Leaving the work on time or respecting traditional working hours is not very common in a startup. The work swing can be abysmal from week to week and you need to spend more or less hours depending on each project.
Working from home and being flexible with schedules is just another way to work. At Wave we are seeing that is possible to balance a very demanding work with a satisfying personal life.This is how we roll at Wave:
Work flexible, but respect other lifestyles
Generally all the teams coordinate more or less their working hours with their department. Some have children and prefer to work early in the morning and some are very awake late at night, however, we all work simultaneously during the day.
We don’t call, we don’t send mails, we don’t text: we Slack. It is an interactive application in which you can create various groups of chat with your workmates. In that way each conversation is very well classified, and earlier comments can easily be found. It also enables you to share documents and make video calls between members of the office, so we always have the information we need easily. Slack is one of the fastest growing start ups but there are other similar apps in the market, too.
Teams communicate between them
We think that the key to a successful team is to communicate effectively. In a startup it is always very enriching to connect with other departments, for example our developers know how the brand is marketed and the marketing team knows the new features that the product department is developing. In this way every team member can have an opinion and most of all learn about a specific subject no matter if it’s not his/her core business.
Call at any time you need
Quick calls, videos and chats are always on hand when working from home. It is important to communicate with the colleagues in the fastest possible way even if the teams are not physically in the same place. We are always connected so we can post an idea at night and let others read it in the morning.
Weekly meetings points in the office
The office is not just a meeting point to discuss about processes and tasks, it is also a space where the team can have a glimpse of what others are doing and get involved in the core of the company. It is a time to have fun, relax and get to know each other, which is extremely important for remote workers as they could feel they are part of something great.
For us it is a weekly reference in which we can meet with our business partners, talk with the colleagues and above all to see what other departments are up to. Most of us meet once a week in the office, and the laughs can be heard a long before entering the building.
Is not for everyone
Working from home is quite a challenge, though. It is a decentralised model in which each worker establishes their schedules and tasks autonomously and shares with others their results and concerns. It’s not for everyone, it takes an extremely proactive person to be able to work this way. Nobody is evaluated by the hours they spend in front of the screen but by the results.
Pablo Clemente Pérez 