The Flywheel AI Hackathon: Exploring New Technologies for our Customers' Biggest Challenges
When new technologies are introduced, it takes experimentation, collaboration and problem-solving to determine how best to apply it to your ...
As of today, there is a new HubSpot vacation / time-off policy: take as much time off when you need, when you need it.
No paperwork, no forms, no special accounting. Let your teammates know. That's it. No fine print, no exceptions.
Why did we do this? I could try to explain with my own reasoning, but I would not do as good a job as Dan Pink (@DanielPink), in this awesome and inspiring TED Global 2009 talk:
I am a big believer in what Pink says. Especially for the type of work we do on the engineering team at HubSpot, which is highly creative, we should trust our teammates with autonomy as much as possible. This is one big step in that right direction.
This specific talk I actually didn't know about until yesterday, when my colleague Prashant Kaw pointed it out on our wiki. Thanks, Prashant!
But there are two related references, one directly called out in the TED presentation and one not, that I'm familiar with and highly recommend. The first is Dan Ariely, who was one of my teachers at MIT, and his range of talks, videos, blog posts, and publications. Ariely has an active blog, and practically all his papers are publicly available, including this one from 2005 that is referenced in the presentation.
The other resource not in this TED talk is the Netflix culture / philosophy presentation, available on Slideshare, which we've talked about in the past. It, too, is excellent and well worth reading through. Coincidentally, HubSpot now has the same vacation policy as Netflix ;)
Culture
View more presentations from Reed Hastings.
Many companies will tell you a lot of things you want to hear when you think about working there. But at very few companies is the level of flexibility, enlightment, and open-mindedness not just high, but pervasive in thole organization including the complete management team.
That's what it takes to make a difference in people's work lives which translates into personal lives. It's not some HR-friendly talk about "work-life balance," but the real thing.
And this is just one of many reasons I'm happy to work here.
