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Setting our team up for successful remote work
Blog· 6min June 24, 2022
At Form3, we celebrate our remote first culture. It’s our philosophy and one of the principal factors that helped get us to where we are today.
Remote work has been so pivotal to our journey. It has enabled us to extend our global footprint, scale-up in a vigorous and competitive industry, increase our gender diversity, and build efficiencies for future resilience. Last September we raised a massive $160 million during our Series C funding round, and we most recently achieved the Payments Innovation of the Year award at the FStech awards 2022. We have also recently won Best Tech Employer (150 – 499 Employees) at the Women in Tech Employer Awards 2022 This just shows that remote working doesn’t have to be a barrier, but it can be the very ingredient to driving success. For us, it has been an obvious no brainer from the outset!
Remote work wouldn’t be successful without our team having the appropriate set-up. So, how do we do this?
A trust culture
Remote work for Form3 is built on a foundation of trust. We defy the traditional 9 to 5 structure and provide our team with the ability to work flexibly 100% of the time, enabling them to juggle life’s commitments, celebrations, and challenges. Whether it’s helping a loved one attend an appointment, taking the dog out for a walk at 11am, or running some personal errands; we understand that sometimes life gets in the way, and that’s ok! We don’t want our team to miss the moments that are important to them, and so we collectively share a trust that empowers this. This means absolutely no clock watching nor micro-management!
Transparency
Transparency is a key value that contributes to our remote work set up. We make an effort to continuously share and involve our team in the latest company news, trends and updates. Whether this is via our weekly company update call, our monthly newsletter, or in one of our many Slack channels, we are committed to being open and transparent on all things Form3 - this includes the good, the bad and the ugly!
Supporting our team
Setting up a working space at home
We want our team to feel and be their absolute best when working for us, so we’re not fussed if they would prefer to work on a hammock or a desk. Where our team is happiest and most productive is perfectly good enough for us!
We recognise that our team have different needs and preferences when it comes to their remote work set-up. This is why we use Hofy as our remote work partner to provide our team with equipment to set up their working spaces in whichever way suits them most.
Staying connected
Connecting is important to us, whether it happens virtually or in-person. Our team are located across 26 countries, with a view that we’ll likely welcome colleagues in other locations in future. It’s so important that connection is centred at our core and that we take an approach that is inclusive of all time zones and cultural differences where possible.
Slack is our primary communication tool; it is engrained in our culture. We love the use of emojis (we’ve even created our own!) and the natural ease and flow of conversation. We recognise that the social element can be missing from remote work and so we have social channels dedicated to topics such as music, pets, football and even gourmet food! This allows our team to invest and experience their passion with others and establish a personal connection to Form3. Our Slack channels also support our asynchronous communications perfectly. You can read more on asynchronous communication at Form3 and the benefits for remote teams on our previous blog post here.
We can’t forget the importance of in-person and office collaboration however, and frankly we love an excuse to get everyone together for a social. We make it our aim to schedule in-person meetups at regular intervals, sometimes even in an exotic location!
Written by
Jessica is a People Partner at Form3, based in the UK.