Acts of Love: This is a fund for employees to help employees. Team members can donate to it or apply in times of need. You can learn more about the fund and its guidelines in the Employee Resources space of Workvivo.

Annual Benefits Summary: Each team member receives this annual benefit summary that’s given out at the end of each year. This one-sheeter highlights the total contributions of the company to you and includes your total salary, benefits, vision trip, and cell phone costs, if applicable. You’ll be blown away by the company’s generosity!

Approaching it with open hands: We don’t hold onto ideas, projects, positions, processes, or really anything tightly around here. The idea of open hands demonstrates we’re open to other ideas that aren’t ours, a different direction, or change of plans as we strive for excellence, growth, generous stewardship, and unity. The picture of open hands symbolizes that sometimes more is being added to our hands to carry, and sometimes our hands are tipping to allow for things to slip through them, but what’s best for all is always kept in mind.

Betenbough Connect Day: BCD. Full-time team members will join Betenbough Companies board members for one half-day session to learn more about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re headed. You’ll enjoy time discussing in more detail our core values and how they’re exhibited across the organization.

Cascading: We do our best to communicate quickly and effectively across our company. You’ll hear leaders say they’re “cascading” when sharing information or updates to their teams. Our general guideline is that a leader cascades information within 24 hours of hearing it.

Culture Awards: Through our culture awards we highlight and celebrate team members who exemplify our core values in daily work. Culture Champs are peer-nominated and have the potential to become MVPs; they’re celebrated at Town Halls and Rally. You can learn more about culture awards and nominate someone in the Employee Resources space on Workvivo.

Cuss and Discuss: Since striving for unity means we have healthy conflict, conversations and meetings can get heated. We’re all passionate here and should bring our ideas to the table. We commit to disagree in the moment and be unified when the best decision rises to the top. After those types of meetings, you’ll sometimes hear with a chuckle something like, “We cussed and discussed but came to a solution.”

DISC: This is the personality assessment we use, but it’s common to hear DISC or one of the letters in everyday conversation. We rely on this tool to know what communication style a person leads with and to learn how to better communicate, approach, and relate to others.

Floater/Robin: We get it, those can be odd words to hear in conversation! A floater is a company vehicle that you can check out if needed for work purposes. For example, if you need to drive to another region to work for the day, you can take a floater. Robin is the app we use to reserve floater vehicles.

Friday Lunch: This means just what it says! The company generously provides free lunch on Fridays to team members (and sometimes family) as a way to care for the whole person and to connect with one another.

Friday Positives/Thankful Thursday: Regardless of the day, we like to reflect on what we’re grateful for from the week and celebrate wins. Many teams do this in the form of Friday Positives or Thankful Thursdays. It’s as simple as sharing a personal and professional positive from your week.

The Gallery: You might be invited to a meeting in the Gallery and not have a clue in the world where to go. Don’t fear! It’s the long, narrow area in the West home office building near the kitchen. It has lots of tables and chairs.

Giving Team Meetings: Help decide where our local giving is donated through attending giving team meetings. You’ll be able to ask strategic questions and learn about amazing organizations serving our community.

Go Bucks: These are given for participating in various company initiatives and are used as real cash toward company vision trips.

In our Retro…: Since we’re always working toward getting better, you’ll likely be invited to a retro. This could be a retro of an event, product roll out, process, etc. The goal of the meeting is to celebrate what was done well and identify what could be done differently moving forward.

Jumpstart: Jumpstarts are a voluntary time for teams to get together and grow closer. Topics of Jumpstarts range from book studies to Bible studies to team building. Each team’s Jumpstart happens at a different time, and the name sometimes varies by team.

Large-Scale Giving: Decided on by leadership and given to non-profit ministries around the world, these financial gifts are given to long-term partners making a difference in their work.

Matching: Your giving goes further when you participate in company matching. Submit proof of your donation to a 501c3 organization through the Giving and Outreach page on Workvivo, and then the company matches your gift with a donation as well.

Milestones: This word can reference two different cultural principles. First, after your start date you’ll receive 30-60 day milestones. These are areas you should demonstrate understanding over and be able to execute within 30 days and 60 days from your start. Your leader will set expectations and check in with you on those milestones. We also honor milestone anniversaries in our company! We believe in celebrating and get excited to recognize you at milestone anniversaries such as five years of employment.

New Ladies: Not a reference to the most recent new hires, but you’ll hear this phrase around the office, especially from the Betenbough Homes team. Our new ladies are the most recently released floor plans from our architecture team. We celebrate each released floor plan that will become someone’s dream home, and we name our homes in honor of the first female to purchase the home.

One-on-One: We have a highly relational culture, and you’ll hear the term “one-on-one” used a lot. For us, this is a weekly meeting with your leader to connect and chat about whatever you would like. You bring the topics and know your leader is excited to get to know you. They care about you and want you to feel seen and heard. Your one-on-one is a space to sit and connect.

PDP: Proactive Development Plan. Since growth is a core value, team members routinely receive a PDP from their leader with a focused growth area. This could be to aid in professional, personal or spiritual growth; these plans are highly personalized to the individual.

Profit Sharing: Some roles include profit sharing, and it’s discussed at all-company gatherings. Simply said, when we all work hard and the company makes a profit, you benefit from that profit through profit sharing. Your leader will discuss this in greater detail with you!

Rally: Rally is a quarterly all-company gathering that allows us to connect and build relationships with teammates from all regions, celebrate one another, and hear exciting updates from the Betenbough Companies board.

Stand Up: Most teams in our company have a “stand up,” which is a quick meeting to share updates on tasks and work. Stand Up is a fairly universal term, but occasionally teams will have varying names for this type of meeting.

The Heart Behind It: You’ll hear this phrase often, and what we mean is, ‘Here’s the why behind this decision,” or “Here are the details that got us to the decision we just made.” Since we value transparency, we give more detail than normal so everyone can understand how and why decisions are made.

The Kingdom is Upside Down: This is a Biblical reference you’ll hear from time to time. In the Bible, the Kingdom of God is referenced many times and is often observed to contrast with cultural norms. For example, the Bible says to love your enemy and that’s it’s more blessed to give than to receive. When leaders see this principle lived out in daily life, they sometimes summarize it as, “The Kingdom is upside down.”

TMA: This stands for Team Member Agreement, and we call it a TMA. You signed it to join on and will re-sign it yearly. A TMA includes your role overview, core functions, and salary. Leaders sign a leadership covenant instead of a TMA.

Tinkering: The idea of tinkering falls under our core value of excellence. You’ll hear team members talk about tinkering with an idea, project, or process to make it better. We use this word in the context of something that is already good, but because we pursue excellence, we’re going to continue to tinker with it to make it even better. Tinkering will lead to both failures and successes, plus learning and improvement.

Town Hall: Designed to be informal and informative, town halls will be scheduled throughout the year by your director. These meetings allow you to provide real-time feedback and ask questions, and leaders will share team updates and other timely information.

Winter Weekend: Winter Weekend is an annual all-company meeting where we encourage team members to invite their families or a guest for a company-paid weekend away filled with fellowship and fun!

Workvivo: Think of it as our company intranet. It’s a hub for company communication, announcements, and links to all the things you need.

Helpful Abbreviations:

• BBS = Betenbough Business Services
• BH = Betenbough Homes
• ES = Employee Support
• GM = General Manager
• CM = Construction Manager
• SM = Sales Manager
• KAW = Kingdom at Work
• LW = Lubbock West
• LS = Lubbock South
• LNW = Lubbock Northwest
• MID = Midland
• ODZ = Odessa
• AMA = Amarillo
• LSG = Large Scale Giving
• TWEC = The Willows Event Center