Atlassian: Streamlines Program for Success

From the judges,”Atlassian has done an excellent job – a very innovative,
re-invigorated program.”

Tech company Atlassian achieved an impressive increase in employee participation from the refresh of their WPG program, which grew from 2% to 39% of their workforce in just 12 months.

The key principles applied to the WPG program refresh reflect the company’s lean start-up culture. Firstly, the program was streamlined by directing all Workplace Giving donations to a single charity, Room to Read, whose work focuses on girls’ education in Cambodia. Next it was aligned to the company’s new community investment strategy that committed to sponsoring the education of one Cambodian girl for every Atlassian employee. Through the WPG program, employees were challenged to match the Foundation’s support (a reverse play on traditional donation matching) by sponsoring a second girl’s education. Thirdly, the sign-up process was simplified from eight open-entry fields to a single click.

Lastly, Atlassian added an extra nudge – in line with a tradition of branded giveaways that is strongly embedded in the tech industry, they offered a limited edition hoodie to the first 100 staff to sign up. This simple, inexpensive incentive achieved the desired results, prompting 100 sign ups in 43 minutes.

As part of the refresh, Atlassian engaged Room to Read to provide employees with regular communications from the field that showed the impact and outcome of their donations, achieving greater employee engagement with the beneficiary organisation and the charitable cause.

The program’s success was measured in the outcomes for the girls it supported, with 98% advancing one or more grades in a calendar year and 71% of those who graduated have gone on to further education.