WORKING AT ANIMAL EQUALITY
At Animal Equality, we place our mission at the forefront of everything we do. We know we couldn’t achieve our mission without a strong and empowered team. Strong and empowered teams are the key to saving animal lives. We thrive in a strong culture of grit and accountability where team members do their best work, all for the benefit of animals.
You can learn more about the impact our team has on millions of animals on our Animal Equality’s Impact Report. Last year our work impacted an estimated 34 million animals across the globe — a tremendous accomplishment that you made happen.
What onboarding & training look like
- Each new employee is assigned a “buddy” for onboarding. Their buddy is a colleague from outside their department who acts as someone who informally helps the new employee get acclimated to Animal Equality and, in some instances, to a new city.
- We have a robust onboarding plan covering general Animal Equality information and department-specific training for each new employee’s role. We also provide a training resource index that lists all of our required and recommended training, readings, and other resources to help employees integrate into their roles and the organization as quickly as possible.
- We have a 60-day check-in process for new employees to ensure they are settling into their roles well and to give early feedback to someone in HR/Operations.
- We have a budget set aside for ongoing training and development and make it available to employees through a training request process to ensure consistency and fairness in access to training.
- We value learning and constant improvement, so we make it a priority. In addition to access to external training, we also lead internal training frequently. Some recent topics have included sessions on communications, copywriting, web editing, fostering a culture of feedback, nonviolent communication, and campaigning.
- At Animal Equality, we use Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) as our annual goal-setting method for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes. We find that OKRs help with transparency, clarifying expectations, and linking each employee’s work to the overall objectives and mission of the organization.
- We take the guessing out of understanding what is expected of our employees. We train all of our staff on Standards of Conduct, outlining our internal values and the behavior we expect all employees to exhibit throughout their employment with Animal Equality. Additionally, we have a Code of Ethics document that outlines our ethical obligations to our donors.
Quarterly all staff calls allow us to get to know each other better, go over the status of our OKRs, and hear about the amazing work our colleagues are doing all over the world.
At least once per year each office has a team building day as a way to bond and have some fun together outside of the office.
We host international Sharing & Learning sessions one to two times per month where we invite all staff to join a video presentation led by an expert on a topic related to our work.
We conduct an annual engagement survey to help us better understand the ways in which we can improve as an organization. We want to make sure our employees feel heard.
We host weekly water cooler chat video calls as a way to connect our remote staff with employees in a casual way that they may not otherwise have the opportunity for.
How we maintain a work/life balance
At Animal Equality, all employees take time off when needed – we offer a generous vacation allowance across our offices. We respect that time off.
We respect people’s work hours and time zones by not scheduling meetings outside of work hours when possible. We also encourage teams not to have or take meetings on Fridays as part of an effort to ensure there is a day for deep work and focus. Similarly, we rarely send each other emails on the weekends, and when we do, we usually state: “No need to reply over the weekend!” and we mean it. We have a shared vacation and travel calendar that everyone in the organization uses, so we know not to reach out to someone when they are out of the office. Our email activity chart drops to practically zero on the weekends.
Animal Equality is a remote organization we have come to realize that this increases employee satisfaction and allows more work-life balance.
We allow flexible working hours as needed and for the times when our personal lives need to come first, we have extended our sick and bereavement days to non-human animals.
We have also developed a robust Animal Equality Culture handbook that all team members get a personalized copy of and which encourages them to learn and interact with Animal Equality’s culture mission statement and principles.
How we approach diversity & Inclusion
At Animal Equality we pride ourselves to be a global team, working in eight countries with strong country leadership in every region we are advocating for animals. We are flexible and make arrangements that work for everyone in the organization regardless of where they are based and their time zone.
To ensure consistency and fairness in our hiring practices, all managers have been trained on Animal Equality’s interviewing and hiring protocol. The protocol includes a consistent interview and feedback process, emphasizing objectivity in evaluation, and training on bias that often occurs in recruitment. We also believe in involving more people in the interview process enabling us to include diverse perspectives when evaluating candidates.
We, of course, prioritize culture fit, but we are also very cautious of bias that can occur in the hiring process. We are looking for people who are aligned with our mission, but other than that, we respect and enjoy all of our differences. We want a diverse staff who bring a variety of ideas and experiences to their work.
Animal Equality has eliminated unnecessary requirements from job descriptions such as college degrees when it is not specifically required for a position. We make our salary benchmark public when we post a role and we pay special attention to how and where we post open roles to help facilitate attracting a diverse candidate pool.
We also are proud to prioritize paying our interns, leveling the playing field for candidates with different financial means.
HOW WE ADDRESS HARASSMENT & DISCRIMINATION
Animal Equality has a very strong Policy Prohibiting Harassment, Discrimination, and Retaliation and has adapted it for all our countries. All staff has been trained in our policy, which is part of onboarding for new employees. We have a defined, simple and transparent written procedure for filing complaints. All reported instances of harassment or discrimination are taken very seriously and are investigated using our thorough investigation process.
All staff goes through internal anti-harassment training; in the US, employees have gone through an anti-harassment and discrimination training course with an external training firm.
HOW WE HANDLE PAY + PROMOTION
At Animal Equality we believe that we should pay people fairly and competitively. The way we ensure we are doing this is through analysis. We have undergone salary benchmarking exercises in every country we operate in. We adhere to salary bands that we have identified for each position. Additionally, we offer an annual cost of living increase to ensure that our wages remain fair, taking into account inflation.
We always look to fill roles from within whenever possible, by promoting our employees. We also create growth plans for our employees so they understand the ways in which they can develop professionally and grow with the organization.
HOW WE STAY HEALTHY
In the US we offer three medical plans to match employees’ health needs. One is covered by Animal Equality at 100% and the other two are covered at 85%. We also offer dental and vision, and they are 100% paid by Animal Equality.
We offer a 401(k) retirement savings plan with partial employer match.
In the US we offer 23 vacation days, 7 sick days, 10 paid holidays + 2 floating holidays, 3 bereavement days (also available to be used for companion animals), and one paid volunteer day.
We also offer 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
We have a Support for High-Risk Positions policy that provides resources (therapy sessions and flexible schedules) to people in positions where they are exposed to content that may affect their emotional wellbeing.
