What's the Company Culture Like at Dealerware?

What’s your quotable philosophy on recognition?

Recognition from one’s peers, especially those with whom you may not work every day, can often be the most meaningful. I still have a cheesy, handmade certificate my peers gave me years ago at my first job, which brings me so much joy whenever I come across it in my files. At Dealerware, we host our annual leadership awards, where anyone can nominate a colleague (on any team) for recognition by sharing a story from the past year that best exemplifies one of our five leadership behaviors (our version of core values).

What data or policy shows it works? 

Our fourth annual round of leadership awards was in 2025. We hit our highest number of nominations at 132, submitted by 40 team members (we had around 80 employees at the time). Sixty-six percent of team members received a nomination last year, so the recognition is widespread. After the event, we always publish the nominations as public feedback in our HR system, but last year I had one winner who reached out first thing the next morning: “Did you say that the nominations for leadership awards are available to read somewhere? I told my girlfriend about the award and she’s hounding me because she wants to read mine.”

Which ritual keeps recognition alive?

Each year, around the same time, we invite the whole team into Austin for annual celebrations and/or holiday events, we also hold our leadership awards ceremony to present the five winners and share their stories. We get a little creative with the presentation each year and how we introduce the five categories: drive, team, customer, DEI and communicate. We’ve shown movie clips and music videos (think “Fast & Furious” NOS scene for drive). We’ve had team members dramatically interpret and perform AI-generated haikus. Last year, a select group of comically-minded team members told the cheesiest of dad jokes for each category. So the ceremony ranges from hilarious, awkward moments to deeply memorable storytelling about the winner’s accomplishments. Our awards wall is a series of endlessly reconfigured wooden blocks representing each year’s winners and our five leadership behaviors. We get to add a new one and rearrange the display every year. The winners get their own personal award block and Bonusly points that can be cashed out as gift cards.