Velvet Cannabis's People-First Culture

Standing out from your peers to win any kind of award is an impressive feat, but doing so for four consecutive years is a sign that you’ve built something special. This is what the team at Velvet Cannabis, led by co-founder and CEO Farid Harrison, has achieved with Cannabis Business Times’ Best Cannabis Companies to Work For - Dispensary ranking.

“I think it's really just about spending time with the people,” Harrison tells CBT on achieving this recognition for every year Velvet has been operating. “Our ownership group is all people oriented. We spend a lot of time on our culture.”

Here, Harrison shares insights into how his company established itself as a multi-award-winning retail company.

On encouraging employee participation and feedback:

Farid Harrison: We have two rotating weekly meetings. One is with our shared services team, then the following week it's all of our GM's for an operational meeting. All of our ownership and C-suite are involved in those meetings. There's probably anywhere from seven to 10 people in those meetings.

We also have a very open work environment. No one's in offices, from the ownership group all the way down to our admin level. They can see and hear all of our conversations. So, by nature, our workspace creates a very collaborative work environment.

On professional growth and promotional opportunities:

Harrison: One particular individual started with us as an intern between his junior and senior years of college at Boise State. He was getting a degree in marketing communications, and he came in and did whatever we needed in our building—he helped move boxes and did everything. Once he graduated, he came back to us, and he handled all of our online customer questions. He managed that entire interaction with our customers that were writing in with questions. He then started doing some marketing data analytics for us.

He's been with us for three years, including the internship program, and just recently he was elevated to a marketing coordinator role. He started as an intern and has grown meaningfully up through the org. And with that comes increased compensation—we definitely like to take care of people that take advantage of opportunity.

On offering competitive compensation:

Harrison: A lot of retailers in California pay minimum wage. We pay a reasonable cost-of-living. We also have a team- and individual-based bonus compensation on a monthly basis. And this year we implemented [tips].

We acquired our Napa store via acquisition. And they were on a very different compensation plan. We traditionally haven't had tip jars at the point of sale. They had them in Napa. And so we continued them there. We evaluated the difference between having a team-based bonus compensation and a team- and individual-based bonus compensation structure along with tips, and what's interesting is we moved one of our stores to tips, and the team at another location voted to keep the existing structure.

Compensation structures are collaborative, we don't rule with an iron fist. We want feedback from the people that are being affected by the change.

RELATED: Velvet Cannabis Dispensary Creates a Collaborative Environment

On encouraging productivity while also ensuring employees maintain a healthy work life balance:

Harrison: We operate with a culture of if you're getting your work done, we don't want you strapped to your desk. We are not like clock counters. At the retail level, you kind of have to do that—it's the nature of staffing a retail location. But we definitely want people to have lives.

On opportunities for the team to connect outside of work:

Harrison: We do quarterly team-building events with each of our retail locations. We close early and get them out and go to some restaurant or breweries, things like that. We rented a personal movie theater for one of our locations. That was fun.

Editor’s note: This conversation has been edited for length, style, and clarity.