Creating a Welcoming Working Culture at Maximum Games

Introduction

Emily Shepherd is the Senior Manager of People at Maximum Games. She studied Human Resources at Chico State University in Chico, CA. During her almost 10 years at Maximum Games, Emily helped the company’s CEO to establish an inclusive, dedicated, and fun work culture that values personal achievement alongside company success. Under her leadership, the People Team has recruited a wide array of talent to Maximum Games, helping take the company to the next level in the gaming industry. 

Lauren Helling is Associate Manager of People at Maximum Games. She studied Communications at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX where she served as Chief Editor of the University’s newspaper. She previously worked in Human Resources at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Her favorite part of working for Maximum Games is employee satisfaction and appreciation. 

Work Organization at Maximus Games

As a global video game publisher, Maximum Games along with its AA publishing label Modus Games does a wide range of functionalities: from creating original IP to bringing games like Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Among Us, and Five Nights at Freddy’s to retail. We publish digital and physical products across all gaming platforms and have added direct-to-consumer purchasing options since establishing our online store. In recent years, we’ve homed in on building out awesome collector’s editions for the games we publish. We have a full-service team of talented industry veterans working alongside skilled individuals getting their start in the industry, as well. 

Our different departments consist of the Marketing and Communications team, Finance team, Account Management team, Digital Sales and Data teams, Production (this includes our development studios, Release Management and our internal QA team), Operations, and the People team. There is always a lot of cross-departmental partnership and communication happening with every title and project we take on.

For a global company, we like to think that we have a very cohesive and collaborative team as a whole. Internally, we use everything from JIRA (task management) to Slack along with standard emailing through Outlook. Huddling in Slack is helpful and quick, and we use a ton of shortcuts, apps, and extensions to make things even more efficient. Our Director of IT always finds cool platforms that easily integrate with each other. We were one of the first to adopt Zoom pre-pandemic. We also currently operate on a hybrid model, so in-office meetings for creative collaboration in person happen, as well. 

Working Culture

The Executive Team and the People Team took some dedicated time to examine the culture at Maximum Games to look at employees that were thriving at Maximum Games – those who were performing well, who seemed genuinely happy in their roles and satisfied with the work they were producing. They also examined the reasons why these stellar team members exemplified and what traits supported them in their success.

From this, our CEO Christina Seelye established six core values that represented the overall culture and characteristics that greatly contribute to success at Maximum Games. While they are other skills that are important to each individual role and its purpose, overall, we try to gauge where candidates fall within the range of our core values: Scrappy, Creative Problem Solver, Cares, Context Seeker, Avid Learner, Adaptable. During our office holiday party (whether in person or virtual like this year) we host an awards ceremony to recognize those within the company that demonstrated those values in a big way during the year. Winners are nominated and voted on by their managers and colleagues.

Welcoming Newcomers

A major element of that falls within the interview process and pre-onboarding experience is that we want people who choose to come and work for us to know as much about what they’re becoming a part of as possible. We want them to learn about the company, the team, and culture, what we’re doing, what we’re moving towards.

We discuss our company and culture and answer questions during this pre-hiring process and do a full onboarding presentation on their first day. We give new hires a welcome box stuffed with cool company swag that we hope immediately makes them feel like a valued addition to the team. We also initiate department lunches, so employees can get to know other teammates alongside their direct colleagues. We’re also big on mentorship and sharing knowledge and ideas.

A People Team is supposed to be approachable. An open line of communication is the key. It concerns pulse surveys on future employee benefits, through our people management software (15Five) where we establish objectives and recognize our wins together, as well as someone reaching out on Slack needing guidance on policies. We work to make sure our employees know that if they need any support, we are here for that. 

Managing Burnouts

As we already mentioned, communication is the key. Management conducts regular one-on-one meetings with employees and weekly syncs to make sure any issues or concerns are caught before burnout occurs. Making sure teams have the resources they need to appropriately manage their time is important. Sometimes it’s about recognition during crunch time.

We value the people on our team not just for the work they contribute but for who they are as individuals. When you appreciate and genuinely care about someone, it makes a difference in their lives and their output. We encourage having fun even in the midst of a tight deadline offering pizza and beer, team game nights, happy hours, and trivia with prizes to break up the day.

Most importantly, our executives stay up to date with where projects are sitting and pull in extra resources when necessary to avoid employees feeling weighed down and overly stressed. This year we’re looking into some additional mental health/wellness offerings to supplement our current benefits. 

Creative Freedom

Creativity and freedom are an important part of the gaming industry in general. It’s a huge aspect of demonstrating that "adaptable" core value we mentioned earlier. If someone has a way to improve upon current processes, Maximum Games is all ears. Christina Seelye is a creative problem solver and, as such, leads her global team in that way. If we aren’t stretching and growing and open to new ideas and thoughts, we potentially miss opportunities for future success.  

Education

We do small People Team-led training sessions like communication workshops or mini sessions on emailing with intent, using Excel in new ways, etc. We have several employees on our team who are currently furthering their education. As a company that promotes being avid learners, education is important to us. Again, mentorship is a vital part of training a new employee and leveling up employees that have outgrown their positions. We believe providing opportunities for career growth is important.

Post-COVID Working Process

COVID taught us a lot about how important it is to find ways to stay connected and to establish new ways to communicate virtually and still thrive creatively. We transitioned the company to a 95% remote model and, in recent months, made the transition back to a hybrid workplace.

Employees appreciate the ability to be in the office with the team and to collaborate in person when desired. It challenged us to be more strategic with some of the fun events we previously hosted in person: things like online pub quizzes with our team in the UK, virtual parties, raffles, and company-wide Zoom calls (where we provide news, updates, celebrate wins, introduce new hires, etc.). Slack became a core part of all that.

We relied heavily on 15Five to establish measurable and clear objectives and routine check-ins to keep a pulse on team satisfaction to see how our employees were faring away from one another and to make sure we were there to help if they were feeling isolated or lonely. COVID established a deeper overall empathy and appreciation for our team as real people living real lives. 

Advice for Artists

For the artists who are willing to work at our studio, we would recommend keeping growing and challenging themselves, whatever way they can. Often, our personal growth and challenges bleed over into our professional skillset in ways we can’t always foresee.

Our advice is to find a mentor in the industry – someone who has been there before and can share their experiences and what they’ve learned. It can be a tough industry to break into, but as Christina said once before (I’m paraphrasing here): find the unique value that you bring to the table and lean into that. At the same time, recognize that your weaknesses are only areas where there is an opportunity for growth. If you can pinpoint what it is that you contribute and your worth, others will recognize that, too.

Emily Shepherd and Lauren Helling, Senior Manager of People and Associate Manager of People at Maximum Games

Interview conducted by Arti Sergeev