Team Building at Freeletics: Olympus Day
When it comes to People Operations, some concepts are more important than others. One of these is “team building”. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of team building in itself, but the phrase can be misleading. For me, team building should be naturally integrated in a company’s values, processes, culture and everyday operations. I wouldn’t say that we have taken special measures to implement a team spirit at Freeletics; it has been there the whole time. It’s part of our DNA. Our colleagues are also our friends. We often spend our free time together, cook as a group, go on excursions, party and train together. This brings us together — in every sense of the word. Our job as the People Operations Team at Freeletics is not to create a team feeling, but rather to promote, maintain and further develop this company culture.
Olympus Day — where Freeletics employees come together
If you are familiar with the Freeletics app, you probably know why we speak of gods. Aphrodite, Kentauros, Zeus, … — the signature Freeletics workouts are named after the gods of Greek mythology. And just as legend has it that the Greek gods came together on Mount Olympus, our own “Gods”, i.e. 150 Freeletics employees, came together in October 2019 for the second Olympus Day, a company offsite event. With the company growing faster and faster, we started this day to help promote a greater understanding of company values, vision and strategy. During this day, we spend time together outside of the office, get to know each other better and simply have fun as one team. The day begins with a motivating speech from our CEO, Daniel Sobhani, which is an opportunity for him to present his ideas for the future of Freeletics. The motto this year was “Stronger Together”, meaning this Olympus Day dealt primarily with the team itself and how we work with one another. The key to successful cooperation in an organization is understanding mutual goals as well as the individual steps and processes needed to reach them. Each employee should understand their role in the company and know how their work influences the results of everything else. After lunch, we were therefore divided into diverse teams and had to complete tasks together at stations hosted by all the different teams at Freeletics. The goal was to bring colleagues together from across the organization to compete, work and have fun together. Games and exercises aimed at communication and teamwork were a refreshing breather from daily routine. The day came to an end with a team dinner in and a legendary Freeletics party.
There are no limits to creativity
In addition to Olympus Day, our teams organize events and activities within the departments. The budget covers two events per year for each department. In addition, team lunches are organized regularly with the support of People Operations. Employees themselves decide what they want to do. For example, our CE (customer engagement) team organizes a lot of small team activities instead of two bigger events per year. A different team member is always responsible for leading the activity. From stand-up paddling to escape rooms and from karaoke to, we’ve had it all. Our employees are also encouraged to share their ideas for company-wide events. For example, movie nights, cooking competitions and clothes-swapping parties are all held at the office. As the People Operations Team, we also support strategic measures. We organize department offsites for newly-formed departments. We also bring all leaders together in “Titans” meetings, a round table where leaders within the company meet every six weeks to talk about employee leadership and inter-departmental topics and to take advantage of synergies and share best practices. We are also currently working on a pilot project called “Building powerful teams” where external experts are brought on board to further expand our offer. We can’t wait to see how this project develops.
TTT: Training and snacking together after work
As a fitness company, training together plays an important role for us. In my article “An apple a day… how we really contribute to the health of our employees” (LINK), I described how we have established the necessary infrastructure at Freeletics to allow our employees to lead a healthy and active life. The highlight of our sporting activities is definitely TTT, or Team Training Tuesday. During this regular group training, employees from across the company come together to complete a workout with the support of our Coach Team. TTT is not mandatory, but nevertheless, between 10 and 30 employees come together every week to train as a group. The Freeletics team enjoys the time together at our indoor training facilities or at the nearby sports ground at least just as much as they do the traditional post-TTT snack, a delicious, healthy snack prepared by a team member, often using a recipe from the Freeletics Nutrition app. This is a time for everyone to come together, talk about the successful training session and to unwind at the end of the day.
Want to learn more about the team and daily life at Freeletics HQ? Then find us on LinkedIn or follow @LifeAtFreeletics on Instagram. If this sounds like just the kind of team you need in your life, check out our open positions now!
