entire Product and Engineering groups passed the course. Hundreds of busy FullStorians took four to eight hours of their time to learn more. They did it to better understand our customers. They did it to level up their own game. They did it because the pursuit of knowledge is how they operate.
And, as new FullStorians join the team, this Product Certification course is a standard part of our onboarding bootcamp. Over time the course will continually be updated as the product evolves, and no doubt down the road we’ll make more time for “refresher” courses. Learning Never Stops.
In closing
There’s always a lot to do, every one of us is busy. With that said, at FullStory we work hard to promote the growth of our team by setting aside time and resources for them to succeed. FullStorians self-select as avid knowledge seekers when they join, and it is our duty and privilege to continue supporting that drive as their own careers unfold. While we hope our FullStorians stay with us forever, we support our team no matter what. It’s the right thing to do. And wherever their future careers may lead, we always strive to hear the words, “I learned a lot when I worked at FullStory.”
