Livestorm is a video communications platform that helps some of the most renown companies (Intercom, Notion, Verizon) create, host, and analyze online events. It’s also a Series B company that has successfully scaled its team 4-fold.
With a central office in Paris, like other organizations, Livestorm faced the question: “Which working model and workstyles work for us?”
Sounds like a familiar the challenge, eh? Which is why we sat down with Laure Saintpierre, Employee Experience Manager at Livestorm, to dive into the topic of workplace flexibility in times of change. She breaks down how, in a period of hyper-growth, her team was able to organize team collaboration and set up a flexible hybrid model that works for Stormies.
"There hasn't been an impact on the size of our office, we've just adapted our operations."
Keep flexibility first
Livestorm is a remote-first workplace, meaning that each of its collaborators can choose their place of work and change as often as they want. Whether teammates want to work in the 🏢 Paris headquarters, in a 💼 co-working space, or in the comfort of 🏡 their homes, Laure explains, “Livestorm's top priority is that teammates can do so in a healthy work environment.”
We created our new policy after COVID-19 quarantines rocked the world. Luckily for us, remote work was already in our DNA with many of our very first contributors joining us remotely 🌍
"Today we are remote-first, which means improved flexibility for everyone on the team!"
Clarify your role as a leader
Shifting to a new way of work presented Livestorm with challenges they’d never faced before.
For example, cross-team coordination wouldn’t happen organically. Simply put, people didn’t know who would be in the office when, resulting in either a ghosted workplace or office jungle.
Laure realized that Stormies needed a way to coordinate that's simple, easy, and enabled visibility to the whole team. She also recognized, the role that her team needed to play was in helping employees easily find each other in or out of the office – all the while, maintaining a flexible-first culture.
“We wanted to create an environment where, if people wanted or needed to meet up and work together, they have the visibility to do so.”
Everyone can now define their schedule in advance and specify by half-day precision, to maintain agile and reliable communication.
Prioritize IRL connection
As Livestorm navigated it’s transition from forced full-remote to a flexible-hybrid model, it became clear that maintaining team cohesion through IRL connections was a priority. Which is why it became necessary to offer the possibility to be together in the same place at the same time.
This is especially important now, as a Gartner study found that more-connected workers perform at a higher level than others (by as much as 37%) and are 36% more likely to stay with the organization.
But the next question became, “How do we ensure that these organic meetups are happening without it feeling too forced or curated?" It’s simple, enable people to own their schedules, as well as the discovery of new relationships based on shared interests.
"My biggest goal is to keep the link between all of the teams. Even if we are operating remotely, we can still create special moments between Stormies with the help of tools like Café!" 🤝
Provide opportunities for discovery
This was something Livestorm was able to provide with Café. People could not only discover the interests of other team members, but easily coordinate casual meetups and build relationships with people outside their immediate teams. Highlight who's open for a drink after work to increase organic gatherings and create serendipity.
"Café is great because I can see exactly who is planning on being in the office in advance. It's makes it easier to coordinate the team, AND meet new colleagues!"
We look forward to continuing to support Livestorm and others on their hybrid work journey!
More about Café
At Café, we truly believe the future of work is Hybrid. Because of that, we enable employees to shape their hybrid work styles with flexibility, transparency, and interest-based connections at the forefront of each social interaction. We help hybrid and remote first companies increase workplace connectivity and build efficient, flexible and thriving cultures.
You can try Café for free
More about Livestorm
Livestorm is an all-in-one platform that helps companies build powerful video communication strategies. Livestorm allows online event organizers and their teams to have everything they need, in one place 👨🏻💻
Learn more about companies building people-first cultures
- Veepee: Crafting a successful return to office policy
- Playpug: Building a Hybrid culture in a shared workplace
- Team Vitality: Customize workplace experience with Café public API
