<aside> 🗣️ We design how we work as thoughtfully as we design our product. We believe that teams who work together in a cohesive way outperform the rest. That’s why we’ve thought hard about how we work at Oyster.

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You can think of How We Work as an outline of our company’s operating system. It’s our source of truth for internal communication processes, our goal system, our rituals, as well as some commonly adopted time management and efficiency practices.

This section is about How We Work together to achieve success and as we continue to grow and mature as a business. This document will grow and mature with us over time: we must embrace change as it comes.

One important thing to note is that this document focuses on company-wide and inter-departmental process, not on any specific team process. As we grow, teams develop their own ways of working together that may, to some extent, differ from what is in this document—and that’s fine.

The main focus here is to establish clear ways for teams to work with each other. We’re looking forward to the day when each team at Oyster has their own How We Work page.

If you're new to the Oyster team, we hope this gives you a better understanding of how the company operates and allows you to jump right into working at our global, distributed team.

🌍  Why is Oyster distributed?

To understand how we work together, we need to explain what distributed work is and what that means for us.

Oyster is a fully distributed company and has been from the start. We have no shared office that we travel to each day to work. Our team works from wherever they want: from home, from their favorite café or co-working space, or from a hut in the woods if they want (as long as there’s wifi!).

Our team is spread across 5 continents (and counting). We work together and serve our customers digitally. Distributed work is an approach to work, not just 'working from home.'

Here are some principles of distributed work:

✅  What is distributed work

• Hiring and working from all over the world instead of from one central location.
• Flexible working hours over set working hours.
• The results of work over the hours put in.
• Asynchronous communication over synchronous communication.
• Public sharing of information over need-to-know access.

❌  What distributed is not

• It does not mean alone. Teams should collaborate, communicate, and socialize together just as often as in co-located companies.
• It is not simply offshoring work. Rather, it is hiring around the world.
• It is not a cost-cutting exercise. It is a competitive advantage.

🦪  Advantages for Oyster

• Diversity of talent. We can hire designers in India, engineers in Argentina, and marketers in Germany. The diversity of thought this offers is a key competitive advantage for us.
• We are really productive. Not distracted, not in meetings, deliberate about how we spend our time, working where it makes the most sense for us.
• Empathy with our customers. We are right there with our customers. We work in the same way and experience the same things as they do. This allows us to develop the highest level of empathy with our customers and provide the best service possible.
• More agile workforce. We need to expand into Nigeria? No problem. Using our own global employment platform, we can easily expand our operations wherever in the world we want.
• We are more resilient. Bad weather, public transport strikes, pandemics. Our operations are shielded from these factors. Our business is decentralized with no single point of failure, allowing us to continue working and serving our customers.
• We are more eco-friendly. Oyster is a mission-driven company, founded to help people around the world. We view the environment as part of our mission and being a distributed company allows us to reduce the impact we have on the planet. Zero-commute jobs mean less traveling, less congestion, and less environmental impact.
• We’re attractive to talent. The best people are not looking for just a fat paycheck anymore. They want purpose, autonomy, and flexibility. Distributed working provides that.

💪  Advantages for our team

• Flexibility and balance. Pick up your kids when you want. Sleep in. Walk your dog at lunch time.
• Autonomy. Choose your own hours, as long as you deliver things on time.