It’s tradition on Labor Day for me reflect on how I’m valuing my coworkers at Stonemaier Games. Our staff and contributors now include a total of 6 full-time employees, 1 part-time employee, a number of key independent contractors, and another 100+ paid volunteers and creatives (designers, artists, proofreaders, playtesters, etc).
Today in particular I wanted to celebrate Christine Santana and Susannah Eisenbraun, both of whom recently became full-time employees. Christine is our long-term graphic designer. I’ve respected her desire to stay independent, but due to the recent addition of profit sharing (which I’ll discuss below), it became more lucrative for her to become classified as a full-time employee (without any other changes to her autonomy or role). I pitched that to her, and she agreed!
Susannah has been with us for around 20 months, first as an independent contractor, then as a part-time employee. She’s done a wonderful job as our Retailer Relationship Manager, a role that has also expanded to include a lot of coordination with localization partners. It’s the type of role where there’s always more to be done if there’s time to do it, and Susannah now has the capacity to focus on it full time!
In addition to Christine and Susannah going full time, here are some other additions I’ve added or solidified over the last year (these join the list of Stonemaier perks and principles I posted a while ago):
- 10 mandatory days off (plus 10 federal holidays and election day): We have a completely flexible vacation policy in that there’s no limit to each person’s paid time off or when they take it, as long their job gets done when they decide to work. The problem with this freedom is that the lack of structure can result in people not taking much time off. So we’ve retained the flexible/freedom aspect but also added that each employee must find 10 days each year to take off (and hopefully many more than that).
- profit sharing: We’ve had unofficial profit sharing for a while in the form of end-of-year bonuses and annual ownership distributions (I give some of my shares to coworkers after they’ve been with us for a few years). But in some bigger-picture discussions late last year we realized that all salaried employees could get a portion of the annual tax-related QBI bonus our accountant implements, which relates directly to the company’s level of success that year.
- health care: The mental and physical health of my coworkers is always more important to me than their job. We all go through rough patches in life, and I’ve tried this year to be better attuned to how my coworkers are doing. Sometimes the pain points are job related, and I can help with that, but sometimes they’re personal, and I can listen and support decisions they make to put their health first. Also, when we renewed our health care plan this year, we solidified the idea that Stonemaier employees don’t pay any health insurance costs out of pocket on a monthly basis–the company covers 100% of those monthly costs for everyone on payroll.
- work from anywhere: We’ve always been a remote, work-from-home company, and this year it was neat to see my coworkers working from various places across the US and even from remote Mediterranean islands. At the same time, I also wanted to support coworkers who prefer not to work from home, so we also have a dedicated office in a coworking space in St. Louis.
- job titles: One of the benefits of hiring great people is that sometimes their roles shift over time as they excel in unexpected ways, rendering their original job title out of date. An example of this from 2023 is Alex Schmidt’s contributions to Stonemaier evolving into the title of Chief Operating Officer.
I’m in the incredibly fortunate position of running a company I love. I try to value my coworkers (in both words and actions) as I’d hope someone would value me if I were in their shoes. This is a learning process, and I try to make every year better than the last.
Let me know in the comments what your company does to make you feel valued (or what you wish they’d do)!
Here are some other related articles I’ve written on these topics:
- Wages, Inflation, and Labor Day
- The Bear and Professional Development
- A Short Note About Wages on Labor Day
- Labor Day: Fair Wages, Volunteer Compensation, and a Job Application Update
- Perks and Principles for My Coworkers at Stonemaier Games
- Why I Prioritize Paying Freelancers
- Flatter Your Way into a New Industry
- Hiring in a World of Volunteers
- Designer Advances
If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.
16 Comments on “Labor Day: Welcoming Christine and Susannah to Full Time and How I Value My Coworkers”
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[…] and Christine (both of whom were already involved at Stonemaier Games) joined us full time last year, along with our newest coworker, Erica Sanders. Here’s a longer list of everyone who has an […]
It’s hard to read this and not feel a little jealous! So glad you are able to provide these benefits to your employees. Been dealing with health insurance surprises lately so some of these definitely hit home.
I realize employee benefits are difficult for organizations to offer, both in public sector where it needs to be justified to the taxpayers and in the private sector where the bottom line matters (and I am learning that it’s pretty important in public sector too).
The one thing I want more than anything in the world from my employer right now is extra vacation time to fight my burnout and depression, but I’m trying to wait as long as possible to save it up. The agency I work for just cracked down on flexible shifts for the few of us that were offset by half an hour so now that my evenings are shorter my time off is even more important to me… especially since I need to spend such a large percentage of that time off sleeping off my anxiety and stress.
On the flip side I enjoy the work, my evenings still start earlier than most of US employees, I have a short commute, and can work from home two days a week with the condition that any time there’s a holiday that counts toward that two days, so I am still lucky in other ways.
Thanks for sharing this, Jev, and I wish more employers had more flexibility (and compassion) to put the health of their people first.
Jamey,
Congrats as you continue to expand Stonemaier Games…such a wonderful thing to hear. Welcome to you both, Christine & Susannah!
Cheers,
Joe
LOL I also work at a 6-person company and we definitely are not as appreciated as your employees xD
Maybe our approach can inspire some positive changes at your company! :)
I’m in the USAF reserves, and my employer pays me my full salary when I’m gone for drill weekends and 2 week trainings, without making me utilize any of my PTO, vacation or sick days. I haven’t been on a deployment yet, but I know they’d work with me to help make sure my family is taken care of.
A huge part of the way the military takes care of you is by providing quarters, food, and medical coverage. None of which help pay my home expenses or feed my family while I’m gone, as well as if I were at my full time job. I am grateful through and through to those who negotiated this benefit and for those who keep it going.
Part of the freedom we have in this country to be entrepreneurs comes from maintaining the most powerful military in the world to keep us safe from terrorists. An argument could be made that all businesses should be obligated to give benefits like these to their military/veteran employees. But it actually makes it even more amazing to see them give back freely.
Thanks for sharing this, James!
That’s amazing, Jamey. You are doing a great job at running SM and you should be proud of being so responsible having employees and people in general to care about, its not as easy as some might see from outside. You build many great things at SM along the way; I am still amazed by the hardwork and dedication you put in each day but this can be seen in every product you make!
Thanks, Gheorghe! I’m not ever confident that I’m doing a great job running SM, but I care about our customers and my coworkers, and I try my best to serve them. :)
I am always impressed by your candor and the way you celebrate the individuals you employ and work with. It is one of the many reasons I enjoy the games SM produces.
My employer does a very good job of focusing on us as individuals. My department celebrates all annual work anniversaries regardless of years worked. My manager and even his boss wanted to know how I was doing after two weeks of bereavement when my wife passed away in June, starting that the work will be there and not to stress out about timelines that were missed or pending. That small amount of sincere caring meant so much to me.
Thanks Matt! I appreciate you sharing that about your employer showing their care for you as people.
Stonemaier Games: Labor of love and role model par excellence for organizations. Oh, what a world it would be!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Thanks, Dorothy! :)
What a wonderful commitment to your staff Jamey. It shows a really strong set of underlying values and it is clear they guide your actions leading Stonemaier Games. As a team leader within a school setting, I try consistently to celebrate and support my co-teachers. I don’t always get it right but it is useful to take moments, like your article, to reflect and consider how to improve (as well as to recognise and celebrate the good things that have worked – both are important!)
Thanks Tom! I love celebrating my coworkers too. :)