Jennifer Mellon is the Founder of Trustify, the first tech platform to connect clients to a nationwide network of private investigators. Follow her @JenMellon. 

Recently, YEC spoke with Jennifer about her employee management and company culture experience. Her best advice is below.

What interview question do you always ask potential hires and why?

“If you could wave a magic wand and create your dream job, what would it look like and why?” This question gives me a great deal of insight into their perceived strengths, where they want to be in the future and what they value most in a workplace. I can easily weed out candidates who would not be a good culture fit for our company, regardless of their skills and experience.

What makes your company culture unique?

Trustify is very unique in our diversity and clear focus on company culture. We built a workplace where our employees are valued for who they are, where they came from and what ideas and skills they bring as unique individuals. We draw our success as a company from our incredibly diverse team. We recently did an internal company self-disclosure diversity report. We found that over 60 percent of our almost 40 person team were women and over 40 percent identified with minority populations (LGBTQ, race, religion, ethnicity, etc). We look like our consumers and thus can understand a spectrum of needs, paradigms and worldviews in our clients. We are proud of the diverse team we have built and are protective of the intentional culture of positivity, creativity and innovation that has come out of it.

How can you make sure team outings or activities appeal as best they can to all employees?

We have open communication with our team and ask for ideas and suggestions in ever facet of our work, including offsites. Most of all we value our “8 for 8” days of service we host monthly in a local non-profit in the DC metro area. Any employee who participates in those paid days of service get an additional 8 hours of paid time off to use at the local non-profit organization of their choice. Thus, our good work grows long tentacles in our community. We value employees who seek to make a difference in the world through our work.

What’s your best tip for keeping a personal touch to onboarding and training as you grow?

We make sure that all new employees meet with each member of their respective team and every executive within the company during their first week. This allows them to form relationships with each leader, ask questions and learn about the various departments’ work.

What’s one quick, easy way any company at any stage can invest in their company culture?

I highly recommend instituting a self-disclosure diversity report that requests feedback on making your workplace better for all team members, to put your company values on paper after meeting as a team to talk about what makes your company great and instituting ways to incorporate a social mission component to your work. These are easy ways any company at any stages can build an intentional culture and community where every team member can grow and thrive.