From Virtual Threads to Real Connections: OMX Together 2024

More than 77% of Chime's Operations and Member Experience (OMX) team don't live near a Chime office.

"As a team, we're very comfortable working remotely, and we work very well together," says Molly Payton (she/her/hers), Senior OMX Program Manager. As the team has grown—from 18 in 2020 to over 200 in 2024—so did their desire to gather.

In 2022, many OMX teams started coming together for on-sites and team gatherings, but the organization wanted to do more. So, in 2023, they set aside time to gather virtually as an OMX organization. They called it OMX Together.

This year, OMX decided to host their first-ever in-person event for the organization: OMX Together 2024. "There's a lot of excitement because it's the first time our 200+ Chimer team will all be in the same place at the same time," Molly says.

We sat down with Molly to learn more about the decision to host an in-person event for the entire team, its goals, and how it went.

Why OMX Together?

"At Chime, we believe that happy agents equal happy members," Molly says. "So much of what we do in OMX is setting up agents for success to deliver exceptional member experiences we've designed. And to have happy agents, we need happy Chimers to support them."

To support happy Chimers, Molly and the OMX team work to create an environment where OMX can be their best selves, do their best work, make the best decisions possible, and work together efficiently and productively—all in service of the work we do for our agents.

"Peeling the layers back, all of this work is ultimately in service of our members," Molly says. "Our goal for OMX Together was to create an environment of warmth and familiarity across our team that builds a foundation of trust for when we need to navigate difficult moments down the road."

Chime has its Voice of the Member team, which advocates for what members say and want, and Molly's role is to do the same for OMX Chimers. "We need to understand what our employees care about and what will impact their experience, and for that, we have quarterly feedback cycles and pulse surveys," Molly says. "We have consistently heard that coming together as a team is the biggest contributor to having a positive experience as an employee. We've heard loud and clear from our team that they want to get together in person, so we created the opportunity for them to."

Bringing The Art of Gathering to OMX Together

Molly recently read The Art of Gathering, a book on creating meaningful experiences for people, and attended an online course based on it. "It taught me to think about the purpose behind a gathering more than the activity," Molly says. "It's so important to have a clear why—ours was to unlock teams through connection. We wanted to infuse a sense of warmth and connection across teams, which informed how we crafted the experience."

As Molly worked with Chime's amazing Chimer Experience and Events team, they kept the purpose of OMX Together in mind as they crafted experiences for Chimers. For example, many Chimers who attended OMX Together had never been to Chime's San Francisco office before, so the team ensured it was simple to navigate details big and small (think: where to find bathrooms and snacks and who to contact if they had questions).

"We asked people to leave their homes, families, and pets—to disrupt their lives and come to this event," Molly says. "We wanted people to walk away thinking, 'Wow, we could have never done that virtually,'—it would be a failure if people thought, 'That could've been an email,'" she jokes. "To deliver that kind of experience, we'd have to stay clear on why we're coming together: to unlock our teams through connection."

Unlocking teams through connection

After last year's summit, the OMX team exceeded all of its goals and has been working better than ever regarding its business rhythm and how they work together. "It was important to our leadership team that OMX together be about us as humans and living Chime's be human value," Molly says. "There's real magic that happens when you're physically together, and we wanted to lean into and amplify that."

With the event's purpose in mind, there were no strategy sessions or project updates on the schedule. Instead, all activities focused on creating a sense of warmth and humanness that happens when you come together, and Molly and the team designed every element of the summit to speak to that.

The summit!

OMX Together brought more than 200 Chimers together from 148 cities. There were 20 small group dinners held and 225 swag bags handed out. Here's a look at what Chimers enjoyed throughout the two-day event:

Day one

On the first day of the summit, the entire OMX team completed the CliftonStrengths assessment and worked with a facilitator to understand their results. Then, they worked with their smaller teams to understand each other, their strengths, and how best to work together.

"We all have different strengths and wanted to focus on them, help Chimers assume positive intent, and encourage curiosity about how other Chimers might be different and amplify each other's strengths," Molly says.

Day two

The second day was reserved for fun activities for OMX's functional pillars and the day closed with a fireside chat with the OMX leadership team, one hour with Chime co-founders Chris and Ryan, and the OMX Awards ceremony. To round out the event, there was a happy hour with fun surprises and treats and small group dinners focused on building connection among OMX Chimers who might not otherwise work together.

The highlight reel

A taco-filled event

The OMX team gives each other tacos rather than kudos to give thanks while having fun. While OMX is used to sharing tacos in a Slack channel, the OMX Together planning team decided to bring tacos into real life. "We had tacos on Tuesday for lunch and then surprised everyone with Choco Taco ice creams, but the best part was the taco thank you cards," Molly explains. "We included a taco thank you card in each swag bag and encouraged folks to give the cards to someone directly or put them in a 'taco box' to be shared with the group."

Before the final session on day two of the event, after everyone had grabbed their Choco Taco ice cream, two leadership team members read the box of taco thank-you cards aloud to the entire OMX team. "It was so powerful to hear them read out loud," Molly says. "Sure, we see tacos on Slack every day, but to hear the words spoken in the room with everyone was an extraordinary moment."

Random dinners: A big hit

Another highlight of the event was the small group dinners. The idea, which came from The Art of Gathering, was for random groups of OMX Chimers to go to small dinners together.

"People were nervous that the dinners might be awkward because they didn't know everyone there," Molly says. "But based on our post-event survey, people loved them. We heard repeatedly that folks loved being in a smaller group setting and meeting people they normally wouldn't interact with. Turns out, the dinners were a great opportunity to build connection."

Small groups were a common theme across event feedback beyond the group dinners, showing Molly and the team the power of small group gatherings. "We designed several sessions where we were all together in one room, which can limit interactivity," Molly explains. "Next year, we'll lean into small groups to build even deeper connections—and can't wait to see the impact doing so has on our team."

No, this couldn't have been an email

At OMX Together 2024, the OMX organization created lasting connections and memories, and Molly and the planning team walked away with a ton of great insights to make next year's event even better.

"People shared how much this event impacted them—from the value of being in person to how many more Slack direct messages they're sending and receiving that aren't just about work," Molly says. "People have real connections now, creating an entirely different environment for the whole team."

"OMX Together really exceeded our expectations," Molly says. "It definitely couldn't have been an email."

By clicking on some of the links above, you will leave the Chime website and be directed to a third-party website. The privacy practices of those third parties may differ from those of Chime. We recommend you review the privacy statements of those third party websites, as Chime is not responsible for those third parties' privacy or security practices.