The Leaf Handbook exists to help describe how we work, how we think, and what's important to us. You'll inevitably have questions, both upon joining us and throughout your employment, and we'll do our best to answer as many of them as possible.
The Handbook is a collaborative document, and like Leaf as a collective, we want everyone to feel part of it. If you think we're missing a key topic or have got something completely wrong, we want you to help drive that change.
All new employees start on a probationary period of three months, giving both parties a chance to see whether or not we're a match; it's better to discover we're not a match on our third date, rather than when we're walking down the isle.
During this period, both parties have the right to end the arrangement, which if triggered, would end with the employee being paid for work undertaken up to that point.
We're not huge on complicated or overly prescriptive job descriptions, but we'll ensure you have a good handle on the roles you're going to be asked to perform regularly.
Being such a small studio, there may be times you're asked to muck in with jobs that fall outside of this remit; we see this variance as a positive, allowing for fresh perspectives and new skills to be formed.
We work 37.5 hour weeks at Leaf, but are flexible with when those are worked. For example, you could work a standard 9am-5:30pm with an hour break for lunch every day, or chunk your day up into 3 stretches so you can get a gym session and dog walk in, or even start and finish later so you can sleep in. These are all fine.
Whatever your normal routine, we do ask that you communicate deviations from it ahead of time, so everyone knows what's going on. For example, if your best friend is in town and asked if you want to hang out for a few hours, that's fine, but let people know the day before, rather than announcing it to everyone right as you to head out.
First and foremost, we're a remote organisation; your primary work place is likely to be a home studio or a local co-working space, but hopefully not the living room sofa!
From time-to-time, we may ask that you base yourself in Canterbury for the day; working in the same physical space comes with its own benefits, and it's good to see each other face-to-face every now and again. Another possibility is that we ask you to temporarily base yourself at a client's workplace; this could be periodically (e.g. once a week), or it may be for a burst of days during a project.
We'll always consult you in advance of any such arrangements, and will do our best to give you as much notice as possible.
One of the perks of being a remote company is that most of the time, you can wear whatever you like; no ironing, a single wardrobe, and at the end of the day, who doesn't like working in their pyjamas?
On days where you are going to be client-facing, smart/casual is usually the way to go. Thankfully, these a few and far between, leaving you to wear whatever you please.
Anyone can create something; creating the right thing is a lot harder. Software exists to solve problems, and understanding exactly who is experiencing those problems is key to providing the correct solution.
Humans are imperfect, with a range of abilities, emotions, and personalities. By designing products with real people in mind, we're able to create something that has a genuinely positive impact on the World.
"None of us is as smart as all of us."
– Ken H Blanchard
Wading through monotonous, proscriptive tasks on autopilot isn't how any of us want to spend our days; each member of the team is given the autonomy and trust to shape anything from a client project to the company itself.
Learning to instinctively ask 'why?' is one of the most powerful skills you'll ever learn. If you're unsure of something, it's probably not the one at fault. If something's confusing to you, it probably is confusing.
By thinking critically and taking nothing at face value, you'll uncover answers to questions you didn't know needed to be answered.
"I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things."
– Mother Teresa
Whilst every company have their own interpretation of a good hire, we stubbornly take on only those who we feel are truly special individuals. The upshot of such an inflexible approach is that your teammates are all pretty wonderful at what they do.
No one person has all of the answers, and we're better together than we are as individuals. Every single one of the team brings something different to the table, and leaning on them when you can will benefit everyone.
– "A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life."
― Charles Darwin
Time is of course finite, and it's important to make the most of what we do have. By embracing time as our one true commodity, we're forced to focus first on the most important and impactful problems that need solving.
Honesty is as essential to working efficiently, both individually and collaboratively. We never want anyone to feel like they have anything to hide; if you're in a pickle, we're here to help you, not to judge.
Ok, so work won't always be like a day out at Legoland, but we want everyone to feel like they're getting more out of their job than they're putting in. If you don't feel like that's the case, be open with us about where you're struggling, and we'll do our best to help resolve any issues within our power.
We've detailed how we go about our work and interactions with clients in The SIMPLE Workflow.
Our tools of choice help the team work more efficiently and more collaboratively. Everyone will have tools that aid their own personal workflows, but our primary toolkit provides the backbone to everything we do.
As a remote company, keeping the team feeling connected is paramount, and Slack is our office. Internal communications, from talking shop to talking shit, go through Slack.
Basecamp is our go-to project management tool, and is used for managing both internal and client projects. Basecamp helps us increase accountability, improves client-communications, and keeps everyone looped and on the same page.
Wherever possible, we lean on the Google Apps suite:
- Mail keeps us connected with the outside World and non-project-related client communications
- Calendar is essential for client-scheduling
- Drive stores team-specific files and documentation in the cloud
- Docs allows the team to collaborate on anything content-based
- Sheets helps us plan, review or crunch numbers
Anything used primarily by our design team is outlined in the designer's handbook.
Any engineering tools used extensively at Leaf are listed developer's handbook.
As a remote team, our ability to function efficiently and effectively hangs largely on how well we communicate with one another. We believe the key to well-oiled remote communications is in the visibility of discussions, decisions, and outcomes.
Thoughtful long-form updates are often more useful than rushed or ill-considered real-time updates. The underlying expectation of immediate responses only leads to half-baked answers and interrupted focus.
Beyond formatting and tooling, we want everyone to be accountable for their own communications; when they're done badly, it simply makes more work for others, either in seeking clarification, or worse when misinterpretations are acted on. Seek to find any gaps in what you've written, rather than wait for gaps to appear further down the line.
Finally, try to avoid sending any kind of updates outside of work hours. A 7pm update may be best for you, but that notification may drag others back into work-mode. If possible, hold back from messaging the team at the very start or end of the working day too, where communications stand the highest chance of being missed.
As a general rule-of-thumb, if it's related to a piece of client-work (and for the purposes of this guideline, consider Leaf a client too), it should go in Basecamp. Basecamp's synchronous nature provides a window into our thinking and thought-processes, an opportunity for others to join or follow the conversation in their own time, and team-wide clarity on what was decided, and why.
If you have an announcement or an idea, the Message Board is generally the right place to go. Conversely, if you have a task that you need help with, create a task in the appropriate To-dos area, or ask a question in an existing To-dos thread.
Whatever the topic, be it an idea, an update, or a task, Basecamp's commenting features give us reliable, relevant places to discuss, critique, and question, right within its own context.
From daily greetings to pet updates, Slack is ultimately our water-cooler area, intended to be used to keep the team feeling connected during the working day.
Beyond salutations and dog-pics, Slack is still the right tool for quick questions between folks where the answer is of no value to anyone else. If anything does start organically in Slack and become useful, move the conversation to Basecamp, building a paper-trail and providing visibility to others.
Completing our trifecta of communication options is video conferencing. Video calls are perfect for anything that needs either a tonne of fleshing out, lots of back-and-forth, or a whole lot of context and scene-setting.
Slack calls are usually the best bet for impromptu conversations, and Hangouts more suitable for calls scheduled ahead of time.
If the call is related to a client-project, and is of value to others in the team (i.e. you weren't fixing someone's local build process), write-up your notes in Basecamp, ensuring they’re clear and detailed enough to still be useful if someone dips back into the conversation 3-6 months later.
While there will always be exceptions, this table provides guidelines for how different tools should be used to communicate internally:
| Example | Location | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| An announcement introducing a new client. | Message Board (category: Announcement) | Basecamp |
| An update of the task you’re working on. | To-dos thread | Basecamp |
| An idea you’ve had for a new feature or approach to a project. | Message Board (category: Pitch) | Basecamp |
| A question related to the task you’re working on. | To-dos thread | Basecamp |
| A question related to the client project. | Message Board (category: Question) | Basecamp |
| A request for design or engineering help on a non-urgent problem. | To-dos | Basecamp |
| A request for design or engineering help on an urgent, progress-stopping problem. | Appropriate client channel | Slack |
| A request for an individual’s email address. | Appropriate client channel | Slack |
| Checking whether others are seeing the same issue as you. | Appropriate client channel | Slack |
| Sharing a photo of your dog wearing a punkin waistcoat at Halloween. | #general | Slack |
| Sharing a photo of someone else's dog wearing a punkin waistcoat at Halloween. | #random | Slack |
| A request for design input on a project that the designer is unfamiliar with. | - | Slack call |
| A routine weekly catch-up. | - | Hangouts |
We use Harvest to track our billable activity at work.
Since we rarely take on fixed-cost work, we typically issue a monthly invoice to our clients. It's not uncommon for clients to request a breakdown of where these hours have gone along with their invoice. Tracking what we spend our time on is an easy way for us to provide this.
Tracking time also helps us when it comes to our end of year financial statements, as some of our activity is tax-deductible to a certain extent. Having these records makes the process of claiming this tax back much easier.
Keep in mind, we do not expect employees to log exactly 37.5 hours of billable time in Harvest every week. We understand that the actual amount of work you get done week to week varies, and that there are other parts of your job that take time from your working day.
It is important, however, that we understand where non-billable time is going so we know how we can improve. If you're blocked on all billable work, have an appointment, or otherwise have something that's taking up significant time in your day, just add it under the Leaf -> Admin -> General section in Harvest so we can assess whether there are ways we can improve our effectiveness.
Harvest allows you to enter multiple tasks in a single day, and it's good practice to track these tasks individually. Use Harvest to create a new entry for each new activity you need to track; for example, a client meeting or conference call would be tracked as a separate item from development on their application.
If you can't find the client, project, or task you need to track, raise it with Chris or Mike, and they'll amend Harvest.
Harvest provides a mechanism for adding descriptions to an entry via the Add notes field. Use good descriptions that will make sense to both us and a client; for example, "Writing automated tests for the new referrals feature", rather than "Tests".
The day is full of distractions, and sometimes you'll be stopped in your tracks while a timer is running. If you're not going to be working on something for more than a couple of minutes, simply pause your timer, and start it again when you're ready to pick the task back up.
From time to time, you'll either forget to start a timer, or you'll leave one running at the end of the working day. If either of these happen, you can retroactively edit your time entries and descriptions with Harvest. If something's gone wrong, don't be afraid to change it; just do your best in estimating the correct entry.
1:1s are a 30 minute informal call every 2 weeks between you and your manager. They provide an opportunity to find out how you are, and give even the smallest grievance a chance to be heard. Use your 1:1 as an opportunity to:
- Discuss how you're feeling.
- Discuss how your work has been going.
- Surface any specific problems or challenges.
- Highlight any triumphs or learnings.
- Check your progress against your 6 monthly performance goals.
- Talk about anything else related to you and your role at Leaf.
The purpose of the 1:1 is to make sure nothing important goes unaddressed or unnoticed so you're as satisfied with your work as possible. You needn't do any significant prepartion for your 1:1, but do come with things to talk about even if it's just an "all clear" on the above bullet points.
Performance reviews are a formal opportunity for us to collectively take a look at your past, and your future, with Leaf. They're a 6-monthly meeting in which we collectively talk about what you've been doing, where we collectively think your strengths lie and where we collectively think your development opportunities are.
The outcome of your performance review should be joint agreement on a plan for the next 6 months for your own personal development, that aligns with where Leaf is headed as a business. This plan is comprised of a few (typically 1 to 4) 6-month goals, which can either be building upon a strength, improving on a development opportunity, or even introducing something completely new.
Your 6-month goals should be:
- Aligned to your personal development interests, and Leaf's interests as a business.
- Achievable within 6 months, or before your next review. Don't take on too much.
- Measurable, either tangibly or anecdotally. Either way there should be evidence to support your achievement at your next review.
This all sounds very serious, but don't worry, it's very much your plan. If a goal doesn't work out for you, we can just talk through the reasons why at your next review and course-correct from there.
The performance review is always a face-to-face meeting, and will be with your manager; either Chris or Mike. In the meeting, you and your manager should come prepared with answers to the following questions:
How are you feeling about yourself and your work? Have things been easy or hard? Have you learned a lot or not? Are there any non-work related issues you'd like to discuss?
Just some brief headlines on things you've been working on, more detailed than just a list of client or project names, but doesn't need to detail every little change. If you had some goals set in your previous review, how have you progressed on against those? These just provide some reference points for discussion.
What have you enjoyed about your job? This could be anything.
What aspects of your job haven't you enjoyed so much. Again, it could be anything.
What do you think you're doing well, either through hard work and focus or natural ability. This could be anything, but please come prepared to provide examples.
Where do you think you could develop yourself professionally to improve your skill-set and performance? Again, this could be anything.
Lastly, you may also want to consider some ideas for goals, although these will be worked on properly together with your manager during the meeting.