In both our London and Amsterdam offices we've got our Mission and Values up on the wall. Beneath it we can give each other some well-deserved recognition for living by the values.
You'll notice all across this Handbook that we don't like rules and prefer guidelines and principles to work by. How we work together in the office is no exception.
Both the London and the Amsterdam office are shared spaces. We sit together because it's fun to be building together. There's plenty of call booths, meeting rooms and breakout spaces nearby - so when we've got to have an extended conversation or phone call we head out of the office.
If someone's got their headphones on and they're not on Slack they're probably busy and we don't disturb them unless something's (metaphorically or actually) on fire.
Meetings are a most often a necessary evil, but a five minute catchup in person or over the phone is preferable over an endless Slack thread.
We believe it's wisest to pick your moments - if something's not urgent send a Slack message. If it's urgent then talk in person. Simple guidelines like these make us super effective at getting things done.
Sure, the office is the office, home is home. But someone has to clean that up. Waiting for someone else to do it, even if you think that's the cleaner's job is not thinking with empathy - or phrased in terms of our values- starting with the human. At Starred we treat each other with respect, and an important part of that is our workspace. Tidying up and keeping the office nice for everyone is essential.
Our Amsterdam office is at TQ and our London office is at Mindspace. In both cases there's a community aspect to why we chose to have our offices there. We benefit from being able to take advantage of meetups, social activities and an ever-changing network of other companies. In Amsterdam we host our own meetups at TQ to engage with the community. Having a communal Slack workspace shared by many other companies makes knowledge sharing and seeking help easy.
Hire the people you trust. Trust the people you hire. We're an organisation which measures progress by deliverables and meeting targets like OKRs, not by punching a clock. If we want to work from home, or elsewhere, we can. We've got guidelines for this, among which are simple things like checking in with your team and not leaving people hanging.
We really believe in the idea that collaboration works best at the office. The marvels of modern (internet telephony) technology can often fail, and there's nothing worse than a video call repeatedly dropping out.