What characterizes company culture at Mews? Put simply, it's the shared values, goals, attitudes and the behavioral norms that we hold ourselves accountable too, at every level of the business. We see an intrinsic link between our culture and our success, as it speaks to who we are and what we hold important.
It isn’t something that we leave to chance. We’re intentionally cultivating our culture, and that requires us to teach, live and celebrate our values in actions at every stage of our candidate and employee interactions. We recognize and reward our values in action, and we never hesitate to confront violations that, if ignored, deteriorates the power and impact of our culture.
We’re guided by our five core values
Another way of looking at culture is that it’s simply our company’s personality. If you ask our ‘Mewsers’ to describe Mews, perhaps the biggest theme that comes up time and time again is that of ambition. Our team are determined to be true innovators, taking calculated risks with a strong will to succeed, disrupting and revolutionizing an industry. This is the very premise on which Mews was founded, and the very thing that continues to fuel our passion to make a difference for our customers.
Our ambition is balanced with our openness to explore, discover and grow, seeking ways to continuously learn and expand – personally and professionally. At Mews we take learning seriously, and it’s truly a company-wide endeavor; no one needs to be cajoled into participating, whether it be cross-functional exposure show and tell sessions, ‘lunch and learn’ sessions that come from every team across the company, or our voracious appetite for reading. Richard, our founder, runs book club evenings, which are always lively and well attended. What’s clear, then, is that we love to learn and grow.
Few things speak more about our culture than our upfront and transparent communication style. We encourage every employee to share what's on their mind, whilst challenging candidly, constructively and respectfully. You only have to attend our weekly A-Mews-Bouche (all-company gathering) to get an appreciation that we value different opinions, and our leadership will never shy away from taking the tough, difficult and sometimes plain awkward questions in an open forum. It’s vital that, as a company, we’re talking about what’s important and what matters to us.
This really leans into the human aspect of Mews: our desire to nurture a safe environment so our Mewsers can bring their authentic self to work and have a sense of belonging and purpose. As well as being good for personal mental health, this drives a commitment to be part of Mews’ journey. Whether people are joining or leaving, what’s always clear is their passion for our company, the hard work and sense of achievement, and of course our sense of humor and playfulness that ensures we never take ourselves too seriously.
All of this can be summarized by our five core values. These feed into everything we do at Mews, from method to mindset. We are:
- Ambitious: we believe that great technology can make the human experience better.
- Resilient: we're tough – the workload might be heavy, but one foot in front of the other.
- Curious: we read, we discover, we ask questions, we challenge assumptions.
- Open: we share our experiences with one another. We believe in an open culture.
- Human: we will all make mistakes – the key is to learn, get feedback and improve.
Nurturing company culture amidst a pandemic
In any company’s journey – especially a hyper growth disruptor like us – it sometimes feels like a rollercoaster with all the ups and downs that entails. In 2020, an unforeseeable Covid-19 pandemic hit. Our culture was a huge determining factor in navigating us through this crisis, keeping us connected as we faced redundancies, furloughs, remote working and a changing work/life balance as the lines blurred between our personal and professional lives. We continued to communicate openly, being transparent about our plans to navigate the pandemic. We made tough, difficult decisions and executed at speed, communicating at every step of the way. And vitally, we treated each other with respect and humanity.
As the pandemic dragged on for month after month with no clear end in sight, we all faced challenges and uncertainty. This was (and remains) a combination of the personal and the professional. There were times when we felt overwhelmed, perhaps with some seeds of doubt over our industry’s recovery. These moments when we feel momentarily disconnected is when our final value was really put to the test: our ability to be resilient. This meant not giving up when things got tough, staying optimistic, focused and committed to achieving our goals.
The pandemic continued, and a huge question loomed over us: how do we continue to nurture a culture which is in part built on our shared experiences and informal day to day interactions? It became even more important to recognize and reward our Mewsers who personified our values in action. Therefore, we celebrated stories that brought our values to life through sharing experiences and assessing ourselves against how we demonstrated our values in our feedback cycles. In this way, we were able to remain engaged, appreciative and inspired, despite the difficulties in our industry.
So why do we care so much about Mews culture? As I hope I’ve made clear, we consider our culture mission-critical in driving our success. It is – and should be – a key differentiator in attracting and retaining talent. We’re ambitious, we’re curious, we’re open, we’re human and we’re resilient. In short: we’re Mews.
.webp)