We are not, and I personally don’t want to work in a full remote company. I’m often asked if Hybrid work really… works ? How do you not only attract but also retain and work as one team in the “remote age”? How do you manage it in a rapidly growing company?
A big part happens at hiring, for sure. At Luko, we are chasing self-starters and highly driven individuals. And we are lucky enough to be a talent magnet despite a highly competitive market. We strive to offer the best place to work thanks to our No border policy, and also because our impact-driven mission echoes with a lot of people.
Then… the rest is on us, and on the working/operating system we are setting. Among the 4 values that are guiding us at Luko, I wanted to put the emphasis on one in particular:
⛰️ Together we execute and move mountains.
The word “together” is placed first for a reason. At Luko, the team is much more than a group of brilliant individuals. Therefore it’s crucial for us to keep the deep and powerful connections between Lukooms despite the inevitable growing distance between them as the company develops.
We have all experienced the benefits of remote work : the flexibility it brings, the capacity to combine the lifestyle and the carrier you both want… and also its challenges. We were 30 Lukooms, now 225+. Added to the spread of remote work, dozens of employees join the company every week, in many different countries as we internationalize. In such a context, it would be easy to lose the collective spirit that made us successful in the first place.
So we adapt, and reinvent what “informal meeting” and “bounding moments” mean at the remote era, where the coffee machine chit-chat is no longer enough or possible.
🪄 What is our not so magic recipe?
No endless meetings, digital escape game or formal trainings. Few meaningful moments are sufficient. Shared meals, good laughs, warm chimney and people genuinely connecting with each others is the everything.
So we create rotating “offsites” for Lukooms, alternatively with the Tribe and the Chapter you belong to. No best way than living together for a few days on a regular basis to create strong connections, before going back to work at different places in Europe:
- Each team gathers every 6 months to live in autonomy in a country house
- Never more than 15 at a time to favor bounding
- Team moments planned alongside working moments
This is fully optional as every agenda is hard to align at a corporate level. Yet 75% of lukooms joined — and most of cancellations were due to sanitary constraints.
And that’s it.
Simple idea but rather complex to organize… So how did we make it happen?
We’ve tried inhouse then teamed up with deskape, our fantastic partner in this quest. They help us make our wish come true by organizing the offsites :
- Choosing the house — Good internet, Work setup… and warm chimney, pool table, fresh bread, bikes, wide gardens…
- Planning the meals — adjusted to the team’s various tastes, cooking skills, time & with only local products coming from the neighboring farm.
- Booking activities — each team elects one activity among a locally-based catalog — for example cheese farm visit, hike, horse riding, archery, pottery workshop — and evening party — from outdoor “survival dinner” to board games, karaoké or blind tests.
- Allocating roles — every participant is in charge of something (cooking, dish washing, leading a game, etc.) based on what he likes to do the most.
- Appointing the team leader — there is one per rotation (who is not a manager) to facilitate the organization and communication.
- Protecting everyone’s intimacy & confidentiality — deskape listens to fears, specificities of each participant : no raw cheese to early-pregnant woman or horse riding to fearful ridders.
You might think our investment is high…? On average, 300€ per lukoom, less than a company offsite.
Sounds nice… and is it working?
96% of participants valued a positive impact on the relationship with their colleagues — according to deskape’s inquiry at the end of each stay to measure the impact on our culture. Still, the best way to measure for me is the smiling faces when our Lukooms are returning to the office.
Lukooms see each other less, but in better and more human contexts, by a fireplace. So happy to make this happen!
#lukooms, #futureofwork, #rotativeoffsites, #remotework, #hybridwork
Thank you to the amazing Luko Platform & deskape teams:
@Myriam Lienhardt, @Christelle Parade, @Elise Perrot, @Ariane Berlan, @Oceane Sellier @Victor Le Fell
And to all team leads:
Pie-Loup Pecorari, @Jordan Simon, Marion Beaufrère, @Ugo Nourry, Lea Joussaume, @Laure-line Rogerieux, @Mickael Dumand, @Pierre Biet, Kevin Charit
