How we act on our company values day-to-day

The topic of company values has been around for a while. It’s had a new spin of attention as the pandemic has created different circumstances that businesses need to function as a team. Company values are internal guiding principles that build a foundation for collective work and make it easier for teams to operate and achieve business goals. In this blog post, we want to talk about the Frontastic company values, why these are so important to us, and how these values affect our day-to-day work life.

As Frontastic is a distributed team working 100% remotely, the topic of company values had been on our agenda long before the pandemic hit in 2020. To help our team act with the same principles, we’ve defined our company values and implemented them in our everyday professional life as much as possible. The Frontastic values are:

• Make an impact
• Thirst for learning
• Diversity rules
• Transparency first
• We‘re in this together

Let’s look at each individually and see how Frontastic teams implement them into their daily tasks and workflows.

We’re addicted to learning, and we learn from everything, including our failures. We adapt easily to change, we’re curious, we’re innovative, and we’re always searching for new ideas.

We learn from our successes, but failure is also necessary to learn. We adapt to new situations quickly, and we learn every step of the way. Nevertheless, we also know that there are some things that we can’t change, and we accept that. There are quite a few ways how we apply this value to our day-to-day work. Here are just 2 of them:

Knowledge-sharing sessions

A knowledge-sharing session is a place for our team to exchange about a specific broader topic and socialize with people with the same interest. At the session, we meet remotely for a presentation and Q&A of about 25 minutes. All sessions are recorded and are available to watch async. In the past, we’ve talked about how we do hackathons, how to best handle our customer communication, or just shared some tips around productivity and focus work. Everybody at Frontastic is welcome to suggest a topic and to hold a session. Our partners and customers also occasionally participate in these sessions and give us insights into their processes and plans. 

English lessons

At Frontastic, English is our default company language. Although everybody in the company speaks English, it’s not the first language for everyone. So, we offer English lessons. These take place individually or in small groups and are voluntary. 

We’re proud to be a diverse team spread across the world. We build a safe community for everyone to be themselves while holding each other to account when needed.

What goes without saying: We don’t tolerate abuse, harassment, exclusion, discrimination, or retaliation. Everyone has the right to feel safe when working at Frontastic. We value diversity regardless of aspect, but everyone has to take responsibility for their actions and behavior. Everyone has to take responsibility for their actions and behavior. Our values should guide your decisions and how you behave.

Inclusive language

Words are an opportunity to connect with our customers but also with each other. We do our best to use inclusive language in all our communication and double-check important text with a team member. We also care about general accessibility. By being accessible, the majority of people can access and understand what we’re saying. We try to always be clear, to the point, and use plain English. We use simple sentence structures and keep them short, and also avoid using jargon and metaphors.

Asynchronous communication

What seems silly in terms of this value actually strengthens the diversity in the company. By sticking to asynchronous communication as much as possible, we ensure that everybody can structure their days and lives around their home, family, or community commitments. As the company grows, there are more and more team members in different time zones, too. This means we use asynchronous communication whenever possible, and we have care and consideration for each other when awaiting a response.

We make all information as public as possible, and we’re direct (as well as truthful) in all our communications. We don’t just explain what we’re doing but why we’re doing it.

We try to make all information public within our team and, if possible, externally as well. We don’t talk around a subject or sugar-coat statements, and we’re to the point. When we make decisions, we explain them. It’s essential for everyone to understand why we do what we do, and we always share the why. These are just a few examples of doing business according to this value:

Open Slack channels
We try to avoid direct or group messages as much as possible. This is particularly relevant if the information communicated involves several people or the entire team or is relevant for a specific project. In this way, we ensure that all the people involved have all the information and ensure asynchrony. We recommend posting in an open team channel and mentioning the person you want to ask or talk to, even though you’re making some noise. 

Personal weekly retrospective

Every Friday, a Slackbot asks us to reflect on our week and share this information with everybody on the dedicated Slack channel. This retrospective contains some questions about our impact, reaching personal or team goals, learnings, and negative sides of the week. The retrospective channel is often a place where many discussions and exchanges between team members take place.