Here's exactly what three hiring managers at Buffer shared about onboarding folks together or separately, along with some of the advice, conversations, and best practices we hold onto for onboarding in a remote and fully distributed team.
In 2022, we’re diving back into more intentional team-building both asynchronously, synchronously, plus we’re planning the occasional in-person meetup where available. Here’s how we’re approaching all of these events and all of our current initiatives.
Over the last year, I’ve done at least 400 values screening calls and I always turn the call over to the applicants to ask whatever questions they have for me. Here are the top ten questions I get asked and my responses.
The first interview candidates go through at Buffer is a values interview. Here's what it looks like and why we start with values.
When we experimented with a four-day workweek it was initially for one month. As our CEO, Joel Gascoigne , wrote about in May 2020 when we first started the experiment, “This 4-day workweek period is about well-being, mental health, and placing us as humans and our families first.” Joel’s announcement about the four-day workweek in April, 2020. At the end of May, while we were collecting the data on how the experimen
Hiring via social media should be so much bigger than just using LinkedIn. Read on for some insights from Buffer’s Director of People on how both small businesses and growing ones can create a strategy for finding the best talent via social media.
In March and April of 2020, work and life as we knew it was changing. I surveyed our team members (all 84 of whom are spread out across the globe) to understand the best way to help them cope with so many things shifting at once. I especially wanted to hear from parents about what could help them as many schools were shutting down and partners or spouses were also required to work from home. The results? Most people wanted more time to get through the new challenges they faced. As a remote or
Many companies have a regular All Hands meeting. Generally, this is a company-wide gathering for all employees (‘all hands on deck’) to hear from the organization’s leaders and discuss the state of the company. At Buffer, the All Hands meeting is a key element of our communication and culture. As we grow, there’s an increased need to hear regularly from our CEO and leadership team and get on the same page about strategy and direction. Every month we alternate between a presentation-based All H
Here’s a look at how we’ve evolved the process of onboarding teammates at Buffer -- what we've stopped, started, and are doing next.
For the past few years, we’ve been on a journey to make sure our Buffer swag – the branded merchandise that goes out to teammates, customers and the world – reflects our Buffer values . Branded merchandise has a vast footprint on the environment — in terms of production, shipping, employment practices, and distribution — so we treat these decisions with care, always remembe
One of the most conversation-provoking perks we’ve ever launched at Buffer is our Dependents Grant. This benefit provides a $3,000 USD stipend to teammates for each person who depends on their salary (including spouses, partners, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.). When it first launched in 2016, the grant was designed to show support for Buffer teammates as they navigated various life situations. “We we want to help our teammates feel taken car
Back in 2016, we shared the tech, bags and products that our team found essential for remote work. This year, it’s time for an update and many new additions to our original list. Here are lots more gadgets, gear and other essentials our all-remote team can’t live without, including: * Daily backpacks * Travel bags * Monitors, trackpads and computer accessories * Headphones * Cell phones and cases * Laptops * Journals and pens * Home speakers * Gaming systems * Other work/life essenti
Buffer’s People Team spends a lot of time thinking about perks. One of our biggest and most important perks is maybe the toughest to quantify: The freedom to work whenever, wherever, and however we like. Being a diverse, distributed team impacts our perks philosophy deeply. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach; we all work differently and are motivat
One of our values at Buffer is to improve consistently, so we focus a lot on learning. Up until recently, a Buffer perk we were pretty proud of was our learning and development stipend . This fund gave each teammate $20 per month, or $240 a year, to invest in learning from mediums like tutorials, online classes, or real-life courses. Budget-wise, this worked out to about $20,000 for the year (assuming everyone uses th
Isolation can be a persistent challenge for distributed teams. In our most recent State of Remote Work report , we found that loneliness was the second most common problem remote workers share. At Buffer, we’ve tried to counter this challenge in many different ways , like rotating weekly chats, online team events, and encouraging local meetups. Some initiatives have made a dent, but as we’ve grown the
Our annual in-person working retreats are a highlight of the year for many on our team. It’s the one time of year our fully remote team gets to be all together in one spot. Well, most of us. We usually have anywhere from 3-6 teammates who can’t make it to retreat due to pre-existing plans, family obligations, health issues, or other reasons. For those folks, the retreat can be a disheartening time full of FOMO (fear of missing out). Personally, I missed one of our largest team retreats — a
There was a time where I wholly embraced calling our team — our company — a family. I’ve written cards to our community members and called them part of our Buffer family. I’ve sent custom packages to welcome our new teammates to the Buffer family (and we’ve grown from 25 teammates to nearly 90 in about four years.) I relished how the term “family” made everyone feel so welcomed, accepted, and appreciated. There’s nothi
Here at Buffer, we believe that what gets measured, gets managed. That’s important because with effective management and oversight, we have the tools and knowledge to effectively make change happen. But how do you measure an emotion? Certainly, you may notice the signs of an emotion like happiness trending up or down. When it’s trending downward, you’ll notice that productivity wanes, morale decreases, and people leave for other jobs. And when it’s tre
“We believe that it’s really important to come up with core values that you can commit to. And by commit, we mean that you’re willing to hire and fire based on them. If you’re willing to do that, then you’re well on your way to building a company culture that is in line with the brand you want to build.”– Tony Hsieh, November 15, 2010, The Huffington Post Buffer’s founder, Joel , set about identifying his values and the values of the 10 other employees in 201
Working at Buffer takes many forms. For some, it’s working from home (sometimes surrounded by kids and/or animals), from a coworking space or co-living space or perhaps it’s from a coffee shop. (Psst – we just did a big ol’ survey of more than a thousand remote workers to learn more about these trends in our 2018 State of Remote Work!) When it comes to supporting our teammates, it’s a part of our company values to live and work where you’re happiest and most productive. That means we help fin
Our company values are the foundation upon which our team has grown and our product has developed. They emerged in the early years of Buffer when we were a small team of 10 people, and they have guided us ever since, leading to a number of work culture experiments and lessons along the way. In all, we have 10 values that we aspire toward: To us, these values are motivating and inspiring. We talk about them all the time whenever we see a great example of a value in action or we experience a sit
The chance for in-person time is precious for a remote team. It had been over a year — 392 days to be precise — since saw each other at our last retreat in Hawaii . From Thailand to South Africa, Iceland to Australia, each of our company retreats has looked a little different. Our team of 75 around the world has just returned from our most
I worked myself into a lovely pickle at the end of 2016. I gave my manager feedback that I’d love to have a session on career planning and goals for my role in the company. I love these sorts of chats! Well, I used to. I’ve been so knee-deep in survival mode during my son’s first year of life, wrangling a puppy, and finding out that I was pregnant with number 2 when my son was 9 months old that I suddenly realized, while preparing for this chat, that I had no short- or long-term goals. “Well
Thinking through our very first family leave policy at Buffer was a new and exciting thing for our young company. I personally was honored to be the first teammate to take a leave and put this “into practice ” and most recently, I got the chance to help with crafting our more inclusive leave policy. And yet, for all our pla