Employee Benefits for a Tech-Savvy Organization
It should go without saying that TechToronto.Org is a well known organization in the Toronto tech community.
In addition to being Canada’s largest technology community group, TechToronto is one of the many companies in Toronto’s downtown tech hub that relies on Honeybee for their employee benefits.
We recently met up with TechToronto co-founder Jason Goldlist to talk about not only his experience with Honeybee Benefits, but about some of the opportunities and challenges that he and other founders face within the Toronto tech ecosystem.
Watch the video below, and read on for additional insights on company culture, how Jason goes about supporting and empowering his people, what makes a great app, and more.
Supporting a small but mighty team
If you’ve ever attended a TechToronto event, you may be surprised to learn that everything they do is made possible by a full-time staff of just six people—supported by community directors and what Jason refers to as a “volunteer army.”
“What we want to do is eliminate all sorts of distractions for our team, so they can focus on solving very big problems for our ecosystem,” explains Jason. One way he’s able to eliminate those distractions is by offering benefits that not only provide peace of mind, but help his team do their best work.
Working at TechToronto is “very meta” according to Jason, because not only do their employees serve founders and entrepreneurs in the work that they do, but they’re a team of entrepreneurs themselves.
“We looked into providing benefits pretty early on,” says Jason. “If you’re a founder in the Toronto technology ecosystem, you have a lot of to-do’s. Getting benefits is probably at the bottom. But it’s something that shows you really care about your team.”
TechToronto offers its employees traditional health and dental coverage, complemented by flexible Health Accounts that make it easy for employees to put their benefits dollars towards the benefits that matter most to them. These benefits are all easily accessed through Honeybee’s industry-leading benefits app—Jason’s favourite part of the Honeybee experience.
Making employee benefits simple
People these days have pretty high expectations of user experience. They want the products they engage with to work seamlessly—no muss, no fuss. As Jason explains it, “my favourite apps disappear into the background.” They just work. Period.
“I’ve used a lot of different programs to file my health claims before but for me, Honeybee is the easiest,” Jason explains. “What’s important about the benefits we offer with Honeybee is that it’s really simple for people to understand what we offer them, and make their claims on the mobile app.”
Honeybee makes it easy to access your employee benefits. By removing the unnecessary administrative hassle from the process, with Honeybee it’s actually faster and easier to submit your claim than it is to add the task to your To Do list!
Or as Jason puts it, “I don’t need to keep paperwork and save it by my desk and find extra time. I can do it with my mobile phone in the middle of my commute.”
Building company culture & living your values
“I think company culture is all about the expectations you set for your team,” Jason says. “So when you think about how you want them to grow, how you want your business to grow, and how you want the community in which you operate to grow, company culture is where you align all three.”
Jason strongly believes in having a culture and a perspective that you can share with job candidates and with your team to keep them energized and engaged. But it can’t just be talk—finding ways to action your mission is key.
“Anything you can do that positions your company as really living their values is important to attracting and retaining great people for your team” he explains.
“When TechTO uses Honeybee, we’re living our values. We’re supporting the technology and the teams that are building the future here in Toronto.”
What are you waiting for?
Discover the difference that a fully digital, user-friendly benefits experience can have at your company.