One of our goals in starting Atono was to ensure our team is fairly rewarded for our hard work. We’ve established and adhere to several key compensation principles to ensure we meet our objectives.

We’ll discuss several of the concepts we use for compensation, including:

• Wages
• Personal time
• Work from anywhere in the world
• Benefits
• Ownership

Work from anywhere in the world

We currently work from our home offices in Canada and California, allowing us to learn how to work using our collaboration tools while meeting in person periodically. Many of our current and future team members want to experience places that don’t start with a “C,” so we work from other remote locations, too. We try to keep core hours for collaboration but also value our time on the road!

Wages

We believe in equitable compensation. For us, this means our wages typically fall within the 75-90% range of the highest payers in the market. Our compensation strategy emphasizes equity and ownership rather than being the top payer. We also avoid paying less than 50% of the top payer’s rate since our team consists of high achievers who deserve a fair wage. We survey market salaries every six months to ensure we stay within our band and make immediate adjustments if needed, rather than waiting for the annual review process.

Personal time

In addition to standard holiday leave, we offer three to four weeks of personal time off annually, with a required minimum of two weeks for self-care. Sick time is provided based on location (for example, it’s mandated by law in British Columbia). We also allow our team to go negative on their PTO balances for epic trips. We don’t use unlimited PTO because our experience is employees use less and they miss out on the benefits of an accrued balance. 

Benefits

We believe that providing excellent family benefits is Atono’s responsibility. Our Canadian employees receive supplemental benefits including Medical, Dental, Life, AD&D, and self-care allowances. Atono pays for the top-tier plan to ensure our families are well cared for.

Ownership

We strongly believe that everyone contributing at Atono is an owner, whether through shares or incentive stock options. We maintain transparency by sharing all information with employees (except personal HR and payroll details). We treat every employee as an owner and engage them in the business. We call all of our current 13-member team “co-founders”, reflecting their early and crucial involvement.