Tatari’s Head of HR Shares How We Always Put Family First

Many of Tatari’s employees are parents, including two of our three founders, so caring for one’s family has been a top priority at Tatari since the very beginning. We know the importance of how work and family life must complement each other, so we’ve focused on building a culture that provides the time, resources, and flexibility our employees need to keep them and their family happy and healthy!

It took less than 24 hours from when I started at Tatari to recognize that we are a family-oriented company. Of the twelve employees at that time, half were married and/or have children. It’s not new news that when a company takes its employees’ fundamental needs into consideration (almost everyone would choose free healthcare over all-you-can-eat-snacks) you will in turn have more productive employees. We try to provide that, and more, starting with 100% healthcare coverage for our employees and their dependents, 12-weeks paid maternity/paternity leave, and unlimited PTO not just for vacation but to freely use when someone needs to attend parent-teacher conferences, afternoon school concerts, or gymnastics meets. Our executives make a point to take time off and not check/respond to email or slack messages, which helps to set the example that anyone can fully unplug when out of the office. We also try our best to give employees flexible work schedules and work-from-home benefits. I’ve been on many internal conference calls seeing a sick kiddie Tatarian sitting on his dad’s lap, or when a parent dials-in while driving to pick up his/her kid from school, or someone coming back to the office after picking up their kids (with the kids) to finish up a few things—everyone always love seeing kiddie Tatarians, but for me, also, I love that it’s just “business as usual” at Tatari.

Family is also top-of-mind when we think about team building activities. As much as some of us love a 5pm happy hour, we also know that these afterwork events don’t always accommodate the parents on the team. We want to be respectful of everyone’s schedules, so Tatari officially sponsors an annual team building event that includes significant others and families, but we also make an effort to plan other family events throughout the year. For example, a good way to include the kiddies are always volunteer events.

As the Head of HR, I feel very lucky that we really do have THE best employees. The strong sense of ownership to one’s work and the level of trust that our first 10 employees have built with one another continue to permeate throughout the organization even as we now grow to almost 70. With this as our foundation, Tatari employees never have to worry about missing important life events, or worry about needing to work from home because of a sick child. Our culture allows parents to easily blend their work and personal life with all the support necessary from their managers and team members. Life happens, and at Tatari, family always comes first.