What it takes to achieve the Oneness in your team culture

Before jumping into the mighty swing of things of the Oneness, let’s take it back a little. 

Last year, the journey toward the Oneness started with creating something new and fresh for our new advertising campaign. But since we pride ourselves on thinking outside the box, we thought about the possibilities of a whole new world of work. Why go back to normal when we can reimagine a whole new future of the workplace?

That is what we did with the Oneness. We wanted to combine the importance of business metrics, data, and the daily execution of things at work while prioritizing being human and making work a happier place. 

Because working happier is possible. Let me show you!

Why should you want to achieve the Oneness?

Society says that burnout and staying in the daily grind are the right way of doing things. Work harder than the person next to you. Put your head down and just work. Are those things supposed to be the norm? At Front, we believe a balanced dose of grind and happiness isn’t far-fetched. In fact, that’s what the Oneness entails. 

Achieving the Oneness looks a little like this:

1. Putting humans first

2. Working happier

3. Fresh balance of automation and human interaction 

4. Asynchronous collaboration 

Is the Oneness a fantasy? Well, maybe, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s an opportunity to heighten your state of work. To keep work a place of business but a place where happiness is accepted and created by first creating a place where collaboration and transparency are prioritized within a team culture. 

The starting point of this is the hard part. What’s stopping teams from achieving the Oneness are silos. 

Silos — the enemy of the Oneness

Teamwork makes the dream work. In this case, it makes the Oneness work, but teams struggle to make this happen because of team silos. 

Information falls through the cracks, messages are passed around with no full understanding of what is needed, and the result is teams not communicating effectively. 

Instead of sharing context for the betterment of the team(s), cross-team collaboration is nonexistent, and in a way, lines of communication are being blocked and the success of the team is being hindered. 

Not to worry, Front has a way of breaking down team silos. And you guessed it, it’s the Oneness.

How we break down silos at Front to achieve the Oneness

With Front, teams can deliver unmatched service for their customers while keeping collaboration a priority so teammates can work together, share context and keep free from silos. 

Here’s how we break down silos at Front

1. Transparency

2. Collaboration

3. Reduce notifications and  noise 

Let’s see how these look in a team function. 

Transparency 

You will find that your team will start to build a greater sense of trust, and it will set a foundation for transparent work culture. At Front, we believe everyone gets access to the information they need, and we have seen that open communication becomes more frequent and natural throughout a team when done correctly. Here are a couple of ways how we show transparency at Front:

Sharing goals and openly reporting on progress

• We set OKRs on a quarterly basis. Teams and individuals are able to create, report, and share the results at the end of every quarter for full transparency. 

• Weekly all hands where we share important company metrics like revenue and opportunities. 

• In-depth discussion from CEO on quarterly results, what went well, and what we can do better. 

Encourage questions and have open communication

• Employees are invited to ask questions to Front leaders and are answered at the end of All hand meetings

• After every board meeting, decks are shared with employees, and the CEO shares candid feedback from board members. 

Collaboration 

We believe in collaboration being intentional. While we want human interaction to be at the heart of this, we stand by asynchronous collaboration. So much so that we believe that the future of collaboration is asynchronous. This will mean teammates’ time to do the work will have to be respected, and the teammates themselves be trusted that their work will be complete. Here are a few unique ways the Front team collaborates together across departments:

Choosing the best way to communicate

We have three different communication methods at Front: message, email, meeting. Before sending one we encourage team members to think about three things

1. The speed of the response you need

2. The type of idea you’re sharing

3. The response you expect to come from it

These questions are just in place for our team members to work and collaborate more efficiently. This process has become second nature because we respect our employee’s time and workloads. 

Reduce notifications and noise 

You can get a lot of work done when you don’t have to worry about pings and flashes going off across your face every minute. Employees are open to turning off all notifications or choosing them wisely. We have found that this empowers our employees to take control of their day rather than letting notifications dictate the pace of the workday. Our CEO is obsessed with efficiency. So much so we even started a #NoNotification challenge. Our team has run with it ever since she gave us the idea.

What does the Oneness look like for your team?

Now that you have an idea of what the Oneness is, how do you think it would fit your culture? How we achieve the Oneness within our culture might differ from how your team achieves theirs. But nonetheless, some of the most important results remain the same:

1. Putting humans first

2. Working happier

3. Breaking down silos

Want to learn more about how we created the Oneness? Check it out here. I believe you’ll be inspired to create your own!