9 ms·

Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Making your Employees’ Lives Awesome

8 points by czue 15y ago

jtheory 15y ago
I liked this idea, but it's also very obvious that this must be quite a young company, with an employee base that's also mostly quite young. After all, the window of time between when you enter the workplace and when you start having the kinds of ties that prevent you from dropping everything and going somewhere with your company for a month isn't -- for most people -- a very large slice of their working career. I personally would love to go to Brazil for a month, but going with my co-workers instead of my wife and young daughter would be unthinkable. This isn't a criticism, though. As the company grows & matures, and the employees do as well -- since they're interested in keeping employees "for the long haul", the collective ages of the bulk of the employees would advance largely in synch -- then the creative ideas should simply take different forms. I do think they should consider carefully who is forced to sit out, though -- and avoid doing things where it's always the same people who can't come. This is company money being used to reward employees. If it only rewards some of them, due to factors quite probably out of the employees' control, that's simply unfair. Maybe offer the option for employees who can't participate to simply get an equivalent bonus?
- czue 15y ago
  We are a young company. In the previous blogs we talk a bit about the factors that made doing the experiment possible including that one. One clarification on your last point: the company didn't actually fund any of this (except for travel insurance for everyone). All the employees who chose to go paid their own way. This was what made it virtually 0 cost for us, and one of the reasons why some chose to stay behind. Families and significant others were another reason.
- dannyroberts 15y ago
  I just added this clarification to the post: as Cory said the whole trip was company-endorsed and employee-funded.

8 points by czue 15y ago

I liked this idea, but it's also very obvious that this must be quite a young company, with an employee base that's also mostly quite young. After all, the window of time between when you enter the workplace and when you start having the kinds of ties that prevent you from dropping everything and going somewhere with your company for a month isn't -- for most people -- a very large slice of their working career. I personally would love to go to Brazil for a month, but going with my co-workers instead of my wife and young daughter would be unthinkable. This isn't a criticism, though. As the company grows & matures, and the employees do as well -- since they're interested in keeping employees "for the long haul", the collective ages of the bulk of the employees would advance largely in synch -- then the creative ideas should simply take different forms. I do think they should consider carefully who is forced to sit out, though -- and avoid doing things where it's always the same people who can't come. This is company money being used to reward employees. If it only rewards some of them, due to factors quite probably out of the employees' control, that's simply unfair. Maybe offer the option for employees who can't participate to simply get an equivalent bonus?

czue 15y ago
We are a young company. In the previous blogs we talk a bit about the factors that made doing the experiment possible including that one. One clarification on your last point: the company didn't actually fund any of this (except for travel insurance for everyone). All the employees who chose to go paid their own way. This was what made it virtually 0 cost for us, and one of the reasons why some chose to stay behind. Families and significant others were another reason.
dannyroberts 15y ago
I just added this clarification to the post: as Cory said the whole trip was company-endorsed and employee-funded.