The second of our Remote First blog posts, in which the Fnality People & Talent Guild will be sharing some insight into our ways of working as we strive to create a high-performing and supportive work environment for our team.
On Thursday 10th September 2020, Fnality hosted the first of our quarterly whole company events (which we’ve named Olympus Day in keeping with the Greek naming convention of our multi-disciplined agile delivery teams). We introduced these quarterly event days when we moved to a Remote-First approach as a way to bring the whole company together at least once a quarter. The purpose is to align on our strategy, hear from colleagues across the business, and to take a break from our usual day-to-day work and have some fun!
The sessions included:
- Strategy updates from our Leadership Team
- Discussions on our Mission & Vision, Our Outcomes and Communities of Practice
- A Hackathon
- Wellbeing Sessions
- An online social
Because we were hosting on Zoom, we kept sessions short (roughly 45 minutes per session) and put in regular coffee breaks between sessions to give people a break from their screens.
In future we plan to run these days in person in the office (the only time we will ever require everyone to come into the office), but due to the pandemic, we allowed our employees to choose where to attend from. We had about 15 people in the office, and 35 dialling in from home.
"I felt it brought out a real team spirit despite its remote nature and the distance between all of us"
Dilyana Valcheva, Financial Strategy Expert (attended from home)
One of the most fun events of the day was our mini Hackathon where employees could get their creative juices flowing. The company was split into 8 teams and then given 1 hour to work on their hackathon project.
The first 4 teams had to come up with ideas on a video that would encourage people to come and work at Fnality. The remaining teams had to come up with ideas for a Fnality podcast. At the end of the day, each group presented their final ideas to our Chairman and then the whole company voted on their favourite video and podcast. We were astounded by the creativity and comedy created by the teams in such a small amount of time, and it was great proof that our teams collaborate just as well in-person or virtually. Here's hoping we can convince some of the teams to launch a real Fnality podcast soon!
Employee wellbeing is very important to Fnality, so we wanted to include wellbeing sessions as a central part of the day. We had 3 options - a HIIT workout class, a mindfulness session and a nutrition discussion. Each session was led by one of our employees and gave everyone a chance to choose a session they were interested in.
"It was really well run, and I loved the engagement and unbelievably creative hackathon"
Rhomaios Ram, CEO (attended from home)
"Olympus Day was an amazing wellbeing day that was very much needed especially in times like these when it's difficult seeing colleagues face to face. I had an incredible amount of fun and loved all the activities organised! It was great to see that everyone just let loose and made the most of this online get-together"
Mihai Covrig, Legal Analyst (attended from home)
This Olympus Day we sent out gift boxes to our employees which were filled with drinks, snacks and wellbeing products to enjoy on the day. We tried to use small, independent and sustainable suppliers to fill our boxes, each box contained at least one of these products.
"I found Olympus Day further developed our internal sense of community, grew our understanding of collaborating remotely and demonstrated impressive creativity from the Fnality team. All of this while sharing valuable knowledge and having a great time! I am looking forward to the next one."
Nathalie Poli, Product Manager (attended from the office)
"Our first Olympus Day completely exceeded expectations! It can be difficult to do a full day of collaborative activities fully remote but it's clear that a lot of effort went into organising it as the whole day was so much fun. Already looking forward to the next one!"
Chris Stanley, Technical Analyst (attended from the office)
It was such a nice way to bring the whole company together, we're looking forward to the next event in December!
