Tech Employment Benefits

[Alex Laycy]

Hi All!

This article has been doing the rounds in the UK, and while it's only loosely related to Tech, hopefully it's still an interesting discussion point!

For those of that work in Tech, what are your views on this? do you have or are working towards any interesting benefits or ways of working that will/do have an impact on your workplace culture?

- Alex

[Fernando Bordallo]

Hello!

I found the article very interesting as it touches on one of my favourite topics around team building and management: trust. In my personal experience, I have found that trusting people to do their job goes a long way for team stability, robustness and accountability.

The biggest challenges I find in this sort of cultural shift are:

1. taking the first step
   • The line manager can feel like they lose control over the team's time, plans and makes their predictability harder
2. creating the space for a continued conversation on how things evolve
   • the vocabulary, questions and feedback used in a space where accountability is shifted so drastically have to change. Creating this and teaching the teams to adopt it can be tough.

What are your thoughts @Alex Laycy ?

[Alex Laycy]

Trust in my opinion isn't as much in the forefront of company thinking as it should be. It's critical to the performance of individuals and teams, to the point where it should play a central role (again in my opinion) in most or all important areas of the business - such as recruitment, team structuring etc.

The difference culturally and performance wise, of a team of individuals that trust eachother vs those that dont cannot be understated.

Ultimately, everything comes down to the people and this should be at the forefront of all thinking 🤓

[Kris G _Alacriz_]

I like the term 'hang over day'. As much as it sounds weird, it's time for organizations to have a new set of planned days off or work from home options. 

For example, there is a movement slowly picking up for employees to work remotely at least once or twice a week in the interests of avoiding traffic or to save on environmental pollution. Similarly we have days off for maternity, paternity, bereavement, etc. 

Rather than have all planned offs being named the same and making them monotonous, it's interesting and motivating to name them differently. Similarly, the work from home (or couch) concept must have it's equivalents in the form of 'hang over day' or 'running errands day' to make employees feel less guilty, thereby sustaining the trust built with their bosses. 

To make this more effective, the HR departments can work on the modalities of making the new concept attractive and abuse-free at the same time. 

best,
Kris 

[Veera]

Very interesting article!

Building trust and transparency makes everyone in the team to be more responsible and honest to each other.

I am lucky to be part of a team where we enjoy most of the perks mentioned in the article, except the 'hangover days' :)

[JBou]

Everybody gets 'hangover days' ... it goes like this;   achhhem beeep bbeep booop booop.  Ring.  Ring.

"Thank you for calling Super Retailer/Software/Sales/Insurance/etc!  How may I assist you today?"

*scratchy voice" "Uhghhg, yea, could you let Mr BigBoss I've got the flu and I can't make it today?"

If the flu becomes untenable (as in you've been super unlucky and gotten sick 28 times in the past 6 weeks) you always have 2 fail safes: the maternal and paternal grandmothers who just passed away ...

[DPKJ]

Article shows really nice way of explaining TRUST.

With startup culture in place, tech is becoming a really nice place to work.

I wish age old giants do catch up, prioritize TRUST OVER TERROR IN EMPLOYEE.