With a hybrid work culture against the corona blues
Monday morning, the pandemic has been going on for over a year now, when “donut” gets in touch. Donut is a Slack bot that now asks me to schedule a virtual coffee break with Sven.
What would have been a coincidence in the office now has to be fixed in the calendar — in the “home office”, you’re glad not to suddenly run into the CEO at your own coffee machine. In a completely virtual office, it is not easy to maintain the visible and tangible structures, processes and behaviors that stem from the ideals and values of the organization.
The importance of personal exchange
Especially in innovative environments, there are fundamental elements that lead to higher creativity and problem solving: Short lines of communication and open exchange. But these translate differently well to the digital world. The big challenge for startups is not necessarily to keep the day-to-day business running, but to maintain their basic organizational competence: Agility and networking density of the small team. Where managers years ago would set up water coolers throughout the building to keep their teams connected, they now need a different remedy: At Taxy.io, impromptu meetings are now diced by the Slackbot and also tracked. This prevents a team member from talking to colleagues five days a week about only one thing: work. As a colorful team of different personalities from 12 different cultures, there is so much to discover and learn: from Instagram channels devoted to crazy meat dishes like Mettnum (cf. Magnum ice cream) and apple strudel with mince, to world championship titles in Schnick Schnack Schnuck, to an aborted rapper’s career — there are very interesting characters behind the Slack photo or email address after all. It is important to promote this networking, as it clearly represents a success factor by creating a better team structure overall, a better understanding of each other and appreciation of the individual as a person and not just a work colleague.
Communication as a motivating factor
Communication is an important tool, which does not always have to be for information or coordination. One of its main functions is also to inspire. Fittingly, as I type, individual team members meet at the virtual #fun-watercooler and discuss which person they admire and find inspiring. Those different ways of personal interaction helps to keep the crew’s motivation high and the “can do” spirit alive, maintaining that all-important sense of “We are a team”. Thank goodness things aren’t always so philosophical at the digital water cooler, however. Sometimes people talk about their favorite movie heroes or listen to their colleagues’ best walk-on/entrance music.
A welcome change: online team events
To ensure that all team members are aware of the progress and direction of the work in addition to the favorite superhero of their counterparts, the jointly set goals are discussed in recurring jours fixes and presented across departments. Overall, however, routine processes should not be relied upon. Special team events can also be held online in an appealing way to get employees out of the dull Corona routine: For Carnival, for example, there was mail for everyone: Especially as a startup from the Rhineland, you naturally want to bring a piece of “Zülpicher Straße” home to everyone. The package contained all kinds of camels, streamers and a Kölsch beer, which was then drunk together virtually on Weiberfastnacht. A game show with a crazy quiz master will follow soon. The weekly team breakfast with breakout rooms and the after-work beer, which heralds the weekend and is now enjoyed together via Google Meet, deliberately break with the blind habit of the (home) office routine.
Tell me, guys, how are you doing?
The fact that this is well received by the team is also shown by the employee survey, which is even more important than it already is because of Corona: the statement “I love working at Taxy.io” received 4.8 out of 5 points, as did “I would recommend working at Taxy.io to a friend”. It is extremely important to recognize at an early stage where the shoe pinches with the team members and how they cope with the current (work) situation. It is also a good way to gather creative input for events and ideas. One colleague is a NASA enthusiast and suggests a corresponding online event, another a platform for digital coworking. Making wishes, fears and opinions heard is a difficult matter, especially in purely digital terms, but it bears fruit in many ways. Involving everyone is an important cultural skill.
Digital onboarding
Taxy.io is growing rapidly, and the particularly strong recruiting months all fall in the Corona period: about 15 new employees have worked mostly remotely so far and have barely seen anyone from the company in person. Team members who have been with the company from the beginning may know the values and the pace within the company, but newcomers who have not yet seen any of their colleagues in person, let alone met them, must be given a good insight into structures, communication and characters, even virtually, in order for onboarding and integration into the team to work. “I found the digital onboarding at Taxy.io to be super pleasant. Beforehand, I was honestly concerned about whether the onboarding process would hit limits or leave open questions in the virtual world. In fact, however, the process was completely comprehensive, understandable and pleasant.” A statement that brings relief. Nevertheless, we are constantly working to ensure that no one feels lost in the file jungle.
Above all, it becomes clear that everyone is longing to see the big picture again: “I really don’t know what you are working on right now, Peter. What are you guys doing there on the other side (meaning the commercial side)?”, I’ve already heard from one of our Data Scientists. OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) don’t fully capture what each member of the previously small team is working on or what is on his or her mind at the moment. So it’s all the better when you can exchange ideas about small innovations in the sales processes or progress in your personal NLP experiment over a virtual coffee date.
The next challenge: hybrid work culture
After Covid, however, not everything will be as it was — a “new normal” awaits us. Like many companies, Taxy.io will gradually move back into the physical office. But we can already see that this will create a hybrid culture, at least for Taxy.io. Not all employees want to work five days a week in a physical office. Virtual working has also opened up opportunities that were not thought of so naturally before: A data scientist from Berlin? Expert knowledge on taxes from Munich? No problem. A global talent pool brings people with a unique drive to Taxy.io. Taxes may not seem like the most appealing topic at first glance, but we like solving a big problem and this data-driven challenge with AI.
How do we want to work post-pandemic? How often in the office? And how many?
Some collaboration will certainly be virtual in the long run. What kind of hybrid working world will then be suitable for us and can be anchored in everyday life is something we will eagerly explore. Culture also needs to be preserved — not easy in a rapidly growing team, even more difficult in hybrid teams that work partly onsite and partly remotely. But the experience of the pandemic teaches us that with enough finesse and flexibility, we can turn obstacles into opportunities, and we are closely following developments in the fields of agile organizational development, new work and corporate culture. Once the pandemic is over, Taxy.io’s first order of business will be an exuberant reunion — perhaps even as a joint offsite in a sunny spot.
