It's important to Tidepool that we support our employees’ efforts to learn, grow, and improve. These are some of the key benefits of working at Tidepool, and are central to our company culture.
Every full-time employee has a company budget to support any learning activity that they want to pursue related to the work they do at Tidepool. This doesn’t need to be a class explicitly linked to their current role, but it should help them improve a skill that will be useful for them at Tidepool. Each employee has an annual budget of $2,000 which can be spent towards program fees/tuition, tickets, flights, and hotels for industry conferences, classes, mentorship programs, books, programs, videos, or other places that they feel will provide valuable learning experiences. These expenses should be discussed in one-on-ones and approved by the CEO. This budget resets at the beginning of every calendar year and does not roll over.
Employees can also use work hours to work on learning projects, though this should be limited to about four hours a week and not interfere with your core responsibilities.
It makes Tidepool look great when our employees speak at industry conferences, so we love to support Tidepool employees who are invited to speak to their peers about their area of expertise. For each event, Tidepool will pay for the flights and hotel up to $1,000 dollars, and employees are each eligible for this benefit 2 times per year (this budget is separate from the learning budget). Employees should get approval from the CEO or a VP about which conferences are appropriate to speak at, and to make sure that conference dates don’t interfere with important company dates.