Life At Onja

At Onja, we are aware that our strong working culture has helped us get to where we are today. As we continue to grow, we believe that building this culture is key to driving excellence at work and supporting people to feel and do their best. Our culture is ever evolving and very much alive. It is driven by our people and our values, which we try to embed in our day to day interactions and behaviours, and we wish to continuously improve on this.

Our Office

Our villa in Tamatave is a space we love and where we gather everyday. Located in a quiet neighbourhood, this is where we meet to work, share special moments, eat meals, have our meetings, and grow together. The main foyer acts as a quiet coworking space, where developers work for remote partner companies, while other rooms hold our Operations, Client Acquisition, Hiring, Marketing, and Course Design teams. Our work environment is relatively quiet and focused , kind of like a library environment, although some rooms and teams are more talkative than others. We schedule team meetings and calls in call booths or outdoors. We have a shared kitchen area, where lunch is served at 12pm everyday, and a big garden where you can stretch, take a break, or even have a meeting.

Our working lives

One of Onja’s greatest strengths is that we are a multicultural community, with a majority of our staff hailing from different parts of Madagascar as well as some from around the world. Since the majority of our team and stakeholders are Malagasy, we strive to ensure that Malagasy culture is given an importance that reflects this. While Malagasy culture is our baseline, we have a unique blend of Malagasy and western cultures, leveraging the strengths of both. To understand better how we live this out on the day to day, please read more about it in our values.

We are all working towards a common goal. At the heart of what we do is our mission, and this is what brings so many of us, from all walks of life, together. Everyone at Onja is driven by a similar purpose and that is what enables us to fully bring our individual talents to work everyday, co-create, and contribute to making a real impact on people’s lives.

We are a fast growing team! This is why we are increasing our efforts to create a supportive, inclusive environment where all team members feel valued and empowered to contribute their best work. We are setting up new practices and policies to foster a greater sense of safety and belonging which includes 1) establishing a people and culture team specifically for the wellbeing of our growing team 2) creating a suite of strong internal policies to help ensure a safe and secure environment.

In addition, here are some of our key pillars of life at Onja :

Community

Offsite team events: We usually organise monthly team events that are offsite, to build connections, invest in one another, strengthen our culture, and have fun! The planning committee switches up every time and is an opportunity to get to know people you might not usually work with on a daily basis.

Share and tell

We organise short sessions where someone volunteers to share about one topic of their choice for 5 minutes. Then, attendees can have time to discuss and ask questions or share their own experiences related to the topic. We love hearing about each other’s interests and it’s a chance to learn something new. It’s always amazing to see the variety of topics, hobbies, and causes our team members are passionate about!

Other ways we foster community and belonging: We organise periodic fun after work outings, organise a social basket for when a team member goes through a loss or a blessing (e.g. wedding, births), and we celebrate yearly work anniversaries and birthdays with a small gift as well as words of appreciation.

Flexibility

We have flexible hours (with some overlap hours), and this is made really easy and possible through a software that helps us keep track of time spent on work. We also provide flexible scheduling to support employees with caregiving responsibilities. We know that sometimes life happens, and we need to adjust our schedule accordingly, and we also know that everyone operates differently. Additionally, depending on the position, some may have a remote work allowance and are location-flexible.

Feedback

At Onja, we praise each others’ achievements and promote open communication through multiple feedback channels: directly in-person, 1 on 1’s with managers, within group meetings, or anonymously through surveys. This ensures that everyone feels comfortable providing feedback. We see our day to day as an opportunity to continuously improve and become better at what we do. We like to optimise processes, communicate and get feedback on things.

Growth & Learning

We are a team of flexible and solution-oriented people with a hands-on attitude who want to make a difference. We like to reach for the stars and learn on the way, often trying new things and seeing what works and what does not. As we are a fast-growing social enterprise, there are constant growth opportunities. Our work culture reflects that of a start-up where we people fill gaps, and find new ways to contribute. This can offer many opportunities for learning new skills and developing/applying skills in new ways and on different teams. Here are some other ways we facilitate growth opportunities:

• Learn-by-doing mindset, where there is the opportunity to improve skills and learn new ones on the job.
• Managers have regular 1 on 1s to help team members identify areas of growth, and encourage them in pursuing their own personal and professional development goals. This can look like providing advice on finding a mentor and/or course that can develop certain skills
• Each department can request to order books that will improve the internal knowledge of the team, and these will be added to our library which is accessible to everyone at Onja.
• We encourage reaching out to each other and making use of each other’s skills and/or learning from someone else in the team. If you want to learn a new set of skills from a different department, and jump on to help different projects, this is possible. There is also the opportunity for internal mobility, depending on the skills, needs and situation.
• Internal promotion: New opportunities open up all the time at Onja, and though you might start in one position, it’s not uncommon for you to shift to another role to help you grow professionally and broaden your experience. For example, our Marketing Manager transitioned to our East Africa Lead as we looked to expand our operations outside of Madagascar. She was excited by the challenge and the opportunity to learn, and we knew she had the ability to grow into the role.
• Similarly, we are open to moving people into different departments as their interest or experience changes. Someone might go from the legal team, to the recruitment team, to the Hiring team. This gives a great opportunity for our staff to learn and grow in many different areas.

To see our current open positions, head to www.onja.org/careers