How can we make DWYL the *Best* Place to work in the World?!

[nelsonic]

Part of succeeding in our Mission is making sure all the people on our team feel loved and feel like they are doing great work solving real human challenges with technology and making people's lives better.

Please add comments to this issue with your thought(s) on how we can make DWYL awesome! e.g: add examples of places you've worked, what you loved/hated and how we can MVP/Test any new features/ideas in our org/workplace & remote working practices!

Relates to: https://github.com/dwyl/hq/issues/143 and https://github.com/dwyl/dwyl.github.io/issues/180

[naazy]

Thoughts (I draw on some experience from my previous job at Grant Thornton (GT)

Love

• agreeing with the values of where you work (a big part of happiness economics looks at the importance of having meaningful work on individual happiness levels)
• working with people who genuinely love 💟 their jobs makes for an inspiring workplace. Also from an individual perspective, it's good because people are happy when they're in flow
• working with people who are nice, friendly and interesting
• being encouraged to take risks/ learn something new
• team outings e.g. at GT we had workshop days and things like DWYL sports day / summer ❤️ / lunches / cinema trips
• flexibility on work times and ability to be remote. Recognising that different people work better in different environments and have different dreamz (e.g. being a digital 💻 nomad 🌏). Something I think could be improved here is finding a more reliable software than Google Hangouts for remote working
• merchandise e.g. stickers/ t shirts make you feel part of the team

Hated

• feeling like I had to act (or dress) in a certain way to fit the part e.g. at GT. I think DWYL does a really good job at encouraging people to be themselves and embracing people's differences ☺️ 🇹🇩 🇨🇳 🇵🇹 🇪🇸 🇦🇪 🇺🇸 🇪🇺 👽
• disliked the hierarchy at GT -> despite supposed 'hot-desking', there were still more senior people that the juniors were scared of talking to
• dog-eat-dog staff culture. working with people who wanted to succeed at the expense of others
• not being busy enough at work / being discouraged from using your downtime effectively. At GT I sometimes had NOTHING to do but wasn't allowed to be seen reading an informative book / watching a ted talk / teaching myself something new. This was really 💩
• an environment that makes you too scared to mess up (obv there needs to be some kind of personal accountability but generally i think its important to work in an environment where it's OKAY to mess up sometimes and you don't fear losing your job if you make a boo-boo)

[nelsonic]

@naazy this is a fantastic list! 😍 My "take away(s)" are that we need:

• [ ] more team events. see: https://github.com/dwyl/hq/issues/148
• [ ] more "merch" ... we'll sort out the Hoodies as a P1 in Jan! (part of our "Welcome Pack" ...)
• [ ] to be more systematic about our remote working #HelpWanted
• [ ] organise our learning better and do recorded Weekend Workshops and/or (Friday Afternoon) Knowledge Sharing sessions.
• [ ] have a public list of interesting things to do in breaks or on transport.

Everyone else please keep the insights coming! ❤️ ✅

[Jbarget]

On the topic of sharing knowledge Id love it if we did more internal talks about interesting things/technologies with Q&A (like @harrygfox's css techniques)

At WebSummit I remember a speaker mentioning every 6 months their company has a 'Fail Fest' as an opportunity for employees share mistakes that they have made. (I think it was the CEO of Hinge).

@NataliaLKB posted this yesterday which I thought was really great

[nelsonic]

@Jbarget your wish is our command... 😉 (coming soon...!)

2017 is going to be The Year we up our game in terms of knowledge sharing. 🎉 Our plan is to get @markwilliamfirth working 20% of his time¹ on https://github.com/dwyl/video (which, as I understand would be dwyl-ing for him...) Also, @sohilpandya's amazing video skills are going to come into play... which means our content is going to be epic! Literally watch this space! https://github.com/dwyl/video/issues/12 👀

The idea of a "Fail Fest" is cool, it would be really useful to share experiences for how we have struggled, hit our heads against brick walls and made mistakes @Jbarget how can we develop it...? 👍

@NataliaLKB that post is amazing!! 😮 ❤️ 🌈
Guardian Developer Blog is sick in general: https://www.theguardian.com/info/developer-blog We need that magic @dwyl ... (if you ever decide to move on from @Guardian please speak to us first we will pay you to travel and work remotely or be our "CTO" in London!) ❤️ P.S: https://github.com/dwyl/tudo/graphs/contributors -> https://github.com/dwyl/hq/issues/147

¹ Yes, we know about http://www.hrzone.com/lead/culture/why-did-google-abandon-20-time-for-innovation and we agree that innovation needs to be structured and focussed to avoid "moonshots" before we are sustainable through product revenue. @dwyl we are never going to have "M&M"'s in our org and we want people to work on projects they ❤️ all-the-time!

[Jbarget]

A suggestion limited to non-remote workers but breakfast in the mornings at number 16 could be a nice addition, would be aware of waste though so maybe people could "sign up" for it?

[NataliaLKB]

@nelsonic I am glad you enjoyed the blog post! We had a lot of fun reminiscing about all the times we had broken the website. Those were some of our favourites.

I agree with @Jbarget that internal talks are a great way to share knowledge and build confidence public speaking. It would be amazing if those talks could be filmed, both for people who work remotely, and for the interested public.

[nelsonic]

Which of the things in this list: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/14-simple-expectations-great-employees-have-boss-bernard-marr do people feel are the most important? (thanks!)

[SimonLab]

My top 3:

• 6. Provide strong leadership and a clear vision - Having a main goal influence also the way to work: what skills/tools I need to learn to achieve the goal
• 3. Provide feedback, mentorship, and training - I think we already have some good feedback and our process to develop projects with github is quiet good already, can we make it better?
• 5. Create a safe space for failure - Without failure we can't learn

[harrygfox]

For me:

• 1. Be consistent with meaningful communication.
• 11. Put People first
• 6. Provide strong leadership and a clear vision

[sohilpandya]

1. Be consistent with meaningful communication.
2. Put people first
3. Be dedicated and balanced

For me. 😄

[bradreeder]

1. Principally, feeling my own source of inspiration aligns with that of the organisation -- to fulfil the vision of the organisation is to actualise my own. Working on projects that inspire me and make me feel alive.
2. Feeling a part of a community in which open and meaningful relationships are fostered. Non-hierarchical, non-contrived. We get to be ourselves.
3. Self-development of its members is encouraged & supported. Active learning culture.
4. Transparency. Feeling like I have agency & responsibility within my environment on issues that concern me.

My track record on this in most jobs has not been very good admittedly, but you did ask for 'the best place to work in the world'. 😅

[Jbarget]

https://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/2017/#work-what-developers-value-in-compensationbenefits

[iteles]

https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/wd-40-stayed-disruptive-despite-selling-product-60-years/reputation-matters/article/1464488

Worldwide, those numbers are even worse: just 15% of employees say they’re engaged. But at WD-40, a whopping 93% of employees consider themselves to be engaged in their work, and 97% say they are excited about the future of the company. Why the difference?

Because WD-40 practices a human resources strategy that I call ‘personal disruption.’ A strategy that is centered around learning: you start as a beginner, embracing the confusion that comes with being a novice; you experience a state of deep engagement as you learn, grow, and gain traction; and you feel the joy of mastery once you get to the top of your learning curve. But then—crucially—you find a new challenge to tackle and the cycle starts over; human beings are wired to learn and change, not to stay in one place, doing the same thing over and over again.