Comment by znq | Hacker News Reader

Comment by znq | Hacker News Reader

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I hope people don't see this as spam (especially since in the past I've talked a lot about this), but I've started Mobile Jazz (my first company) specifically because I wanted to created a place where I and others feel happy. A place where increasing revenue and profit to the extreme is not the focus, but employee happiness is. We call it "Optimizing for Happiness".

We've written a lot about it in our company handbook https://mobilejazz.com/company-handbook-pdf/ (free to download, no email required) and you can find more stories and details on our blog if interested.

COVID has made things more difficult, especially since pre-COVID we did a lot of events together (skiing, surfing, hiking, co-living, workations, etc.) and not meeting up has definitely harmed our sense of belonging and purpose. So we're very much looking forward to having events again this year.

Basically what I wanted to say: People are currently jumping around a lot in their jobs, looking for the highest salaries and finding a purpose and a place they belong. We somehow have managed, despite not being able to match Silicon Valley salaries, to have a really good team of loyal, friendly and kind humans that gives me joy to get up every single day and to work with them. And with most of them it's similar, since many of those people have been staying with us since they've joined us. Despite getting better offers (financially speaking) every day.

I'm fine with being civil and approachable but I really don't want to make the effort of being friendly with people I work with just because higher ups think this will compensate for below market salary. If I click somewhere that's great but I don't really see a correlation with a good work environment.

Sure. If you live in the US and want to work for us and want a Silicon Valley market salary at the same time, then we're not the right company for you. Not because we don't want to pay you a Silicon Valley salary, but simply because we cannot afford it.

If you are in another country/market, then we are very able to pay market salary and in most cases even above market salary, while providing a great work environment at the same time. We have and had people from Ireland, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Croatia, Serbia, Mauritius, Thailand, Azerbaijan, Austria, Thailand, Argentina and probably a couple more that I forgot now.

So basically what I wanted to say: just because we cannot afford a Silicon Valley market salary, doesn't mean we are underpaying people elsewhere or treating them unfair (financially speaking).

I hope my answer helped to clarify things.

I'm glad people with your mindset exist and trying to make a difference. May your company prosper and provide a happy workplace for a lot more people!

    pre-COVID we did a lot of events together (skiing, surfing, hiking, 
    co-living, workations, etc.)

A bit off-topic, but how well does this work for employees that have a family? Do they take their kids/spouse to the events?

Yes, we're completely open to having partners and kids around at our events. We actually encourage it. I myself have a child now and am looking forward to taking her to our next event. We're also looking into options of having a nanny. Depending on where we go and what we do.

What about employees with physical disabilities? I've got ten screws in my spine and never thought when deciding to work in computing that I'd be expected to be able to ski and surf.

I’ve not personally thought about that specific case but it’s similar to a lot of other issues with well meaning benefits (e.g. company outing focusing on activities like Laser Tag).

The best solution I’ve come up with so far is simply paying well & giving a lot of time off (and making sure people actually feel comfortable using their vacation days, which is an issue with “unlimited vacation” sometimes). Then each person can just afford to take the activities they want to.

Yep. Outside of the occasional off-site and/or team dinner (which aren't really the same thing), I pretty much want to keep company recreational activities--especially outside of work hours--to a bare minimum. They're never really optional.

We’ve not done anything that physically demanding, but we’ve definitely had events with short hikes, a chair lift ride up the (summertime) mountain to the lunch spot, or other short diversions from large group discussions. I’ve never gotten any sense that if someone were either physically unable to perform it or just not interested that it would be held against them and in any group of 30+ people you’re likely to have someone who doesn’t want to/can’t do exactly the activity and so you make accommodations.

It’s not like you’re going to be coding while waiting for the next set.

This is a problem we have had at my company too, how can we be inclusive to everyone with "fun" type events? Some people don't want alcohol, some don't want physical events, etc.

I think the best we can do as companies is know the team, have a variety of activities (inside normal working hours!), and not require 100% attendance since there is never going to be one activity that works for everyone.

It seems there may be a typo on the linked page:

  How we manage a fully reemote company

Thanks! I'll get that fixed :-)

You have to be careful here because you're trying to make sure that people are happy, not fat and happy. Complacency eventually threatens the livelihood of your employees, and that is stressful at any company, but the magnitude of that change is greater when everyone has been bopping along without a care in the world.

Being happy is not a capitalistic goal and the capitalists will eat your lunch. Being happy and kicking ass is close enough to be harder to sabotage.

Thanks for your input! I think we have been at those points ("fat and happy") a couple of times and I noticed it, because I especially got bored myself. Luckily I have to say, we quickly got to a point again where another problem or challenge presented itself.

Also our business doesn't have huge profit margins like some of the big tech companies. So financially we're always somewhere between "it is not critical, yet", but also never reach the "100% comfortable".

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