Work from home — the Bending Spoons way

For myself and my People Operations teammates, there’s one central mission: to keep Spooners happy and productive. It’s never been more challenging than during this unexpected and sustained period of company-wide remote working — seven months and counting…

By Alice Valsecchi, People Operations lead at Bending Spoons

The biggest challenges

In many ways, Bending Spoons is better equipped than most companies to adapt to 100% remote working. We’ve operated a work-from-wherever-you-like-pretty-much-whenever-you-like policy since the early days — the main caveat being that anyone working remotely mustn’t let it negatively impact their performance. On any given day, I wouldn’t be surprised to find nearly half of our 150-plus workforce operating away from our Milan city center HQ. But there’s a world of difference between some and all. And, with all Spooners suddenly now working remotely, the People Operations team had to quickly dream up new ways to manage the situation.

One challenge stands out above the others: During the lockdown, many new Spooners have joined the company. Without the office at our disposal and all those casual moments of interaction you have during the day, we’ve been forced to rethink our onboarding process quickly. We sent their hardware to their house ahead of their first day, implemented virtual intro lunches, arranged periodic check-ins, and tried our hardest to engage them in our initiatives. But there’s no substitute for working side-by-side with someone to truly get to know them and build a connection.

Individual challenges

It’s hard to talk about the individual challenges that Spooners have faced because there are more than 150 unique personalities involved. Some of us simply love working from home — although, of course, nobody enjoyed being locked down! Others have struggled but found a way and rhythm that works for them. As a company — and as Spooners — we truly believe in resiliency and that the most challenging of circumstances can prompt the most inspiring reactions. That’s what we’ve been trying to focus on.

From a personal point of view, I’m much more productive working in our HQ — even though it’s an hour train ride from my place. I like to see my colleagues, check if everything is OK in the office, use our spaces and perks. Being locked down at my apartment with our two-year-old and my husband who’s busy with university finals isn’t really a zen situation! I often end up working very late at night, because during the day my husband and I do shifts to take care of our kid. Thank goodness for the Bending Spoons flexible working hours policy, honestly! The bright side is that I’m spending a lot of time with my family, cherishing our garden and our home, and appreciating how lucky we are to be together and healthy during such a difficult time.

Lockdown initiatives

Throughout this period of company-wide remote working, we’ve experimented with plenty of new initiatives — some more successful than others! They’re all collected in a doc called our WFH Guide, and every week we share the agenda for the upcoming days.

Here are a few examples of some that have proven popular and useful:

• Friday Game

Every Friday night, on a dedicated Slack channel and Google Meet, Spooners have to answer quickfire questions about things like movies or books.

• WFH tips and trick

We created a guide with a list of tips and tricks about adapting to suddenly working from home.

• Mental health support

We now pay for psychological support for any Spooner or close family member who needs it, until six months after the dust settles on this horrible situation. There’s no request or approval process.

• Remote lunch roulette

Randomly selected groups have a lunch date over Google Meet, giving Spooners old and new the chance to see some friendly faces and catch up with colleagues from outside their regular team.

• Yoga

Weekly, expert-led remote yoga lessons.

• Virtual art tours

Every fortnight or so, we arrange an expert-led virtual art tour in Milan with a different theme. It’s a chance for our new Spooners who haven’t yet relocated because of the lockdown to fall in love with our beautiful city before they even get here. It’s also nice for Spooners living in Milan who haven’t been able to get out and about like usual (for obvious reasons!).

• WFH equipment

When it became apparent that the lockdown wasn’t going to lift anytime soon, Bending Spoons decided to cover the purchase cost and shipping of selected new equipment like external monitors, suitable chairs, footrests, WiFi signal extenders, and so on, for any Spooner in need.

Retaining Italy’s best place to work award

Some good news did emerge during the lockdown: Bending Spoons retained our title of Italy’s Best Place to Work for companies of our size (Best Workplaces di Great Place to Work® Italia). We had a giant, company-wide watch-along of the live stream, complete with a dedicated Slack channel to comment on the results as they were being counted down. After we ranked first in our category (the second year running, we’re very proud of that!), we sent a letter home to each Spooner to thank them for their hard work, commitment, and incredible attitude. There’s something so touching and memorable about getting a thank you note in the mail. In an ideal world, we’d have partied at our HQ, but it was at least fitting that we celebrated together — albeit virtually!

What’s in store for the People Operations team and Bending Spoons?

The lockdown hit right in the middle of Designflows, which is a design competition we run with an awards ceremony in Milan. Unfortunately, in the circumstances, we had no choice but to cancel the ceremony — although, of course, we still finished the competition and distributed the €40,000 prize money (shout out to our incredible finalists!). We’re hopeful that we won’t need to cancel or postpone the awards ceremony for our programming competition Codeflows, although it’s a little early to make a definitive call. First Ascent Business, which is our all-expenses-paid, four-day retreat in Barcelona for promising students interested in the business side of tech, is scheduled for the end of May next year, and we’re also considering contingencies. It never hurts to be prepared, just in case!

Inside the People Operations team, our mission stays the same: to keep Spooners happy and productive. Overall, the company and our Spooners have adapted to the situation incredibly well, and I’m thankful for their positivity in the face of such a challenging time.