Our values

Timezynk’s core values are 🤝 Collaboration, 📈 Results, 📖 Openness, ⛰️ Integrity, 🌐 Diversity and 👣 Iteration. The values color our everyday work, the culture within the team, how we prioritize issues and features and how we communicate internally and externally.

🤝 Collaboration

Helping others is a priority, even when it is not immediately related to the goals that you are trying to achieve. Similarly, you can rely on others for help and advice—in fact, you’re expected to do so. Anyone can chime in on any subject, including people who don’t work at Timezynk. This also means that we collaborate with our customers to make the system work in the best possible way for them and help them solve issues even if the problem lies outside of Timezynk. We also invite our customers to collaborate with us on our product vision, product planning and user experience.

Kindness

We value caring for others. Demonstrating we care for people provides an effective framework for challenging directly and delivering feedback. Give as much positive feedback as you can, and do it in a public way.

Share

Share problems you run into, ask for help, be forthcoming with information and speak up. Share solutions you come up with and be willing to invest in people and engage in open dialogue.

Everyone can remind anyone in the company about our values. If there is a disagreement about the interpretations, the discussion can be escalated to more people within the company without repercussions

Assume positive intent

Assume that your colleagues, partners and customers have spoken and acted out of a positive intent, even if the outcome was not desirable. Regardless of what you discover, understand and truly believe that everyone did the best they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.

Negative feedback is 1-1

Give negative feedback in the smallest setting possible. One-on-one video calls are preferred. If you are unhappy with anything (your duties, your colleague, your boss, your salary, your location, your computer), please let your boss, or the CEO, know as soon as you realize it. We want to solve problems while they are small.

Negative feedback is distinct from negativity and disagreement. If there is no direct feedback involved, strive to discuss disagreement in a public channel, respectfully and transparently. We willl with negative all the time at Timezynk. If it’s not a problem, then why are we discussing it? If you want to get better, you talk about what you can improve. We’re allowed to publicly discuss negative things; we’re not allowed to give negative feedback in a large setting if it could be feasibly administered in a smaller setting.

Say thanks publicly

Give positive feedback and thanks publicly, for example in one of the public slack channels or the weekly humble brag threads.

Say sorry

If you made a mistake, apologize as soon as possible. Saying sorry is not a sign of weakness but one of strength. The people that do the most work will likely make the most mistakes. Additionally, when we share our mistakes and bring attention to them, others can learn from us, and the same mistake is less likely to be repeated by someone else. Mistakes can include when you have not been kind to someone. In order to reinforce our values, it is important, and takes more courage, to apologize publicly when you have been unkind publicly.

See others succeed

Help and want each other to succeed and selflessly contribute to each others and our customers success.

Don’t let each other fail

Keep an eye out for others who may be struggling or stuck. If you see someone who needs help, reach out and assist, or connect them with someone else who can provide expertise or assistance. We succeed and shine together!

People are not their work

Always make suggestions about examples of work, not the person. Say “You didn’t respond to my feedback about the design” instead of “You never listen”. And, when receiving feedback, keep in mind that feedback is the best way to improve, and that others giving you feedback want to see you succeed.

📈 Results

Good results is what enables us to keep doing what we do and keep living our culture and values. Do what we have promised our colleagues, customers, partners and investors.

Measure results not hours

Despite us building a system for scheduling and timereporting, we value results over working hours. We care about what you did, the colleague you helped, the customer you made happy. If you are not feeling like you can make good results and need to take the afternoon of then you should feel good about that and know it will help you get better results another day. If you are working too many hours, talk to your manager or the CEO and discuss solutions.

Dogfooding

We use our own product. Our whole organization uses Timezynk for scheduling, timereporting and payroll. When using our own product we are more likely to notice problems or workflows that are too cumbersome or time consuming.

Local decisions

Make decisions as close to the people affected by the problem or doing the solution as possible. The best solutions and results are acheived when the persons who has the most information and means to create the solutions are also the ones deciding on which solution to choose. It is inefficient to involve a management if they don’t have information to contribute. When making decisions keep our values and goals in mind.

Goals and results

State an the results we are to acheive in writing openly and available for the whole team to see. Check how the result supports our goals and values.

Sort for action

We believe that it is better to take an action, than to overanalyse the problem and get stuck in paralysis. If we take an action, we can see the result and if the action was wrong this enables us to change course quicker and with more information. For this to work, it is important to have an idea about the desired outcome of an action and a way to measure if we are moving closer to the outcome or further away.

Be proud of your results

Share your results and actions with your colleagues and be proud of what we acheive together.

Customer results

Ultimately our products purpose is to get better results for our customers. We acheive this with both our product, our customer support, our customer trainings, custom development and integrations. Customer results are more important than

• Our own plans. If customers are having issues or are not acheiving results, that is more important than adding previously planned features.
• Large customers. Too much focus on a single large customer is not allowed to hurt the results of all our small and medium size customers.
• What customers ask for. Sometimes customers will ask for a feature, that puts a band-aid on their problems rather then helping them acheive results. Prioritize solving underlying issues and improve our customers efficiency.
• Our assumptions. Conversly, what we assume about how the customers are using the system and what they need can be wrong. Every customer works differently so we must validate our solutions with more than one customer to ensure that it is helping as many as possible.
• What is our fault. We will take action on customer problems, even when our system or our support is not the cause of the problem and help the customer acheive the result.

📖 Openness

Openness means that we will be transparent and honest about information by default. By being open we can make collaboration easier and create awareness about our goals and values. This also means being open with our customers about what we can and cannot solve.

Communicate your boundaries

Be open with your colleagues and our customers about what your can and want to do and what is not possible, feasible or reasonable to do. Be honest about which problems you or the product can help the customer solve, and where we cannot meet their goals or where their goals are better met by changing the customers internal processes or introducing another system.

Write things down

Information that is only in your head or only spoken in a meeting cannot be found again and can easily change. Write things down in the handbook, in issues, in the CRM system, in the Wiki and in meeting notes.

Directness

Being direct means being open and honest with each other. We try to mix openness and straighforward feedback with kindness to both say what we mean while being clear that this feedback is about your work and not about your person.

Speak up

We value dissent and discussion. If someone does not agree on a topic or decision, but does not speak up then the whole team will lose out on their perspective and feedback. Share you perspective rather than being quiet or agreeing simply to avoid conflict or discussion.

Open about changing your mind

Be open and articulate when you change your mind. It is OK and encouraged to change your opinion or support a different stance after you have seen new data or gotten new experiences. Tell the others about the previous opinion and the current opinion to make the context clear.

Anyone and anything can be questioned

Any past decisions and guidelines are open to questioning as long as you act in accordance with them until they are changed.

Findability

Being open with information only works if it is easy to find and there is only a single authorative truth. Think about how the information needs to flow and who needs to see it. Post important issues and MRs that need review or testing in slack so that the relevant stakeholders are alerted. Add important information about our ways of working to the handbook and add technical guides or details to the Wiki.

⛰️ Integrity

Integrity means that we will stand up for our values and our vision. That we will conduct ourselves and our business in a way we can be proud of. That we will do what we believe is right, rather than doing what is cheap or what most quickly will bring us money.

Do the right thing

Do the right thing even if nobody asks it from you. Give employees information about their rights and benefits. Work with local autorities and unions to uphold and strengthen the them. Give the customer the best option for their needs and budget. Be kind and welcome team members or customers back if they want to leave for some reason.

Trust

Trust your colleagues, our suppliers, partners and customers. We build this into our system by making features that help the managers and employees of our customers build trust together through open communication and openly shared data around changes, reports and updates. We will think carefully before introducing features where the primary intent is control or surveillance and make sure that the users integrity and perspective is protected and valued.

Ownership

Take ownership of your work and assume that our colleagues, partners and customers are doing the same. You are responsible for overcoming the challenges the work may present and responsible for asking for help if you need others to move forward.

🌐 Diversity

Diversity means we embrace that we are all different and that this will help us get more perspectives, learn more and acheive better results while also having more fun. Timezynk should be designed as a place where people from every background, culture and circumstance feel like they belong and can contribute. We build and internalize a culture that is inclusive and supports all team members. We hire globally and work to make everyone feel welcome and to strengthen the voice of underrepresented minorities and nationalities.

Prioritize asynchronous communication

Choose and design ways to collaborate asynchronously whenever possible. This shows respect and care for people who work in other time zones, who needs blocks of undisturbed time to be productive, or who structure their working day in a different way. This is demonstrated by considering if a meeting could be replaced by some other form of communication. If a meeting is held we ensure that there is an agenda, a way to submit questions or input beforehand and meeting notes sent out afterwards so that people can contribute even if they cannot participate. We also prefer creating Issues and Merge requests to communicate work to be done and work that needs discussion and review rather than making calls or sending slack messages.

Create a safe space

Be mindful of how you communicate and strive to make meetings and communication channels a safe space for everyone. Everyone at Timezynk is entitled to a safe working environment where they can express who they are and participate in discussions without any worry about being spoken to or spoken about in a harmful way. Be mindful of the potential impact of how you communicate.

We do not make jokes or unfriendly remarks about the characteristics or expressions of the people who make up Timezynk and our customers. We do not tolerate abuse, harassment, exclusion, discrimination, or retaliation by/of team members or customers. You can always refuse to deal with people who treat you badly and get out of situations that make you feel uncomfortable.

Neurodiversity

Neurodiversity is a type of diversity that includes: autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, cognitive impairment, and other styles of neurodivergent functioning. While neurodivergent individuals often bring unique skills and abilities, neurodivergent individuals are often discriminated against, and sometimes have trouble making it through traditional hiring processes. These individuals should be able to contribute as Timezynk team members. The handbook, values, strategy, and interviewing process should never discriminate against the neurodivergent.

Inclusive language and pronouns

Be mindful of using inclusive language. Prefer gender neutral terms and greetings and if you need to talk about a person, use their correct pronouns. If you don’t know which pronouns to use, just ask the person themselves or someone who has asked the person before. If you make a mistake, quickly correct yourself and move on.

Inclusive meetings

Be consciously inclusive in meetings by giving everyone present an opportunity to talk and present their points of view. This can be especially important in a remote setting. Make an agenda for the meeting, even if the agenda only contains a few points. For most meetings it is good to have a shared document where participants can add questions in advance and where meeting notes can be documented until they are merged to the place where the information belongs (handbook, issue, merge request, wiki). Always start meetings with a check-in where every participant get to say something about their state today without further questions asked, so that they can share only what they are comfortable with.

Values are more important than culture

We hire candidates and collaborate around our shared values, not a shared culture. When recruiting, the important part is that the candidate shares our values not that we would want to hang out or go for a drink with them or that they are similar to ourselves.

Make family feel welcome

Working remotely means we get a view into each others homes. If it fits the feel of the meeting, feel welcome to invite family members or pets to drop by and say hi. Be mindful during meetings to use language that will not offend anyone overhearing the conversation. Also be understanding if a team member or customer needs to reschedule a planned activity to take care of a family member or pet.

👣 Iteration

Iteration means taking small steps towards the goals and rather keep moving than staying still waiting for a moment to take a huge leap. It means finding the smallest solutions to a problem and then keep improving it. Trust that you’ll know better how to proceed after something is released. You’re doing it right if you’re slightly embarrassed by the minimal feature set shipped in the first iteration.

This requires work and discomfort to put into practice. People are trained that if you don’t deliver a perfect or polished thing, you get dinged for it. If you do just one piece of something, you have to come back to it. Doing the whole thing seems more efficient, even though it isn’t. The way to resolve this is to write down only what you can do with the time you have for this project right now. That might be 5 minutes or 2 hours. Think of what you can complete in that time that would improve the current situation. Iteration can be uncomfortable, even painful. If you’re doing iteration correctly, it should be. Reverting work back to a previous state is positive, not negative. We’re quickly getting feedback and learning from it. Making a small change prevented a bigger revert and made it easier to revert. People might ask why something was not perfect. In that case, mention that it was an iteration, you spent only “x” amount of time on it, and that the next iteration will contain “y” and be ready on “z”.

Limit the scope

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Avoid feature creeping. Keep the scope small. Move extra improvements and ideas into later iterations.

Start with smaller impact

Expose the new feature, campaign or marketing material to a smaller audience first and do gradual rollouts. Use feature flags, targets groups or specific URLs to control the rollout.

Focus on improvement

Ask customers, colleagues and partners what can be improved and focus on how we can make things better with the next iteration.

Make small merge requests

When making changes to code or the handbook keep the change as small as possible. Make sure unrelated changes are split up into two or more merge requests.