Why Election Day is a Cured Company Holiday

In mid September, one of our co-founders posted the following question in our #managers Slack channel, “How does the crew feel about making Election Day a company holiday?” The question was timely. Today’s Presidential Election was fast approaching. In addition, we had been starting to have a number of focused dialogues related to how we could take what was a strong, organically-developed company culture and formally define our mission, values, etc. to ensure that we build and maintain a culture we are all proud of as we continue to aggressively scale our business. One of our guiding principles in these efforts has been that Cured’s values should align with our people’s values (sage wisdom from Natalie Bumgartner’s HBR article on the subject). Creating this alignment will allow us to much more authentically put our culture into action in all that Cured does — product development, client delivery, hiring, career development . . . you name it.

While this work is still very much underway, and likely will always be a work in progress given that culture is not static, we did not need a robust cultural decision making framework to arrive at our conclusion. We fairly quickly decided that Election Day would be a Cured company holiday. As a company with an unlimited PTO policy and one that very much advocates that our employees set aside time during the week to take care of non-work related priorities, we could have very easily taken a less firm stance. However, by choosing action vs. inaction, we are recognizing that our employees value their civic duty to vote and being purposeful in our support of removing barriers (no matter how big or small) that may inhibit folks from exercising their democratic right.

For those who are heading out to the polls or have already cast your ballot, take a moment today to appreciate your ability to have your voice heard via your vote. Lastly, regardless of your political leanings, please remember that healthcare is on the ballot during every election at every level of government. And, while the US may be one of the global leaders in healthcare innovation, we are not a global leader in healthcare outcomes — despite spending much more than any other OECD country. All political parties must work together to drive meaningful improvements in healthcare costs, accessibility, and outcomes.

Happy voting!