how we work
“The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.“
Seth Godin
Ciloo is the result of a realization that there must be a better way to work and still guarantee customer satisfaction. So we eliminated the bad out of the work environment, becoming everything the traditional workplace isn’t: remote, async, outcome-driven, and focused on happiness. Always.
This work culture has been ingrained in Ciloo from the get go, yet we still get excited talking about it. So much so that we’re dedicating this entire page to it :). Here you can learn more about the values and methods that underpin our work, the tools that support us, as well as what to expect when working with us.
remote work
“If you are not limited by a specific office location, you can look anywhere in the country or anywhere on the globe.“
Nickole McCabe
We’ve all worked remotely way before it became the norm (hello, pandemic), so we’ve managed to pick up a few tricks, as well as reap plenty of benefits along the way. Our multicultural team is spread across the globe, and across time zones. This means that we have a much bigger hiring pool and can recruit super talented people without any geographical limits. Our teams can work from anywhere, reducing or removing commute time (and the stress and physical strain that comes with it).
async communication
“Async incentivizes higher-quality communication over knee-jerk responses“
Twist
We’re pretty passionate about working async which makes us No. 1 fans of awesome async tools, such as Linear and Twist. We believe that a lot of the benefits of remote working are lost without an async communication system in place.
Asynchronous communication is when you send a message without expecting an immediate response. We generally give each other a 24 hour window for replies. This also means that clients might not receive a reply within the hour, but we’ll always get back to you with a well-thought-out response. While this may sound like a slow communication method, it’s actually more effective in the long run. Our teams are left with bigger chunks of time for deep work (a must when writing code or solving trickier client requests) as well as more control over how to spend their day. Additionally, working async helps create an environment of comprehensive responses (and the best gifs ever) rather than half-baked replies (with an ‘exhausted’ emoji).
To retain an element of human connection, we schedule in catch up calls every so often. You can learn more about our take on virtual meetings when working async in this blog post.
Outcome driven management
“Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the customer gets out of it.“
Peter Drucker
At Ciloo, our priority is outcomes. We focus on what the process produces: in our case an amazing deliverable that leaves our clients happy. Desktop monitoring software has no place here. Our team has total freedom to make the perfect schedule for themselves in line with the outcomes we aim to achieve. We have clear cut deliverables, but how to get there is up to each team member. You can read more about this in our interview with Ciloo’s Head of Operations, Guus van Mastrigt.
Focused on happiness, always
“The most successful givers aren’t doing it because they’re being told to. They do it because doing it is fun. It gives them joy.“
Seth Godin
It’s sometimes easy to forget in today’s hustle culture; but, we’re human. Our team’s happiness and our clients’ happiness sit on opposite sides of a perfectly balanced scale. We don’t believe in sacrificing one for the other as this ultimately benefits no one. On a team level, we love celebrating individual and team wins and – considering we live in all corners of the globe – we’re pretty tight-knit (we love our virtual borrels!).
“Our job is to make change. Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them“
Seth Godin
When our CEO, Richard Benesti, started Ciloo, he left off from the premise of “Never give up, learn and find ways to make things better”. Working for large corporations, he saw how people were treated within organizations and it just didn’t sit right. Even the companies that promoted being a great place to work, did not live up to their promises. He knew there had to be a better way. So he surrounded himself with a talented team and then created a product clients needed – all while nourishing a unique work culture based on happiness, self-awareness, and calm.
Fast forward to today and how we work has become deeply rooted in our brand and the products we deliver. We’re honored to be supporting many global teams with simplified solutions to extensive processes, providing them with more time to spend on what really matters – as it should be.