During this difficult crisis for our clients, our Bimers and our candidates, we have realised that our workplace is not what defines us.
This is an opportunity for all of us to reinvent the way we work, but we know that this requires a lot of organisation and adaptability from all Bimers.
A “hybrid-remote” team to test new initiatives
Compared to a 100% office-based or 100% remote organisation, hybrid-remote requires more effort to be executed well, given the two-tiered working environment.
Therefore, to better navigate our exploratory year we created a team of volunteers who decided to take up the challenge. To propose improvements to our practices, processes, communication and collaboration tools. We want to make sure that no one feels isolated, that information is available to everyone and that we continue to perform at the level of our ambitions. We have four great Bimers who have been willing to join the scouting team.
Our volunteers this season are Lise Mira (DevOps Engineer), Thibaut Caldwell (Account Executive), Haikel Mazlout (Front Developer) and Antoine Lepiller (Tech Team Lead). They meet every three weeks to work on the launch of new rituals, to evaluate the existing ones and to see what works and what doesn’t. They have agreed on a set of rules to be used in the future.
The hybrid remote team has agreed on five ground rules for all our gatherings:
- All ideas are welcome. Negativity is not.
- Build on other people’s ideas. Don’t tear them down.
- Don’t censor yourself. Just say it.
- Encourage everyone to participate.
- No interruptions from outside.
The first action was to create a first DAKI for the next two terms:
- Drop – Drop a practice that creates friction.
- Add – Add a new ritual that we felt was consistent with this new organisation.
- Keep – Keep a practice that works.
- Improve – Identify an improvement on what already exists.
Why only four actions? Because the team wanted to remain consistent, Rome wasn’t built in a day and they didn’t want to create too much noise or simultaneous change for the Bimers. Change has incompressible times, cycles and obstacles.
To get the momentum going, they first had to learn how to maintain a connection from a distance and create one with the newcomers, and then test their DAKI. It is important for the whole BIM&CO team to spend time together so the hybrid remote team wanted to make this possible with the new organisation.
The “lucky numbers” game
Each Bimmer received a card at home, on which three numbers appear, the “lucky numbers“. Thibaut, Lise, Haikel and Antoine didn’t give any explanation in order to create suspense. Each number corresponded to an action to be carried out with the other colleagues during the week. The aim was to guess the other’s challenges. The fun part was to confuse the issue by making different ones from your own. For Haikel, the idea was to share the culture and values of BIM&CO: “For that we thought it had to be funny. We had already had a lot of fun creating different types of cards with puns on the teams that were distributed“.
The challenges we proposed to our Bimers in case you also want to try:
1- Invite a Bimer for a “remote coffee“.
2- Organise a quiz or invite a group of Bimers to play an online board game.
3- Ask 3 colleagues this week: “What motivates you?” / “What current projects motivate you the most?“
4- Put on the camera with a clown nose or a dressing gown or a Harry Potter scar.
5- Ask your colleague on the right ? what music he/she is listening to “now”!
6- Ask your colleague on the left ? what they are reading or watching these days!
7- Challenge the reason for your presence in a meeting (and if your presence is not necessary, don’t go!)
8- Hand out 5 “thank yous” to whomever you want.
9- Ask for feedback.
There is always room for improvement!
Things we didn’t think of that made it not work as we thought it would:
- Some teams practically only exchange on Discord to the detriment of email. For example, the technical team rarely looks at their mail because everything happens on Notion and Discord. Emails went out the window and half of the Bimers didn’t understand why they received the card while the initiative was being launched. Action for the future: agree on a single communication channel for global communications. This minor setback highlighted a sticking point that was trapped in individual, non-scalable actions.
- We launched the challenge at the end of the second quarter, when the Bimers were less available because everyone was focused on the OKRs to be achieved by the end of the month. Action for the future: this kind of initiative should be launched at the beginning of the quarter and take into account what is happening at the business level.
Thanks to our team of Hybrid Remote volunteers for taking the time to experiment, laugh and fall. Next time it will be even better. ?