“We’re all in this together.”
It’s more than just a mantra or something we tell ourselves in the pursuit of creating amazing customer experiences. It is more than a value painted on our walls or a platitude we use passively. It is the very ethos of the culture at Carvana, and it drives everything we do for our employees, our customers, and the communities we’re a part of. With one million cars sold, one of the fastest debuts in the history of the Fortune 500, and thousands of helping hands all working together to change the way people buy and sell cars for the better, remembering that “We’re all in this together” is the magnetic force that pulls Carvana’s needle north.
However, living by this core value day-in and day-out requires more than just applying it to the work that we do. In fact, when we say, “We’re all in this together,” by “this” we mean everything, inside and outside of work. We’re dedicated to making each other better both within and outside of Carvana’s doors. If we raise each other up, we are then empowered to go out and raise our communities up, and we understand that impactful company culture has a ripple effect that extends far beyond our headquarters, Car Vending Machines, and inspection centers.
Understanding that our teammates cannot successfully support our exponentially growing customer base without feeling equally supported has motivated us to modernize, individualize, and redefine the day-to-day experience for thousands of employees. In order to successfully meet the demand of more than 1 million customers, we turned our innovative drive inward to focus on providing a robust, supportive, and fulfilling employee experience for thousands of individuals across the U.S.—all with different lifestyles and needs.
The innovations we’ve made to the employee experience have in turn allowed our teammates to provide vehicles for those in need, fostered elevated conversations and resources for family planning, created safe spaces to address racial and social tensions, provided financial planning tools to team members, digital mental health services to everyone in the company free of charge, and a tuition assistance program to help team members complete degrees or pursue continuing education. Each benefit is intended to promote a deeper, more connective, and holistic company culture for our teammates across the organization, simply because we know “We’re all in this together.”
But when the pandemic first swept through the country in early 2020, it was time to truly put our money where our values are. In that moment “We’re all in this together,” took on a literal meaning, as this company value turned into action as COVID-19 upended life as we knew it. To ensure no one was left behind during the pandemic, hundreds of employees came together and contributed millions of dollars to their fellow team members in the form of the “We’re All In This Together Fund” (WAITT Fund) to offset the impact of reduced hours and avoid a single layoff or furlough across the company.
Now, nearly two years later, the same spirit that sparked the creation of the WAITT Fund has empowered employees at Carvana to create safe spaces with Carvana Communities to address societal issues, engage in meaningful discourse, and make real impacts in their communities. In addition to safe spaces to commune with one another, we enable our team members to better their communities through our internal Passion Projects initiative, our ongoing Carvana Cares content series, educational resources and training, and company-supported philanthropy and community service opportunities. “We’re all in this together” isn’t an idea that starts and stops at the door. It is something that Carvana team members try to thread into everything that they do. Putting people first, allowing our principles to guide the way, and working together as a unified team with common values and shared goals is at the core of our drive to refine, simplify, and improve the car buying experience for all.
By focusing on our people first, we believe Carvana has become an example for the things that could be better about the car buying process, and the broader auto industry as a whole. We’ve shown the world that buying and selling cars online is not only possible, but that it can be fun and enjoyable, while also being efficient, transparent, and perhaps most importantly, emblematic of something bigger than a transaction. It can be an example of what can be achieved when we choose togetherness and teamwork in pursuit of a greater good.
