The Simple Reason We Share Administrative Tasks Throughout the Whole Team

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Earlier this year, Buffer had a job opening for a position we (at the time) called “Life Saver.”

That person, we thought, was going to work in lots of different and important areas to help keep Buffer running smoothly—things like helping to plan our multiple annual retreats, helping us to find awesome new team members and more.

Then we decided to go in a different direction and share administrative tasks, distributing them throughout the whole team. The reason?

Fun.

As Joel and Leo explain in this Founder Chat video, the book Joy at Work had a lot to do with this decision.

The book focuses on how to create the most fun, joyful workplace, and the secret seems to be control. Give your team control and everything is more fun. Take it away, and it becomes a less fun workplace.

Taking control of all these various tasks amongst ourselves has given all of us more control. And as a distributed team, we’re always itching for more ways to work closely together. During the process of getting tasks like planning a retreat done, we get to know our teammates better as various teams form and disperse based on what we’re working on.

In the end, sharing these administrative tasks has led to a lot more fun.

How do you create more fun and togetherness in your workplace? Would a solution like this work for you? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!