We believe remote can dramatically improve some of our employees' quality of life. Even more, some people need other work environments than Paris or San Francisco or an office in general to be fulfilled.
This advantage comes at some cost but it's by far the best reason to be remote-first.
This is obvious but being remote-compatible broadens our hiring possibilities. Since we're building something outstanding, we need outstanding people. Limiting ourselves to 1 culture, 1 limited set of people, 1 city would dramatically reduce our chances of success.
A side note: because remote can dramatically raise employees' quality of life, employee retention tends to be much higher, in turn simplifying hiring as well. It's a virtuous cycle.
The main point here is that remote forces us to confront problems that could've arisen later. It pushes us to find long term solutions, early.
It mostly allows us reduce the chaotic aspect of small startup & produce with a better quality.
It forces us to communicate asynchronously. Without remote we would have liked doing it, because it means less meeting and better argumentation, but we would have given up way more easily.
On two levels: first, we think remote is the way of the future and working conditions are increasingly adapting to it. We're excited to pioneer this trend.
Second, we don't believe in micromanaging and believe Slite folks should have as much ownership and responsibility as possible. Remote actually forces us to put this into practice.
The country/city is not an issue, but we need remote work to be done in. This means backpacking across a country & stopping along the road is not a suitable way to work in remote.
The other thing is internet connection:. Last but not least, you need to work in a quiet place where you can talk clearly.
A few basic rules to follow:
- On all tools you need a profile picture of
- Use coherent usernames across tools
- Schedule and take all calls on Zoom
- During a call, if you're having issues with your internet connection or sound, stop & tell your interlocutor.
We need to interact often offline for this partly remote setup to function. Here are the two rules:
- All remote employees in France (or close enough) come once every month at the same time, for 3 to 5 days.
- All remote employee outside of France come 1 week every 2 months
All of this is logged in our team calendar. Those times can't be changed individually but remote folks can come more frequently & paris HQ folks can go work in remote with remote ones occasionally.
This concerns people working from the ParisHQ.
- → Post a message on #remote Slack channel
- → Add an event in the team calendar
We ask you because if we do it too often, we should start questioning our part office part remote model
Working remote often means finding a place to work, making sure it's open, setting up the wifi, checking the internet, etc...
As regular remote, you need a .
The remote work rhythm is no different from the rhythm at the HQ:
There are no limitations for occasional remote if previous mentioned rules are followed. We expect people to use remote as an advantage to focus. Don't hesitate to talk with your manager on how to use it wisely.
Here are a few ups and dangers we've observed about working as a remote team.
- The people in the office omit to communicate things to remote people
- Remote people don't over-communicate enough on their progress and problems
- Remote people have unclear/inexplicit goals
- (For occasional remote) People work remote without notice
- We have a good rhythm of offline interactions
- We communicate every day with everybody
- Squads allow remote people to be owners of their topics and to drive projects
- We have a clear schedule on when people should come to the HQ, to offslites and when meetings occur