On July 8, 2016 the employees, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends and children of Jama gathered to celebrate another great year at the annual Jama Birthday Party. (Check out the 8th, 7th, 6th and 5th celebrations!) A summer rain pushed us inside, but our soon-to-be-sub-leased 1st floor made the perfect open space for the bouncy house, face painting and general merriment, hoopla and celebration (by adults and kiddos alike!).
At Jama we value and embrace the whole person, and what better way to celebrate another great year of work together than with great food, great fun and great company.
Cheers to the people of Jama, to the people who support us and to the work we do!
We use the hashtag #lifeatjama a lot around here. The fact is that we love to celebrate our culture and how we work & play together. It’s not a marketing ploy, it is a reflection of our values and approach, our way of life here at Jama software.
A few months ago, the Engineering and Product teams were talking about a team building activities that we could do as a group to further our working relationship. One of the suggestions was a camping trip together. We reserved a group site at Timothy Lake in the Mt Hood National Forest and all came together the last weekend in June.
We spent the weekend camping as a group with our coworkers, our families and pets. We were hiking, fishing, we hung out at the camp fire and cooked meals together, and roasted S’mores. We played with a hand made set of Kubb, created with this trip in mind. It was an awesome weekend of celebration and togetherness as a team, as well as one on one.
I’ve worked in the technology field in Portland for nearly 20 years and I have to say that I have never experienced a culture at a Company where I have spent multiple days and nights outside of work with coworkers and not only enjoyed every moment of it but I was disappointed when the weekend came to a close. The fact that many of us were talking about doing this again soon as non-company event speaks to the awesome people I have the pleasure of working with every day.
#lifeatjama is very real. Life is good here!
Jama Software Becomes a Certified Green Business
Jama Software was recently awarded a certification as a Green Business through the City of Portland’s Sustainability at Work program. This program recognizes businesses for their efforts to be better environmental citizens.
Jama Software Green Rooftop Garden
“As I worked through the certification application, it felt great to be able to check off so many actions that Jama already does on a daily basis,” said Anthony Szabo, Jama Software’s Office Manager, who was responsible for the company’s application process. “Of course we recycle and compost and provide real dishes and silverware. That’s just part of who we are as a company. We were able to check off some of the bigger ticket items, such as LED lighting and a well-insulated and weather-sealed building, thanks to being in a newly renovated building and working with a property management company that is also committed to sustainable business.”
Jama Software office with plenty of natural light
We are excited to have tackled some large action items and to have earned this accolade as a certified green business. We look forward to continue to improve our workplace. We know our footprint is much bigger than just the office space, and we intend to extend our commitment to sustainability to the community via our engaged employees who share this value.
Jama Software employees hugging Jama the Llama (aka Rojo), a friendly visitor
Jama is committed to Portland and believes in the importance of giving back to the communities where we live, work and play. A year ago Jama launched the Paid Volunteer Time Program, granting employees 16 hours per year to use volunteering at the organizations of their choice.
Since the launch of the program in March 2015, Jamanians (just one of many nicknames we’ve created for ourselves) have spent over 624 hours with organizations around the state and region.
June 2015
Iris Blackburn from our Customer Support team spent three days at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. For over 30 years Best Friends Animal Sanctuary has run the largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the nation.
June 2015
The entire Customer Support team spend the day at Hagg Lake at an event run by I’m Hooked, Inc. in conjunction with the Portland Parks & Rec Department and Oregon Fish & Wildlife Department. The program gets children outdoors and teaches them how to fish.
October 2015
In October a cross-functional group of Jamanians spent the afternoon at Schoolyard Farms, a non-profit that educates students about the importance of nutrition and edible agriculture through the hands-on work of planting, cultivating, harvesting, cooking and eating food grown in a schoolyard farm.
November 2015
In November four of our pet-loving Customer Success Managers, Connie Yoo, Jason Birch, Jared Richardson and Marta Altree, spent a rambunctious afternoon walking dogs with the Oregon Dog Rescue. Oregon Dog rescue is a no-kill shelter and offers drop-in volunteering opportunities to spend hands-on time with the animals.
December 2015
In December a gaggle of Jamanians, armed with funds donated from Jama employees, built care packages to donate to Medical Teams International for distribution to refugees fleeing their homes. The group purchased supplies for and built 20 family kits and 20 infant kits, as well as donated surplus supplies to Medical Teams International.
Here’s to another year of time spent giving back to the communities where we live, work and play.
If you’d like to learn more about the benefits offered to Jama employees, please check out our Benefits page.
Nestled perfectly between the Oregon Coast, the Cascade Range and just south of the Columbia River Gorge, Portland is in quite nearly a perfect geographic location (as a native I may be bias). I think it’s just natural for an area of such prime real estate to be populated by those that love the outdoors and everything that goes with it.
The people of Jama Nation do a pretty excellent job fitting into the “sporty outdoorsy Pacific Northwesterner” archetype. We’re a pretty active bunch. We have marathoners and cyclocross racers, summer time CrossFit Boot Camps and Barre3 gatherings, we enjoy lunchtime racquetball and host in-office yoga each Monday. One-third of Jamanians cycle to work and not a day goes by that you don’t hear the not-so-gentle whirr of the VitaMix as someone makes their spinach-mango-chia breakfast.
In any given week we have a lot of activity, though this year, at the end of our open enrollment period, we set aside one specific week to celebrate fitness and wellness with all members of Jama Nation.
In addition to our new standard benefit program we added a wellness benefit – a monthly reimbursement to Jamanians that for any activity to keep themselves well: registration fees for a local 5k, a massage, a cooking class, an aerial yoga class or even just a monthly gym membership. Wellness week also included a lunchtime info session with Greenleaf Juicing Co; we have several home-juicers as well as several people that regularly do short juice cleanses, so we wanted to bring in the experts to fill us all in on all the buzz about juicing. In my opinion they were all delicious, except the one that included jalapeño.
We finish our monthly all-hands meeting by having lunch together, so during wellness week we took a page out of the book of our Mediterranean friends and enjoyed hummus, tahini, grilled chicken and falafel with tabouli salad and gluten free pita from Portland favorite Nicholas Restaurant.
Late in the week we celebrated the importance of taking time to relax and keep yourself well, and were treated to acupuncture, Thai massage, foam roller classes and standard massage as well as a delicious spread of healthy snacks from our neighbors as Asula Wellness.
We ended with week with a group walk or run through Waterfront Park. Portland rain is a bit hit-or-miss in February, but luck was on hour side for at least an hour, making the mid-day jaunt in the winter sun that much more enjoyable.
