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Rula
What's the Company Culture Like at Rula?
Frequently Asked Questions
The culture at Rula is mission-driven, collaborative and built for a remote-first team that wants to do meaningful work without sacrificing sustainability. Employees work toward a clear shared purpose in mental healthcare, and the company reinforces that with transparent goals, cross-functional alignment and a strong emphasis on crisp communication. Teams are expected to move fast, experiment and make progress through frequent iteration, while also supporting one another’s well-being and working smart instead of simply working longer.
Rula pairs that performance mindset with a people-centered environment. Its values — Take Big Swings, Keep It Real, Handle With Care and Make It Happen — show up in how people collaborate, give feedback and recognize one another. The company creates connection through employee resource groups, a culture committee, city hubs, offsites and informal rituals that help a fully remote workforce feel genuinely connected. The result is a culture where employees are encouraged to bring their full selves to work, speak authentically, grow across teams and build strong relationships while making a tangible impact.
Teams at Rula collaborate through a highly cross-functional, remote-first model built on crisp asynchronous communication, transparent goals and shared ownership. There is not a single project at Rula that happens without cross-functional alignment, and teams stay connected through companywide objectives, OKRs, KPI trackers, weekly and monthly business reviews and regular companywide meetings that create a common source of truth. Leaders emphasize understanding the problem and the why behind the work before jumping to solutions, which helps teams move with clarity and stay aligned as the company scales.
Collaboration at Rula is also deeply human. Teams strengthen working relationships by accomplishing meaningful work together at a sustainable pace, and leaders encourage open, transparent dialogue, authentic feedback and clear ownership of results. In a 100 percent remote environment, connection is built into the day-to-day through one-on-one check-ins, informal Slack sharing, virtual chats, employee resource groups, culture committees, department offsites and city hubs. The result is a low-ego, mission-driven culture where people feel supported, heard and empowered to do impactful work together.
Employee work at Rula is recognized in visible, ongoing ways. The company empowers employees to give real-time shoutouts in Slack and Leapsome, brings those moments into company-wide meetings and consistently highlights value-driven achievements during all-hands. Rula is also launching a nomination-based company values awards program that celebrates employees who embody its core values while delivering meaningful business impact, with high-visibility recognition that includes features on social media and time with the CEO.
Recognition is built into the company’s remote culture and reinforced through shared rituals that make people feel seen. Managers give public shoutouts, celebrate employee milestones and use consistent feedback loops, while employee-led culture efforts and company-wide recognition practices create connection across teams. This reflects a culture where contributions are tied to mission, collaboration and impact, and where great work is celebrated in ways that strengthen both belonging and purpose.
Rula’s culture is deeply mission-driven and collaborative. The company’s values — Take Big Swings, Keep It Real, Handle With Care and Make It Happen — shape how people work with patients, providers and each other, and they are reinforced through hiring, onboarding, recognition and day-to-day decision-making. Teams work in a remote-first environment built on crisp communication, transparent goals and cross-functional alignment, with shared OKRs, clear ownership and regular business reviews helping people stay connected to the same outcomes. The culture balances ambitious execution with authenticity, low ego and openness, creating space for transparent debate, continuous learning and real ownership.
Rula is equally intentional about making remote work feel human. Employees have flexibility to work from anywhere in the U.S., and the company builds connection through department offsites, city hubs, employee resource groups, culture committee participation and everyday rituals that celebrate milestones and personal moments. The culture emphasizes sustainable pace and wellbeing alongside impact, with leaders focused on helping teams do meaningful work with nice people while avoiding burnout. That combination of purpose, care and collaboration makes Rula a place where people can grow, contribute across functions and feel genuinely supported.
Rula Employee Perspectives
How does your culture influence hiring and retention as you grow?
At Rula, we’ve learned that company culture is symbiotic. The workplace attracts and retains top talent and those employees become the reinforcing function of a positive company culture. Our culture directly influences hiring and retention in several concrete ways.
Values-based hiring: Our core values have become an integral part of how we recruit, hire and onboard new employees. We actively evaluate whether candidates align with the behaviors and principles that define who we are as an organization and don’t just assess them on skills and experience.
Culture committee integration: We’ve established a culture committee made up of top performers who serve one-year terms as culture ambassadors. By rotating high-performing employees through this committee, we’ve created an ever-expanding group of “insiders” who are bought into our core values and actively work to reinforce them. This creates a powerful retention mechanism with these employees becoming more engaged and providing valuable insight into employee sentiment.
What values or behaviors most define your company culture today?
Our core values were developed through a rigorous, bottoms-up process that involved brainstorming workshops throughout the company. We gave employees a chance to offer their perspectives on what’s important to them, what makes us special and what behaviors we want to reinforce. The culture committee and executive leadership team then synthesized these insights into our consolidated values. The core values that emerged from all of that work are something we are genuinely proud of: Take Big Swings, Keep It Real, Handle With Care and Make It Happen.
What makes our values authentic is that they’re not aspirational statements on a wall; they’re the actual behaviors we reinforce through how we recognize and reward our employees. Our core values guide all the critical relationships and activities in the company — how we treat our patients, providers and each other; how we use our resources; and the priorities we set when making tough decisions.
We believe in living our values and recognition is central to making this happen. We’ve built multiple programs to acknowledge and celebrate behaviors that reinforce the culture we’re building.
In a fully remote, dispersed workforce, these recognition moments create connection and shared purpose.
How Rula Recognizes and Celebrates Employees
- Peer-to-Peer Appreciation: Utilizing platforms like Slack and Leapsome, we empower employees to give real-time shout-outs. By integrating these into company-wide meetings, we ensure hard work never goes unnoticed.
- Company Value Awards: We’re kicking off a nomination-based program that honors those who exemplify our core values while delivering significant business impact. Winners receive high-visibility rewards, including features on social media and dedicated time with our CEO.
- Creative Engagement: To bridge the gap in a remote environment, we host unique initiatives like employee art contests that benefit charities. These programs foster integration among teams that rarely interact.
- All-Hands Visibility: We consistently showcase value-driven achievements during all-hands meetings, creating a shared narrative of success.
Rula Employee Reviews
What People Are Saying About Rula
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Cultural Alignment: Mission and purpose are often described as meaningful, helping people feel their work matters and aligns with personal values. Values are referenced in rituals and recognition, reinforcing pride in expanding access to mental health care.
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Healthy Workload & Retention: Flexibility and a remote‑first setup are frequently highlighted, with clinicians noting control over schedules and practices like company‑wide shutdown weeks that support balance. These conditions can translate into a sense of trust and sustainable workload.
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Collaborative & Supportive Culture: Colleagues are often seen as helpful, with teams providing support that eases clinical and operational work. Recognition programs and connection rituals are used to maintain cohesion across a distributed organization.
Rula's Benefits
Company or teams have recognition rituals for individual work
Employee feedback used to shape policies and strategy
Encourages autonomy and ownership from employees
Established employee awards to honor work and contributions
Managers give public shoutouts and celebrate employee milestones
Managers offer consistent feedback loops
Provides modern technology across teams
Provides resources to build team camaraderie
Quarterly engagement surveys to gauge employee satisfaction
Transparent sharing of company-wide eNPS scores
Has employee-led culture committees
Offers an Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Offers company-sponsored outings
Each Rula team receives an annual offsite budget. Cities with 6+ employees also get a City Hub budget, supporting in-person connection and meaningful team relationships.
Offers Employee Resource Groups
Offers fitness stipend
We offer a $50/month wellness stipend.
Offers team workouts
Offers wellness initiatives designed to combat burnout and mental fatigue
Offers wellness programs
Provides employees with ability to schedule focus-time blocks
Defined policies promoting a professional, respectful workplace
Defined values and mission statements
Documented operating principles
Documented policies and procedures to protect employee privacy and data
Implements team-based strategic planning
Leadership encourages open, transparent debate
Leadership is transparent and communicative
Mistakes are treated as learning opportunities
Policies promote a low-ego, team-driven culture
Prioritizes mission-driven work in decision-making processes
Prioritizes real-world impact of work in decision-making processes
Uses an OKR operational model to clearly define goals and priorities
Utilizes an open door policy that encourages accessibility
Async-friendly policies, culture that encourage work flexibility
Established expectations for communication between time zones
Utilizes a full-time remote friendly model
