Inside Illumio Values: Onwards Together

Wondering what it’s really like to work at Illumio? This series, written by employees, drills down into Illumio’s core values. Hear from Carla Herrera, People Operations Specialist, about how, together, we collaborate, make decisions, and align ourselves to our goals.

The hallmark of our value onwards together is how we band together across all of Illumio to achieve our objectives. You can see it on teams when someone is on leave or an extended time away, everyone leans in to cover for them. You also see it during cross-functional projects, when someone gives an hour of their time when a fellow Illumineer asks for assistance.

Working at Illumio, you don’t often hear the phrase: “sorry, that’s not my job.” What you do hear is, “let’s find a way to make it work.” At the same time, this willingness to band together does not translate into a state of constant burn-out, we prioritize work-life balance and seek truth about how to care well for our people. When we rightly order the care and feeding of our humans, we feel the freedom to bring our full selves to the work before us.

Onwards together means that we show up as a team—and teams can mean different things at different moments in time. Sometimes a team is all of Illumio. During our annual internal conference, called Onwards!, all of our Illumineers from around the globe come together for a day of networking and aligning to the greater strategy. This is just one of many fun ways we ensure that we are all moving in the same strategic direction and that every team member has a strong sense of belonging and a clear directive. A team at Illumio can also consist of just three people. We are all showing up to live out the value, whatever the size of the group—what matters is the size of the objective and the fact that we are going to get after it together.

Since joining Illumio, I have seen not just members of my team, but all Illumineers embody this value. When I first joined, I immediately felt supported each step of the way. If I had questions, Illumineers were always willing to help, and no question was ever disregarded or diminished.

Another area where I have seen our onwards together value lived out is on cross-functional teams. Most recently, a team of over thirty-five Illumineers volunteered to organize and host our annual internal conference, Onwards! Despite the challenges of a remote workforce and some last-minute technical glitches, the team pulled off a spectacular event, one that would have seemed impossible to anyone else.

I see this same commitment during each New Hire Orientation. Cross-functional groups come together to ensure new Illumineers are given the resources they need to succeed in their new roles at Illumio. It is super important to me that our new hires see how we show up as a team, and every time they come away knowing that they have a team on which they can depend.

In this way, the value of onwards together is lived out at Ilumio in how we collaborate, make decisions, and align ourselves to our goals. Many of our past victories are attributable to this value and I have no doubt that our future success is already written because of our commitment to achieving it as one team.

If you're interested in a highly collaborative, engaging professional environment, I invite you to explore our current opportunities at Careers at Illumio.