Home office, remote work, workation

We recognize that a modern workplace can and should give employees flexibility when it comes to their working conditions. Some people thrive in an office environment, while others get easily distracted and work better from home. Others have family, a dog to walk or a long commute which makes it impractical to always come into the office.

Since the start of the pandemic we've been completely remote most of the time and will most likely never go back to an office-first company. Even before, a lot of our work was remote: the majority of our clients are not based in Berlin and our work relies on mostly digital tools which people use asynchronously. Being in the same place is optional.

By now we have a lot of people working from different places: some take workations (who wouldn't switch a Berlin winter for Brazil's sun?), most work from home and a couple of our people have never even been located in Germany.

Home office

Each employee can take unlimited home office days, so theoretically you could work remotely from Berlin. It’d be nice to see you once in a while in the office, but it’s not required. We don’t care that much from where you work, as long as you’re in reasonable time zones (GMT -1 to +5 works well, so that we have the chance to talk).

Workation

Some people might be interested in extending their vacation with a period of remote-working, or to simply work from elsewhere once in a while, to visit family or have a change of scenery. It’s been done before and worked out fine, e.g. when one of our employees worked from Italy or South Africa for a few weeks.

If you’re planning something, please talk to your project manager early. There is no strict upper limit of workation weeks per year, as we’d like to discuss this on a case-by-case basis.

Remote work

Full remote work is also possible, as one of our people is currently remote-working from the UK full-time. If you’re one of our current employees and want to move elsewhere, then we should definitely talk.

If you end up becoming a remote worker, we will arrange a laptop, mouse, keyboard, adapters and a large screen. We will also sponsor a co-working space, so you can better separate personal and professional life.

General notes

Having people spread across different places is a complex setup, so here are some tips to keep in mind:

Making this work requires an effort from the office people just as much as from the remote people – we’re all in this situation together.
In the office it’s easy to have quick chitchat over coffee – not so much when you’re remote, so we had a little idea to stay connected: If you have 10mins of free time and want to chat, simply create a Zoom call named “Coffee call” and post the URL in #office. Maybe someone or even multiple people join?
We’re usually check-in and out in the #office channel in Slack, but it’s not required. Most people simply say “Morning” and “Bye”.
Every meeting you create in our calendar has a Zoom call automatically attached. Don’t use other video conferencing solutions if possible – Zoom is sadly the best. 😅
We have a little app called “Check” to quickly switch your Slack status if you want to keep your coworkers up-to-date on what you are doing (e.g. lunching or when in a meeting).
When in a meeting with remote people, bring your laptop and also join the Zoom call, to level the playing field: that way remote people see your facial expressions and can better participate in the conversation. Try to avoid exercises which require physical participation, like using sticky notes. You could use a collaborative Google Doc instead.
If possible show your face on camera, but also respect if someone does not want to show themselves.
Information needs to be available asynchronously and in written form: take notes, write stuff down, put it in the backlog. It’s better for everyone, also people in the office.
As always, communication is key: err on the side of over-communicating about what you’re doing, without being annoying. 😅
Time zones are tricky – try to organize the project work in a more asynchronous way. Less meetings, more documents. Less team exercises, more self-organization.
Keep in mind: We’re figuring this out while we go – if you notice something (good or bad) or have suggestions, please voice them in the #remote-feedback Slack channel so that we can iterate and improve.