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This recognition belongs to the more than 2,000 Cimpress and Vista team members who have helped guide our remote-first journey through feedback and contributions to resources like our Remote-First Handbook.

Check out this article by Paul McKinlay, Vice President of Communications and Remote Working, to learn more about our remote-first approach, what we’ve learned, and how we continue to improve.

LinkedIn: The 5 most crucial elements to earning the ‘The Most Flexible Workplace’ award

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“With our acquisition of VistaCreate and Depositphotos last October, Vista welcomed over 450 team members from Ukraine. In that short amount of time, I’ve met and gotten to know many of our new colleagues, both virtually and several times in person in Kyiv.

As I watch this invasion unfold in real time, I’m both horrified and heartbroken, and have heard directly from our team members in Kyiv how this is impacting them, their families and their country. Russia’s unprovoked atrocities against Ukraine and its democracy have no place in our world.

Last month, Vista began taking measures to try to ensure our team members’ safety and provide our team members with emergency financial and logistical assistance. We will continue to do so as long as necessary. We stand with our Ukrainian colleagues and their loved ones during this time, and our number one priority is their safety.

Vista and its parent company Cimpress join the world in publicly condemning the ruthless attack by Vladimir Putin and the Russian Armed Forces against the country and the people of Ukraine.”

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Here’s a look at how we’re defining the transition, how we arrived at today, and our direction of travel, which was shared today internally as well.

Remote working is a once-in-a-lifetime reinvention of the workplace, the largest since the industrial revolution, and we want to embrace it. That is why so many team members in Vista and Cimpress central teams are moving to remote-first working. “Remote-first” means that, even after team members can safely return to working together in person following the pandemic, their primary place of work will be somewhere other than a traditional office.

We see enormous opportunity in the shift to remote-first. For team members, it’s the opportunity to work more flexibly and collaborate in ways we never have before. In terms of acquiring new diverse talent, it enables us to recruit and hire from a much broader set of geographies. In terms of investing for the future, reductions to our real estate footprint will enable us to invest more in other areas that support our team members and our growth.

Remote-first is a big shift from where we were at the start of 2020, but fortunately it directly supports pre-existing priorities such as our Vista-wide objective of becoming a high-performing organization and our foundational basic of being magnetic to talent.

Our office locations will become collaboration centers with a mix of spaces where team members can meet to work in person with others when needed. Policies, practices, tools and technology are being reviewed and, where needed, re-designed to optimize each for the most productive and engaging remote working experience.

Our Founder & CEO Robert Keane’s challenge to us: Make how and where we work a towering strength of our culture and a competitive advantage.

Remote working is no longer a novel concept to Vista, Cimpress or the world, but our experience so far pales in comparison to remote-first’s potential. Imagine the world after pandemic, when it’s safe again for us to gather in person: that is the world when we will take advantage of all the benefits remote-first can offer us, and that is the world we are building for.

Our remote-first model will raise the bar in many ways. From workplace flexibility to overall team cohesion, this evolution of the way we work will empower each of us to be more productive in places that are individually meaningful, and to contribute collectively and individually to Vista’s success. Work is about what we do, not where we do it, and we want to be an employer of choice because of how we organize to work together. Below are the fundamental elements of our vision.

Extensive input from existing team members

The decisions we are making are based on team member input and feedback and are grounded in our mandate to create a team member experience that makes remote-first a towering strength of our culture.

Hiring new team members

We are actively recruiting, and we already have found that our commitment to remote-first gives us access to a much wider talent pool and thus greatly increases ability to recruit top talent. No longer constrained by geography, we have a larger pool of people with the specific skills, qualities and diversity we want to attract.

Collaboration

In a remote-first environment, virtual communication, project management and knowledge sharing tools give team members the ability to work together and to move work forward asynchronously, across locations and time zones. Physical collaboration spaces will be available for times when needed for face-to-face interactions and in-person collaboration will remain an important part of how we work (and have fun) together.

Asynchronous working

The global nature of our team is already part of our culture but collaborating across locations and time zones hasn’t always been efficient. In an asynchronous way of working, your location is no longer an advantage or disadvantage. Team members can respond to messages and consume information as they are available, with gaps of communication in between to accommodate a non-linear workday and periods of deep work and focus. This is enabled by moving to a “document everything” culture that makes time zone irrelevant to the ability to collaborate, make decisions, share knowledge and learn.

Better business outcomes

Our remote-first strategy creates an environment and culture in which team members can thrive and be more involved, productive and engaged. This translates to becoming the high-performing organization we need to deliver better business results.

Joining the Remote-First community

Throughout the transformation, we’ve leaned on other firms. Organizations like GitLab, Dropbox, Mural, Zaiper, HelpScout, Buffer, Firstbase, Facebook, Remote, Doist, Automattic, Basecamp, Distribute Consulting, Remote Work Association, and Remote-how have created a community of voices which are collectively pioneering the way forward.

Operators like Darren Murph, Chris Herd, Laurel Farrer, Brian Elliott, Shane Mac, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Annie Dean, Nellie Hayat, Samantha Fisher, and Ryan Anderson have contributed in person and through their published wisdom, much that we are able to build from, and hopefully at some point, add to.

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In our second year participating in the CEI survey, Cimpress USA is proud to have earned a score of 100% and the designation of being one of the “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality.”

Over the past year, Cimpress and Vista have introduced a number of new programs in our continued support of equality in the workplace. We rolled out a series of LinkedIn Learning Module trainings on diversity and inclusion and published internal gender transition in the workplace guidelines. Our PRIDE employee resource group also held virtual PRIDE speaker events, including those with celebrities like Bobby Burke of Netflix’s Queer Eye, produced PRIDE marketing products, and sponsored a job fair for the New England Trans community at First Event Boston.

The results of the 2021 CEI showcase how 1,142 US-based companies are promoting LGBTQ-friendly workplace policies in the US. Additionally, 57% of CEI-rated US companies have global operations which help to advance the cause of LGBTQ inclusion in workplaces abroad.

The CEI rates companies on detailed criteria falling under four central pillars:

• Non-discrimination policies across business entities
• Equitable benefits for LGBTQ workers and their families
• Supporting an inclusive culture
• Corporate social responsibility

“From the previously unimaginable impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, to a long overdue reckoning with racial injustice, 2020 was an unprecedented year. Yet, many businesses across the nation stepped up and continued to prioritize and champion LGBTQ equality,” said Alphonso David, Human Rights Campaign President. “This year has shown us that tools like the CEI are crucial in the work to increase equity and inclusion in the workplace, but also that companies must breathe life into these policies and practices in real and tangible ways. Thank you to the companies that understand protecting their LGBTQ employees and consumers from discrimination is not just the right thing to do—but the best business decision.”

See the full report here.

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This comes at a time when eight in 10 U.S. small businesses report being negatively impacted by COVID-19, according to Vista research. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, a tax-exempt public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, has a decades-long history of helping businesses and communities impacted by disaster.

“Small businesses are the soul of every community, and right now our communities are facing hardship,” says Cimpress CEO Robert Keane. “I started VistaPrint out of my apartment 25 years ago and I know firsthand how hard it is for small business owners. I have been – and continue to be – amazed by their passion, resilience and ability to persevere through change. As a champion and marketing partner for small businesses, Vista is there when the challenges hit, and we are doing all we can to help them stay in business. We are proud to be partnering with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation to provide a lifeline during this time.”

The Fund will provide aid for small businesses in the form of one-time, supplemental $5,000 cash grants to qualifying small businesses. To be eligible, businesses must have between three and 20 employees and operate in a vulnerable community in the U.S. and its territories, as determined by the Distressed Community Index (DCI).

“Small business owners and the communities of which they are a part are facing unprecedented challenges. The needs are urgent and every dollar counts,” says Carolyn Cawley, president of the U.S. Chamber Foundation. “We hope these supplemental funds will help small employers get through the next days and weeks and on the road to recovery for their communities.”

In addition to launching the Fund, Vista rallied its engineering and manufacturing teams to optimize existing machinery, normally used for producing banners and signs, to develop a face shield product to meet the growing needs of frontline professionals working with patients impacted by COVID-19. Vista is donating 100,000 face shields to be distributed among 100 healthcare facilities in underserved, small communities. Vista is also supporting small business owners by offering critical marketing services such as products with COVID-19 messaging, an expanded suite of online marketing services and a content hub to help guide them during this time.

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Not familiar with CEI? CEI is a national benchmarking tool on corporate policies and practices related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer equality in the workplace. Participating companies are rated on detailed criteria falling under five broad categories:

• Non-discrimination policies
• Employment benefits
• Demonstrated organizational competency and accountability around LGBTQ diversity and inclusion
• Public commitment to LGBTQ equality
• Responsible citizenship

The average score for participating companies in 2020 was 71/100 with Cimpress earning an above average rating of 90/100. We believe our score is an accurate reflection of our benefits, policies and business practices being well aligned with the needs of the LGBTQ community.

In 2019, we made several strides toward creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace. A few of those highlights include:

• The Cimpress USA Benefits Team collaborated with Blue Cross Blue Shield to ensure our medical coverage for gender affirming services was both comprehensive and aligned with HRC’s vision for inclusive coverage. In September, as a direct result of this review, we’ve added voice therapy for transitioning members as an enhancement to our medical plan.
• Vistaprint proudly sponsored Technica 2019, the world’s largest all-women and nonbinary hackathon hosted by the University of Maryland, College Park in proximity to our Vistaprint Silver Spring office.
• BuildASign added gender neutral restrooms at all their offices and manufacturing facilities. They also created a new employee resource group, Empower, and brought in a speaker for a lunch and learn about “Making Spaces Safer for Trans and Gender Nonbinary People.”

We’re so proud of our team for their achievements, yet know there is still room to improve. We thank the Human Rights Campaign for the opportunity to learn new ways to make Cimpress a great place to work for everyone.

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Cimpress today is nearly unrecognizable from the business Robert set into motion those many years ago. Our customers no longer thumb through catalogs and order products from us on a phone call, but we’re still guided by the needs of our customers and a strong entrepreneurial spirit which encourages our teams to remain fast and nimble even as we get bigger.

As we head into the next decade and celebrate our many accomplishments over the years, it’s important to reflect on the longer journey we’ve been on and how it has helped us find sustained success.

A brief history

Bonne Impression set out to remove the limitations previously inherent in low-volume printed communications by providing customized printing in small quantities that is high quality, professional and affordable. But the new World Wide Web offered us a path to create a brand new industry online.

Early on, we recognized the transformative potential of the internet and saw many opportunities to meet customer needs. That led us to pioneer two key technologies that would change our industry forever: browser-based desktop publishing software, and workflow automation software that automatically aggregates very large numbers of small orders into high-quality, low-cost, high-volume production streams.

The enthusiastic customer response to our approach spurred rapid growth and in 1999 we changed our name to Vistaprint to reflect our new identity. We grew our team, expanded our products and services, entered new geographic markets, built new manufacturing capabilities and continued to invest in new technologies.

2003 saw the opening of our first production facility in the Netherlands, followed by a customer service center in Jamaica. A powerful combination of great customer value, hard work and the growth of e-commerce drove revenues from $17 million in our 2002 fiscal year to $815 million by fiscal year 2011. To put it mildly, it’s rare for a business at this scale to grow almost 5,000% organically, with no acquisitions.

In 2011 we made a decision to build manufacturing into a pillar of our competitive advantage, make customer centricity core to our culture, and invest in advertising based on the lifetime value of customers rather than on shorter-term returns. This enabled us to expand into new markets and business models as well as further strengthen our operational foundation. It’s also at this time that we determined we would commit to making financial decisions based on long-term returns, not quarterly or annual financial results.

We made our first acquisition in 2010. Since then, we’ve partnered with and acquired mass customization businesses around the globe. In 2014, as our company expanded rapidly in multiple directions, we changed our corporate holding-company name to Cimpress to clarify the distinction between the corporate entity and the company’s growing portfolio of customer-facing businesses.

Today, Cimpress spans more than a dozen businesses and operates across more than twenty countries. We have many accomplishments to be proud of, yet we know there’s still so much more to achieve!

Staying the course in 2020

If you’ve read any of Robert’s shareholder letters, then you already know about how we drive competitive advantage across Cimpress by investing in a select few shared capabilities that have the greatest potential to create company-wide value. We limit all other central activities to only those which absolutely must be performed centrally. Our businesses are encouraged to be independent and entrepreneurial.

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our teams, we’ve been successful in tackling a number of challenges and harnessing new, exciting opportunities in key areas across our business. Despite decades of demonstrated growth and success, we continue to see our future as one of limitless opportunities. Here’s to the next 25 years.

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