Designing a Culture of Connection at Slalom
WORKPLACE CULTURE & EXPERIENCE
Seattle Culture Crew
Built and scaled a decade-long employee experience platform that strengthened belonging, creativity, and community across Slalom Seattle and the broader Pacific Northwest market
Built on Authenticity. Held Together by Connection.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Culture Crew began in 2013 as an experimental volunteer initiative inside Slalom Seattle and grew into a core pillar of the office's employee experience over the next 13 years. Under my leadership, it became a durable and extendable culture platform: programs that scaled year over year were integrated into major company moments, and gave employees genuine reasons to show up as their whole selves.
Across these programs, I led communications, branding, visual design, copywriting, recruiting, community building, and digital archiving. I was honored with a lifetime People & Culture award in recognition of this work in 2025.
Role
Founder and leader of Culture Crew: Program Strategy & Experience Design, Creative Direction, Community Building, Event Production, Marketing & Communications, Digital Experience Design
Type
Internal employee experience program, entirely volunteer-led
Timeframe
January 2013 – March 2026
Outcome
A durable, scalable culture platform integrated into the fabric of Slalom Seattle, with flagship annual events, digital experiences, and a lasting model for employee-led culture design
The Foundation
Started as a small group of volunteers focused on building community. Became a structured program with recurring events, a creative brand, and a model for employee-led culture at scale.
Select Programs
Culture Clash (annual talent showcase), Sound of Slalom (employee music community), Makers Market (holiday marketplace grown to 60+ makers), and digital experience platforms for storytelling and connection (Taste of Slalom, Hometown, Slalom Everywhere).
The Insight
Designing workplace culture is similar to designing user experiences: start with empathy, create spaces for meaningful interaction, build programs that bring people together authentically, gather feedback, and revise.
Impact at a Glance
Detail from the Culture Clash website, where we archived photographs and artifacts of the events and recruited talent and volunteers. Email and video communications drove employees to our robust community website.
“Gary brought a rare generosity to his leadership. He created space for others to shine, intentionally elevating employee voices, volunteers, performers, and makers.”
Full Case Study
Crafting Culture Programs to Celebrate Our People
Culture Crew began as an experimental initiative and evolved into a core pillar of Slalom Seattle’s employee experience, transforming workplace culture from something intangible into something actively designed, experienced, and shared.
Under my leadership, Culture Crew became a durable culture platform, with programs that scaled year over year and were integrated into major company moments, including quarterly events and market-wide celebrations.
Roles:
Founder and leader of Culture Crew, responsible for both vision and execution:
Program Strategy & Experience Design
Creative Direction & Brand
Community Building & Volunteer Leadership
Event Production & Operations
Marketing, Communications & Storytelling
Digital Experience Design
Timeframe:
January 2013 - March 2026
Overview
Back in 2013, during my second year as a consultant at Slalom, I became a founding member of our office’s Culture Crew, a group of volunteers focused on building community, celebrating our people, and creating a tangible documentation of our company culture.
While my primary role as a consultant was in UX and client delivery, I was passionate about creating experiences that helped employees connect beyond their project work, and with the help of a small team, drove the program for 13 years.
I worked with our ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) such as our LatinX, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, LGBTQ+, and Veterans groups to ensure our events represented the full spectrum of our employees and their voices.
Some of our most memorable and impactful programs and experiences are below.
Concept poster for recruiting campaigns in 2021
Makers Market participants
Photograph by David Otwell
Key Programs
Culture Clash
Annual talent showcase
Created a safe stage for employees to share music, storytelling, comedy, and performance, growing into a flagship annual event.
Sound of Slalom
Music community
Connected employee musicians and producers, enabling collaboration and performances across teams and events.
Makers Market
Employee arts and crafts marketplace
Scaled from ~12 to ~60 makers, becoming a highly anticipated holiday tradition and later integrated into larger company events.
Digital Culture Experiences
Designed interactive platforms, such as a geo-based storytelling and photo-sharing site, a community recipe sharing site, and multimedia event programs, to document and extend our culture beyond physical events.
Video recap of hands-on musical instrument event: Sound of Slalom’s ‘Keyboard Petting Zoo’. Music by Josh Dahlberg. Event promotions, graphics, and video created by me.
Program Growth & Evolution
With the help of many volunteers and a small dedicated team, we designed and launched culture programs that created space for employees to share their creativity and interests.
One example was Culture Clash, an annual talent show where employees performed music, comedy, storytelling, and dance. People formed bands and trios and duos so they could perform on the Culture Clash stage.
This inspired me to launch Sound of Slalom, a community for employees who create or produce music, giving them a way to collaborate and share resources, and perform on smaller stages such as our lunchtime concerts in our gathering space — inspired by NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts.
Photo by David Otwell
Photo by David Otwell
“Being a part of the Culture Crew has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my time at Slalom.
I am proud to have collaborated on initiatives like Culture Clash and Makers Market with some of the most driven, dedicated and talented people who have the same goal of preserving and promoting our Slalom Culture.”
Key Takeaways
Allowing people's passions to shine encourages authenticity and engagement
Growing a company culture takes a village of caring and thoughtful people
The most impactful programs are co-created with employees
People feel valued when given the opportunity to bring their full selves to the office
“Many of the most meaningful moments I witnessed — like employees performing for the first time, sharing personal stories, or connecting across teams — were made possible because Gary fostered psychological safety and trust. His programs became connective tissue across the organization, especially during times when connection was harder to come by.”
Taste of Slalom collected hundreds of recipes from Seattle consultants and leaders, and included brief stories and even select songs to accompany the creations.
Reflections
What I found was that when employees are given opportunities to share their talents and passions, it strengthens connection across teams and helps people feel more seen as individuals.
People felt comfortable sharing more of themselves, and rose to the occasion in the safe places we created.
Many of these programs ran for years and became part of the cultural fabric of the office.
This reinforced for me that designing workplace culture is very similar to designing user experiences — you start with empathy, create spaces for meaningful interaction, build programs that bring people together in authentic ways, test out concepts, gather feedback, and revise programs to improve the experiences for all.