Joy Inc. Dream jobs and joy-based business processes

    Do you know the software company Menlo Innovations from Ann Arbor, Michigan? For 14 years, these guys got on the cover of Forbes and the pages of The Wall Street Journal, won a ton of awards and were among the 500 fastest growing private companies in America. And they also conducted several thousand tours of their office, giving visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the company and see all the work processes from the inside. The secret of Menlo Innovations success lies in the fact that the company's management lays the joy and happiness of its employees at the core of all business processes. Of course, they do not forget about the happiness of their customers and the joy of the end users of their products.





    How to build a successful business, one of the main goals of which is the joy and happiness of employees, says CEO Richard Sheridan in his book “Dream Work” (I like the original title “Joy Inc. How We Built A Workplace People Love”).

    Although the book deals more with the organization of the work of programmers, testers and project managers, I see that a philosophy of joy and pleasure can be part of any business. While reading the book, I constantly caught myself thinking “this is also the case with us in Alconost ”, although we do without an office , and in addition to programmers and managers, we also have translators, video designers, contextual advertising specialists, marketers, and many other wonderful people.

    I took the liberty of summarizing everything that Richard Sheridan says to a few principles for organizing business processes based on joy and happiness.



    Lack of borders


    In Menlo, there are no barriers between people in the literal sense of the word: all employees are in one large openspace. Workplaces are mobile and employees often move tables, forming groups depending on their current task.

    By the way, Menlo only recognizes extreme programming, when two people work on the same computer, and partners often change, which avoids the appearance of “prisoners of knowledge towers”: key employees without whom the project will stop.

    Workplaces of managers are in the same place, among other employees. Separate rooms are used only for negotiations requiring privacy and silence.



    Menlo tried to get rid of not only physical barriers: each employee can contact a colleague, boss and manager with any question, comment or suggestion.

    Simplicity and transparency


    Menlo guys don't like bulky project management systems.

    The budget and work plan of each project in Menlo is a large whiteboard in the middle of the office, divided into cells (days and weeks), with task cards, the physical size of which depends on their time. A limited number of cards is placed on the board (after all, the area of ​​the board, and with it the number of days and the project budget are limited). And when the project manager or the client, or even the CEO of the company asks the programmer “to quickly do this simple and seemingly quick-fix task”, he gets the answer “hey, look, I just have nowhere to put another card on the board, let's coordinate what other cards can I refuse now. ”

    And also such a board allows employees to see each other’s work, understand their progress and tasks that they will have to work on in the future.



    See and feel the results of your work


    Once a week, all participants (and sometimes customers) of a particular project arrange a “stand-up”, where they talk about the results of their work and discuss a plan for the next week.

    So employees constantly see and feel the result of their work, and retain a vision of the entire project, even if they are working on some kind of isolated task.



    Make mistakes soon


    Mistakes in Menlo are not a crime, but steps towards the goal. The team accepts the mistakes made and does not spend energy on the capture and punishment of the “criminal”, but moves on. One of the company's mottos is “Let's make mistakes soon.”

    Culture of lack of fear


    Menlo employees are not afraid to make mistakes, are not afraid of changes, are not afraid to talk about what they think, are not afraid to be called to work in the middle of the holidays, are not afraid of overwork and work on weekends (this is simply not), they are not afraid of managers and customers.

    Refusal of a choice between work and something else


    When an employee is forced to choose between work and, for example, his personal life, both work and personal life suffer, as a rule. At Menlo, employees are allowed to bring young children to the office, where a special place is organized for them. Thus, the parents no longer have a choice between “today I have no one to leave the child with” and “I do not have time to complete the project”. Another Menlo experiment is a separate office space for pet employees. And of course, employees can work remotely if, for example, they need to look after sick relatives.



    The experiments


    One of the most frequently heard phrases in Menlo is “let's try and see what happens.”

    If one of the employees has an unusual idea for a project or for organizing the work of the company, most likely the management of Menlo will support him and conduct an experiment to test the idea. Moreover, if the experiment is unsuccessful, it will still be regarded as a positive experience. Almost everything that Menlo has is the result of such bold and absurd experiments at first glance.



    Development


    Menlo programmers are constantly using new technologies and languages ​​to work on customer projects.

    Menlo also practices accepting shares of companies as payment for their services. Shares are distributed between employees (if desired, of course, an employee) working on a project. This not only motivates to work with full dedication, but also allows simple programmers, testers and project managers to earn a lot of money, an order of magnitude more than the usual annual salary.

    By the way, now among the ordinary employees of Menlo there are more than ten multimillionaires who continue to work despite the fact that they no longer need money. In my opinion, this is the best evidence that building a business on a philosophy of joy and happiness fully pays for itself.

    And how do your company think about the joy of employees?


    About the author

    Alconost localizes applications, games and sites in 60 languages. Native-language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, project managers 24/7, any format of string resources.

    We also make advertising and training videos - for sites that sell, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliner, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.

    Read more: https://alconost.com


    Also popular now: