Remote but Reachable

Back in September 2021, we launched a new approach to working at Luno: Remote but Reachable. This means that Lunauts will come together “in-person” at least once per quarter, although our workplaces are open for them to use as often as they want.

The purpose of Remote but Reachable is to embed all of the parts of the work experience that we have come to value over the last two years (wow, it really has been two years now!) into a permanent, post-pandemic world; the flexibility, the lack of commute, the additional time spent with families or passion projects, the more deliberate, thoughtful interactions with each other, as well as what we miss - being together physically.

It took us a while to commit to our longer term approach. Indeed, the last two years have seen us all lurch from an adrenaline-fuelled dash for toilet roll at the start of the pandemic; parents hastily stepping into the role of home-schooler; teammates adapting to life working at home in the midst of a pandemic, through to feelings of languishing; joy; listliness, feeling like “we’ve got this” and settling into a new routine, the dreaded 'new normal'.

It’s precisely because of all of these different phases of the pandemic that we took our time, Luno, and the way we work has evolved, and mindsets and contextual factors change often! And now, six months in from launching Remote but Reachable, we are reviewing every element of our Lunaut experience to understand what is working well and what we still need to tweak and improve.

What we have seen, as fundamental to our success, is that we operate from a “principles-first” perspective, which means designing our approach to work into something that is right for our long term success. So when designing our approach, we didn’t want to commit to decisions that could have long-term implications, in the midst of a pandemic when life was changing almost daily, and now, six months in we are validating whether the decisions we took still stand up to those principles.

We spent months listening to our Lunauts and leaders, often going back and forth over small but important details and edge cases, and approached this project from three angles: our guiding principles, leadership insights and Lunaut feedback via our internal surveys.

The guiding principles set the foundation for Remote but Reachable, and will help us to continue to iterate the experience; they are our moral compass and support our Moontality (values). So what are they?

• We trust our Lunauts – in essence we trust people to be able to do their work effectively, anywhere and we know there is no one-size-fits-all approach to where we each work best.

• We value in-person connection – we believe that Lunauts spending some proportion of their time in-person with each other is incredibly important to both Luno and Lunauts. Not because we believe work is done better in person, but because our business is built on the strength of our relationships with each other.

• We value consistency – Remote but Reachable means that working outside of a Luno workplace becomes the default working option for the majority of Lunauts, the majority of the time, rather than something that is agreed by exception or on an occasional basis. We want to ensure that everyone, regardless of their working preferences, has an equal opportunity to develop, grow their career and contribute to the success of Luno.

• We keep it simple – By having the same set of principles for all Lunauts, with the same level of flexibility and minimum expectations of in-person connection we are applying simplicity to what is an incredibly complex world.

• We will learn and adapt – There is a lot for us to figure out in creating a Remote but Reachable Luno business. We are comfortable admitting what we don’t know. We will act with humility and will continue to listen to our teams and apply our collective intelligence to solving hard problems!

Now that we have had Remote but Reachable for six months, what have we learned?

• We really do value in person connection, and are being creative in what this looks like. From renewed emphasis on regional team socials (remote and in person), to walks together, team socials or lunches near to where we live. We realise that being together doesn't always mean being together in the office.

• Different teams are finding their own routines. Some teams, or regions, are experimenting with being together in person more frequently, sometimes because there are a lot of Newnauts (new starters) in the team and the team feels onboarding is a better experience when more time is spent together, or simply that is just their working preference, whereas other teams have a less frequent cadence. At the moment, there is no one size fits all. Unsurprising perhaps, but something we are keeping a close eye on.

• Great communication is not easy! It's challenging as a globally distributed, fast scaling business at the best of times, so we are prioritising engaging, remote-first communication, and really distilling information into key messages which we repeat, repeat, repeat to reduce the noise across all of our communication channels.

• We have to be deliberate about building opportunities for connecting with Lunauts outside of our cross-functional teams. The relationships and networks built pre-Covid over the canteen tables, or coffee machines, and which hold real value, we want to ensure are still built in a Remote but Reachable world. Whether that is donut pairings or groups, virtual Lunch on Luno Fridays, our onboarding buddy system or things we haven't yet thought of, building company wide relationships is still important.

Building a successful company where the default is not the office 9-5 comes with a lot of challenges but also a lot of opportunities to build something even better than what came before. We are committed to building a consistently amazing employee culture irrespective of working preferences, where Lunauts can positively contribute to our ambitions and grow their own career equally. Work can definitely work better!