When we started Kalapa, we made a promise to ourselves to uphold our own personal values and responsibilities while growing the organization. We’re not interested in becoming a buzzworthy studio that prioritizes office snacks over amazing talent. We also want to remove all of the design stigmas of elitism and be an approachable, dependable team. Most importantly, we want to have fun and build long-lasting relationships with each other and our clients.
We decided early on that Kalapa was destined to run as a remote team. Whether out of necessity during a global pandemic or out of the natural progression of digital connectivity, Kalapa was founded remotely and continues in the same fashion today.
We sign into Slack and open up our work tools on the schedule that fits our lives best. We communicate asynchronously, work autonomously, and take ownership of our work.
100% distributed doesn’t prevent us from connecting with each other. We encourage off-work communication as often as possible to share knowledge and experiences, and at least twice-annually, we come together for an all-team retreat.
Communication is key in any relationship, but exponentially so with a distributed team. We start at the most basic fundamentals and not just encourage, but require a systematic culture of feedback for every member of our team. Practicing regular feedback is essential in our environment and allows our team to connect more deeply as we work together to complete tasks and challenge each other.
Feedback breaks down any artificial barriers of hierarchy, empowering every member of our team to recognize that their voice, their suggestion, and their contribution is as beneficial as any other team member.
We wanted Kalapa to be an organic team, constantly growing, developing, and developing with new projects, team members, clients, and more. To allow this to occur, we knew that it was necessary to build a foundation of core values to adhere to and form a culture that reflected those values.
However, we are acutely aware that the term “culture” has become synonymous with false pretense rather than actual growth and development.
We have a few simple values that we all represent and echo in our work and it’s how we run our team by our culture.
It’s important to us that every member of our team share the same values and work ethic. We understand that everyone works differently, but we are a team of like-minded individuals that work in tandem to produce the highest quality work, and that requires unity in not just how we work, but how we work together.
We work with the best designers in the industry. Our standards are high as we are always looking to improve and develop ourselves and our teams. This empowers us to continue to learn, but to also surprise and delight our clients with fresh and innovative solutions.
Whether we are building features or solutions that go above-and-beyond the initial client request, or simply staying late to help a colleague with a task, taking initiative is second-nature to our teams. When you love what you do, “work” doesn’t seem like “work.”
We work hard, but unlike so many other agencies, we require our teams to have a reasonable work/life balance. We encourage taking time off, health and wellness, spending time with friends/family, taking new courses, and traveling.
Working together as a single unit is essential to our success at Kalapa. Being remote allows for flexibility on where we work, but we cannot accomplish what we do without strong collaboration, open communication, and a deep passion to grow and develop together.
Our team at Kalapa are not those that show up to punch a clock. We are passionate about the work we deliver to our clients. We are a team of designers that love to create new and exciting solutions and solve problems every single day.
At Kalapa, respect is paramount. Respect for each other, for the tools we use, the clients we work with, and for the time it takes to accomplish our tasks. We appreciate and value every member of our team and are thankful for their choice to work with us.
Being remote allows us the freedom to work wherever there is an internet connection.
However, our primary locations are California and Illinois.
It takes the best people to create industry-leading work. If you’re a smart, ambitious person with a fiercely competitive mindset, a penchant for working with incredible people, and an exceptional talent, we should talk.
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