We knew it was only the beginning of our 4-day offsite when we boarded the train to Brittany. But little did we know it was only the beginning of our foray into strange and delightful vehicles.

Our hotel was on the coastal path, offering a beautiful sea view from the restaurant lounge. It could have been enough—but would it have been worth it had the offsite been too demanding on our team members? At Meili, we believe in prioritizing the well-being of our employees. As a [mainly remote company](__GHOST_URL__/remote-work-is-the-future-of-work/), the offsite is more than a break in our daily routine. It’s also the chance to meet all the team members who could make it in real life. However, we believe it’s our responsibility as a company to provide a safe environment to everyone, especially during offsites. Our core values are carefully reflected each step of the way, structurally and from workshops to team-building activities.

Upholding our values during an offsite
--------------------------------------

At Meilisearch, [we are committed to upholding our values](__GHOST_URL__/advice-on-answering-interview-questions-about-values/). We are constantly striving to improve on an individual and organizational level. An offsite is a perfect opportunity to educate ourselves collectively on skills that are important to us.

On our second day during this offsite, we attended a workshop about unconscious bias. We believe all companies must be watchful of these stereotypes; they can affect how we recruit, include, and support team members. The practical questions and situations were very relevant to see how quickly we can rely on stereotypes to make decisions and how we could mitigate these effects. Some of the actions are as easy as involving other people! We are more committed than ever to ensuring our decision process involves feedback from team members from different jobs at Meilisearch and different backgrounds.

During this 4-day week, we attended another workshop: the [Climate Fresk](https://climatefresk.org/). The goal was also to identify some actions we could take, individually and as a company in the tech industry. One of the first actions we have to take is to educate ourselves about the fundamental science behind climate change—that workshop was a beginning, and we now have to pursue our efforts, for example, with our servers.

Throughout the offsite, we cater to different preferences and needs. This means being comfortable with a loser schedule and allowing our team members time and space to go at their rhythm. For example, we choose to allow separate rooms for each person. We’ve found it makes a huge difference in our energy level, and our team members get to the end of the offsite with less mental fatigue.

We also give people free time each day to spend as they wish, whether exploring the local area, going to the hotel spa, chatting with people, or simply recharging their batteries.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Bretagne2_80409eaefe.jpg)

Picture by Ingrid Hazan

One of our core values is to learn from feedback. The offsite is no exception: we ask questions after each offsite to see what we did well and what to work on for the following offsites. Measuring how we do is our way to ensure that everyone's needs are met. This is a plea to all hotels: we need more veggie and vegan qualitative options during meals!

Supporting a positive and safe team-building
--------------------------------------------

At Meili, we believe in the power of teamwork. Our [collaborative approach](__GHOST_URL__/how-meilisearch-built-upon-42-collaborative-approach/) is at the heart of our company. At the question “What was your favorite thing about the offsite?”, most people say it was chatting with other team members.

This is why we organize low-stakes team-building activities. A loose structure helps people to bond and get to know each other better without taking away the spontaneity of the connection. We want people to have fun without feeling pressured to perform. As such, they can opt out of activities before the offsite.

We asked every team member to write a short anecdote about themselves before the offsite, printed them, and distributed them randomly to other team members. It served as a great ice-breaker and conversation starter on Tuesday evening!

On our first day, we went on a pedestrian treasure hunt in the Corsair city of Saint-Malo. Though we had to rush to make all the spots, it was a great way to explore the city with a squad of people we don’t usually work with. It’s a shame to go to a beautiful place only to spend all our time in a meeting room.

![Photo of rocks in the sea, with a tiny island in which there’s a house, surrounded by fortification walls.](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Bretagne3_3bb3447be8.jpg)

Picture by Ingrid Hazan

We had a blast building our cardboard karts on Wednesday afternoon. We had the blueprints, sheets, and cardboard tubes, and there we went! Each team did their best to build, decorate and name their cars. Each kart had its personality and backstory. The presentation speeches were a highlight of our offsite! We had a race to determine which was the fastest kart. I’m afraid I must report we suffered heavy losses and some cars didn’t make it—but they are always in our hearts!

![A white kart made all in cardboard on the road in front of trees. The kart sides are decorated with bone shapes.](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/kart_379654d107.jpg)

Picture by Roxane Beaufils

Ultimately, we see ourselves as the vessel for a fantastic team to come together and create something special. Like the cars we build during our offsite activities, we provide the structure and the elements, but our team makes the jazz and soul of Meilisearch. We wish to thank the team of [Gloria](https://www.gloriaforbusiness.com/) with whom we worked on the workshops and the team of [Kymono Life](https://www.kymonolife.co/), with a special thanks to Anaïs who organized the offsite for us.

How to organize a people-first offsite

Hi 👋 I'm Ingrid. Not that long ago, I was in your position. I was searching for a new job and had to navigate these waters. Job interviews are a difficult reef to get through!

Now I’m a Talent Acquisition Manager at Meilisearch. Though I’m on the other side of the process now, it was my experience as a candidate for Meilisearch that made me want to join the company. During my first interview, it became clear that Meilisearch strives for transparency, openness, and authenticity. As a candidate, I could already imagine what it could be like to work there.

An important part of my role today at Meilisearch is to be the safekeeper of the recruitment process. Our goal is to hire people who are the best possible match for us, in a reasonable amount of time, while providing candidates with a great experience.

I have spent time designing our recruitment process. For us, what you value in work is as important as your technical skills, if not more so. This is why I am iterating more specifically on steps that will help us assess if candidates share our core values.

So how do we assess this crucial, but apparently very subjective characteristic? What does “value-fit” even mean? In this blog post, I will explain this specific aspect of the interview process, how we assess the value-fit generally, and tips on how you can prepare yourself as a candidate.

What does value-fit mean?
-------------------------

You’re probably like me: when you apply for a job, you want your values to be shared by the company. Since joining Meilisearch in October 2022, I have observed that value-fit is mainly about ways of collaborating. When assessing value-fit, we focus on how your work style aligns with our values and culture. Additionally to questions about your experience and technical skills, we ask questions about your communication style, work preferences, and [interpersonal skills](https://www.coursera.org/articles/interpersonal-skills). This will help us clarify your compatibility with the future team and our values.

We defined [our values](https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/companies/meilisearch/values) in 2020. We chose to put forward characteristics that represent us individually and collectively. These values might mean completely different things in other companies, and we have tried our best to describe our work values at Meilisearch.

Our values serve as the basis for our strategic decision-making and impact our company’s culture and individual behaviors. We use them in our career review process, in the objectives that we set for ourselves, and, as you may have understood, in our recruitment processes.

The term “value-fit” itself can be subject to misconceptions, especially the fact that value-fit in people's minds means recruiting people who look like us or share the same interests. For us, it is rather the opposite. We are looking to hire _outside_ of groups of people who are similar to us.

We acknowledge the importance of inclusivity, and we believe that hiring for value-fit supports diversity. [Studies have shown](https://hbr.org/2019/09/hiring-for-culture-fit-doesnt-have-to-undermine-diversity) that people with similar values and work styles are more likely to collaborate effectively, leading to improve teamwork, communication, and problem-solving.

It doesn't matter if we don't have the same background if we're trying to hit the same goal.

How do we assess value-fit?
---------------------------

As a candidate interviewing for a full-time position, you should expect 4 to 5 steps: meeting with a recruiter, the hiring manager, a skills assessment, a team-fit interview, and reference checks.

Evaluating value-fit is not a question of intuition or feeling, which is why we have integrated value-based questions into every step of the recruiting process.

Value-based questions are behavioral questions, that showcase how you handled different work situations in the past. As a recruiter, when I ask a value-based question, I’m looking to get a better understanding of you as a team member.

Depending on the role you are applying for, we identify different skills and abilities stemming from our values.

Here are a few examples of value-based questions:

*   ___Please tell us about a time when someone took a decision you didn’t agree with, in your previous job. What did you do? Looking back, what do you think about this decision now?___

The goal of this question is to gather a specific example of how you handle disagreement with colleagues. At Meilisearch we value the [disagree and commit](https://handbook.meilisearch.com/guide/values.html#our-values:~:text=We%20disagree%20and%20commit) principle. For example, if you join our engineering team you will see that people thrive on input from everybody and openly share their opinions and objections, without letting this difference become an obstacle and stop the team from moving.

*   _Please tell us about a time when you didn’t have the knowledge/experience to work on a task, what did you do?_

Team members at Meilisearch [find solutions together](https://handbook.meilisearch.com/guide/values.html#our-values:~:text=support%20we%20bring.-,We%20find%20solutions%20together,-One%20thing%20we), and are not afraid to ask for help when they don’t know. With this question, we try to assess your ability to collaborate and share knowledge.

Some preparation is necessary when getting ready for a value-fit interview. We want to give candidates all the information they need to succeed in their interviews. Below are some guidelines to help you.

How can you prepare to answer value-based questions?
----------------------------------------------------

Figuring out how to showcase your soft skills before an interview can be challenging but should not be underestimated. When you’re clear about what you value in work, you can’t lose; this will help you find a company where you’re happy to work, and showing you’ve prepared for these questions can make a big difference in the eyes of interviewers.

Here are a few tips:

*   Before the interview, **research our** [**company's values**](https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/companies/meilisearch/values); this will help you understand our company’s culture and what we stand for.
*   **Reflect on your values**: take some time to reflect on your own values and what is important to you. This will help you articulate your values and how they align with ours.
*   ******Practice answering value-based questions:** prepare concrete and meaningful examples of your past experiences, such as successful work collaboration or communication with your manager or team, how you received feedback, and what you learned from your mistakes.****
*   To answer behavioral questions, **use the** [**STAR method**](https://capd.mit.edu/resources/the-star-method-for-behavioral-interviews/); find a concrete example, and practice describing it in the following order: Situation, Task, Action, Result.
*   During the interview, **ask questions** about the team, our values, and how they are lived out in the workplace. This will help you understand our company's culture and values better.
*   Keep in mind we are not looking for a 100% match with our values. No one at Meillisearch matches our values 100%. In recruitment, unless we spot really big red flags, what we are ultimately looking for is a good balance between what you value in work, and what you know how to do.

To make sure we get a clear view of what those are, we will do our best to make you feel as comfortable as possible and to give you all the information you need to succeed in your interviews. We truly believe that candidates who are well prepared and in excellent interviewing conditions will better show who they are, which is ultimately what we’re _really_ interested in.

Conclusion
----------

As a recruiter, I can tell you that value-fit is critical in the recruitment process, and it goes beyond technical skills and experience. From my personal experience as a candidate, I know how important it is to assess how your work style aligns with a company's values and culture. That's why, at Meilisearch, we are committed to hiring people who share our core values while promoting inclusivity and diversity.

Interviewing at Meilisearch is a two-way process, it is not only meant for us to get to know you but also for you to understand if our work environment would suit you and a place for you to grow.

Have a look at our [open positions](https://jobs.lever.co/meili)! I’m looking forward to discussing all of this with you in person 😉

A recruiter's advice on how to answer interview questions about values

Winter was foretold. Now winter has come. In the Northern Hemisphere, it’s currently cold, gray, and the world news is as wintry as it gets.

“But at least,” said one of our team members, “thanks to remote work, I have _no_ dry skin!” At which point they proceeded to sympathize with all those poor people who had to work from the office, wash their hands with subpar soap 10 times a day, and end up with mummified hands, micro-cuts, and a snubbed cat that didn’t like being pet by such coarse hands.

Now, this is one silver lining to remote work that I had never considered before. It could very well be made into a viral parody video, but instead, I immediately added it to the long list of why we love remote work at Meilisearch.

**Make your own work environment**
==================================

Like many companies, we occasionally dabbled in remote work—and had to embrace it on a permanent basis during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Offering full remote work to all our team members is now an integral part of Meilisearch. We believe it's the best chance workers have to grind the daily grind to the ground.

Remote work doesn’t necessarily mean working from home, though. Some of us love it, but others like the energy of a shared place or enjoy a change of scene. (At least that's what they say. Personally, I'm convinced they enjoy the proximity of restaurants with fantastic takeaway for their lunch break.)

We still have an office in Paris, France. We have a small squad of 10 people close enough to come regularly. The rest of us can count on a 500 EUR monthly stipend dedicated to coworking spaces, cafés, or other shared places.

This flexibility suits us as it allows each person to work in their preferred environment. We never have heated disputes with our colleagues about whether or not a draft means a soar throat or a pleasant breeze. It’s possible to work in a very calm or very animated environment, fidget all day or listen to music without headphones. Flexible remote work makes for the most inclusive work environment; everyone can personalize their experience based on their needs.

Of course, we need our team to have a good setup. We follow a basic rule: each team member must have a desk, a chair, an external screen, and headphones. If they're already equipped or have any stipend left, they can select any other items! Team members receive their computers at their own addresses before their contract starts.

We haven't found a solution for people who can’t work without seeing their peers physically yet—and probably never will! Working with a team of remote people is a different experience. We try to be as transparent as possible during the hiring process so that people have a good idea of what to expect and prevent any disappointment.

**The infamous work-life balance**
==================================

Remote work is also a great equalizer of work-life balance. Weather doesn't have to be weathered, and traffic or crowded undergrounds don't have to be endured. As it gives more flexibility, our team members can save time and stress.

If a 5-10 minute pause is about turning on the washing machine, then all the better! It doesn’t take anything from us and can lift some mental load. We try to facilitate access to sports and [mental health support](__GHOST_URL__/our-first-steps-to-support-the-mental-health-of-our-team-members/). Some of our team members are running uphill first thing in the morning without us lifting a finger to support them though, so we can't begin to take the credit for all their activities!

An inherent risk of remote work is putting too much pressure on employees. As a French company, we are particularly careful about protecting their right to disconnect. We implemented [the 4-day workweek](__GHOST_URL__/how-we-implemented-the-4-day-work-week/) to emphasize this point. We are still looking into ways to help our team members create a good space for themselves. We are currently looking into child-care benefits for the parents in our midst. There may be other benefits that haven’t occurred to us yet—we are always on the lookout!

When speaking with companies opposed to remote work, we are sometimes asked how we ensure our team is _actually_ working. Well, we believe it's considerably easier to fake working in an office than remotely. At the end of the week, if the work is not done, no amount of "but I was online" is going to help. If managers in your company need to physically see someone in an office to be sure they're working, it puts the value on [presence](https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/work-culture/job-performance-isn-t-about-showing-up-anymore-and-that-s-a-good) rather than productivity. We believe people can be trusted until proven otherwise, rather than the contrary.

**The world is your oyster**
============================

We started by eliminating the constraint of only hiring people that live in the same city. As an open-source company, we’ve always been very proud to work with contributors from many different countries, and it only seemed logical to continue doing so with our team members. This meant we had to [adapt our salary grid to be more attractive worldwide](__GHOST_URL__/our-approach-to-salaries/) and we continue to observe the market.

It also means our team members are not tied to a city and can move permanently to the countryside or a more attractive town with fewer job opportunities. Some of us use remote work to travel—working during the day and visiting the rest of the time.

We are not [an asynchronous team](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/non-linear-workday/) yet. While we don’t need to have perfect overlap between team members, we need at least a half-day in which we can hold meetings or discuss issues. This still deprives us of applicants from opposite time zones, but this may change as we grow.

It’s important to us to maintain a strong team spirit among all coworkers. We've written before about how [we handle informal discussions in the workplace](__GHOST_URL__/how-we-create-space-for-casual-conversation-within-our-remote-team/). The future of our office is in question: though it’s a perfect go-to space for people in the area, it does create a different experience depending on where our employees are based. We may decide to close it entirely in the future!

As our offsite gets closer, we're excited to meet and chat IRL with our colleagues. This doesn’t mean, in our opinion, that it’s a bad thing to be working remotely—rather that our system is working really well if people are eager to come to these outings (for some of us, this means a 15 hours journey!).

* * *

We still have a lot of exciting adjustments to make: launch a complete company survey on the changes we could make, refine our asynchronous processes, and keep on our toes regarding our team-building activities. The list goes on!

I have to be honest with you: though I work from home, I still need to use hand cream in the winter. So maybe remote work doesn’t magic away _all_ the problems of the world… but the door it opens leads to a new spring for work. Remote work is a significant social progress for workers when implemented well, and we believe it is the future.

Remote work is the future of work

Hi 🙂 I’m Morgane, the HR Manager at Meilisearch, a search engine startup based in France. I joined Meilisearch because I was inspired by the founders’ vision of how they wanted to treat the people working with them. Before that, I worked for several medium to large-sized startups, but struggled with company cultures that glorified their founders and profits at the cost of fostering burnout. When I started working at Meilisearch, I was actually relieved: here were the creators of a tech startup using words like “people” and “fairness” before they ever mentioned “profit” or “IPO.”

As the HR manager at a young startup, one of the first projects on my to-do list was to solve the salary problem. We had heard about salary grids being used to solve similar problems, as well as something called a career framework that could help us clarify expectations for evolution within the company. We wanted to give all that a try. We did some research and were inspired by [Buffer’s](https://buffer.com/resources/career-framework/) solution to implement our own salary grid and career framework.

![https://media.giphy.com/media/9thduMKTL4Dcc/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/9thduMKTL4Dcc/giphy.gif)

Two years down the road, I can confidently say this was a wise choice. Using a career framework and salary grid helped us solve specific problems that are faced by most distributed tech teams while also helping us express our company values of fairness and transparency.

Publishing this article is a way for us both to thank Buffer and similar companies for being transparent about their internal structure and to give back in the same way to new companies looking to solve similar problems. Scrolling down, you will read about our philosophy around salaries, current implementation, and potential improvements we’ve identified.

The challenges of compensation for a distributed tech company
=============================================================

Today we are a tech company distributed between Europe, South America, Africa, and the Middle East. As such, here are some of the challenges we are facing:

*   **Overbid:** Paying too much for software engineers. We mostly hire software engineers or people from the tech space. This means profiles can be rare, expensive, or both.
*   **Gender gap:** In 2021, a survey from [Hired](https://hired.com/h/wage-inequality-report/2021/) showed that in the tech space specifically, men were offered higher salaries than women for the same job title at the same company 59% of the time. One way to fight this kind of culture is by being transparent about what we pay people, de-emphasizing the role of negotiation in salary determination.
*   **Competitive hires:** Remote work has become ubiquitous in the tech industry during the past few years. Today, engineers can work from anywhere in the world. This puts us in direct competition with ********everyone********, including Silicon Valley-based tech companies that offer very high salaries.
*   **Diversity:** similar to the gender gap, salary systems that are opaque or negotiation-based tend to favor groups that are already highly privileged.
*   **Cost of living:** As a remote company, we can hire people anywhere worldwide, provided the time difference is manageable. This poses ethical issues regarding salaries: how do we make sure we pay our employees fairly given differences in cost of living, taxes, and market value?

Developing a salary grid is part of our solution to address issues such as internal retention, external attractiveness, and diversity & inclusion.

The principles behind our salary grid
=====================================

In January 2021, we implemented a career evolution framework and a salary grid. According to the grid, different teams and jobs are rewarded differently, based on data from [Figures](https://figures.hr/). We do regular benchmarking to make sure we stay relevant to the market and show team members we have fairness at heart.

The grid is [public](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yds9Wg4eAHQ0hmD4bvQspwqxp6UArXikXnxZEiAjxwg/edit?usp=sharing), so everyone individually knows where they stand. It’s a good way of avoiding arbitrary negotiations so that the best salary doesn’t always go to the pushiest negotiator. This initiative fits with important parts of our values and culture, such as openness, equality, and transparency.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/roman_synkevych_a_Sj_J_a_Cz_R7_Q_unsplash_f7c9afe080.jpg)

Regarding location, we chose to offer equal pay for equal work by basing gross salaries on the total cost for Meilisearch. So whether you’re a Product Manager working with us remotely in Cairo or Montreal, the base for calculating your salary will be the same: the only possible difference in your net salary will be the local taxes.

Moreover, with transparency in mind, we are able to show our grid to candidates in order to be completely transparent when we make an offer. We don’t want offers to be based on a candidate’s minimum salary expectation because this can perpetuate existing inequality.

It’s also important for us to specify that our [4-day work-week](__GHOST_URL__/how-we-implemented-the-4-day-work-week/) doesn’t impact salaries. As a Meilisearch employee, you’ll be paid as if you were working five days per week.

Our journey into compensation models
====================================

Our first salaries were set on French standards, with what we knew of the industry. A few months later, in an initiative to have a more data-oriented approach, we subscribed to [Figures](https://figures.hr/), a salary benchmarking tool that helped us reevaluate all our salaries at the end of 2021 to the top 25%, according to the data at our disposal.

After raising salaries to the top 25%, we thought our troubles were over. However, our salaries were based on European data; this meant that our salaries were insufficient to attract candidates from other parts of the world, and to retain our employees who had gained more experience and become desirable hires. This pushed us last September to reevaluate compensation for Software Engineering and Technical Writing based on an aggregation of data from Figures and a benchmark of salaries announced in job descriptions from tech companies in the US (for instance, the job board from [The Pragmatic Engineer](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/)).

Most people we have hired and the candidates we interview make it clear they’re interested in the potential of Meilisearch and our company culture above anything else. Having said that, let’s be honest: a large difference in salary can shift the balance of interest pretty quickly. **It’s important for us to have a competitive salary grid for our fully remote & distributed team and future hires.**

This is what our grid for Software Engineering looks like today:

|  |  |  | Total cost  
for company | TCC | TCC | TCC |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | IC | Manager | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|  | Software Engineering |  |  |  |  |  |
| 1 | Entry |  | €67,410 | €73,149 | €78,888 | €84,628 |
| 2 | Intermediate |  | €90,367 | €96,106 | €101,845 | €106,933 |
| 3 | Advanced | Lead | €112,022 | €117,110 | €122,198 | €127,287 |
| 4 | Highly skilled | Manager | €132,375 | €138,133 | €143,891 | €149,649 |
| 5 | Specialist | Senior Manager | €155,407 | €161,165 | €166,923 | €172,681 |
| 6 | Principal | Director | €178,439 | €184,197 | €189,955 | €195,713 |

How is it applied internally?
=============================

👉 **Our base: the total cost for the company** 🌎

Each team member’s salary is calculated according to their total cost for Meilisearch. The `total cost for company` value is used to calculate a gross salary or contractor fee. We calculate employer costs in each country based on the data provided by [Oyster HR](https://www.oysterhr.com/), which acts as an intermediary for international contracts.

The gross salary for an employee is then defined by considering employer costs and/or country-specific taxes. Here is a visual example of what this might look like:

|  | Total annual cost for company | Gross annual salary - Pre-tax |
| --- | --- | --- |
| France | €122,000.00 | €83,500.00 |
| Nigeria | €122,000 (₦52M) | €92,109 (₦40M) |
| USA | €122,000 ($120,183) | €96,790 ($95,634) |

Our formula for gross salaries is the following:

```markdown
total cost for company, minus: 

 - employer costs in specific country 
 - lunch stipend (same for everyone)
 - working from home stipend (same for everyone)
 - health insurance (if not included in employer costs)
 - Oyster HR fee

= gross salary for employees

```

👉 **What about contractors?** 🤨

Unfortunately, we lack data to automatize calculations for contractor fees. We start from the `total cost for the company` value, subtract the fees from Oyster HR, and offer a lump sum to the contractor who then handles the rest themselves.

This solution isn’t perfect
===========================

And it never will be. While we do have a solution that we find works well to compensate employees fairly and equally, we’ve identified areas of improvement that we will need to address going forward.

From an ideological standpoint, the evolution of our salary grids has marked a further distance between the salaries of developers and non-developers. Although these roles are not always cut and dry, we can see that software engineering as a skill is being valued very highly in the market. In time, this may create a sense of unwanted inequality. It also reminds us once again how dependent we are on the laws of the current market trends and obliged to react—dare I say _obey_?—to a senseless overbid on salaries in the tech space.

This market trend causes another problem for us: offering more money to stay relevant to candidates internationally. We know we will need to but are unfortunately limited in our current stage of development.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/brian_wangenheim_TEN_18_DN_8_KP_8_unsplash_e6b81cc129.jpg)

Finally, we can still improve our data-based approach to compensation. We will need, for instance, clear and relevant data regarding developer advocacy and technical writing jobs. These two fields may be well-known in Anglophone countries but aren’t very developed in Europe, thus making salary information scarce. For this, we are adapting this grid as we go along: meeting candidates and discussing their expectations help us gather insights.

All in all, we know there is more room to grow within this approach. However, we and all companies have leeway to create the future of work as we want to see it. One brick at a time, we’re getting there.

Thanks for reading
==================

Defining our policy and implementing this grid resulted from hours spent on the internet searching what other companies were doing, many internal discussions, and a few video calls with peers from tech startups.

With this article, I hope to help other businesses reflect on their compensation system. I’m also hoping to spark conversations and share ideas. Feel free to [reach out to me](https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgane-neff-8b1334102/) if this is something you’re interested in discussing!

Also… we’re hiring 🤩 If you want to join us, check are our [open roles](https://jobs.lever.co/meili/).

“Bills, Bills, Bills”: our approach to salaries at Meilisearch

Did you know that the first iteration of Meilisearch was created during a hackathon organized by a [school called 42](https://42.fr/)? We like to think Meilisearch would have found a way to exist no matter what—we just love our fast search and our company culture too much—but 42 was the perfect framework for Meilisearch to bloom.

42 is a French computer science school where mutual help is the cornerstone of everything. What makes 42 special is that collaboration is at the heart of it all: there are no teachers so students need to team up to make their projects work! At Meilisearch, we do not believe good profiles exclusively come from traditional engineering schools. This is something at the core of 42: not only is it fiercely collaborative, the school is also tuition-free and open to anyone from the age of 18, which ensures a healthy mix of different backgrounds. Incidentally, we do not believe good profiles have to come from 42 either. As I didn't go to 42 myself, this blog post has largely been written with [Charlotte's help](https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte-vermandel-8b0924b5/). She lived the 42 adventure and provided me with her insights for this blog post.

42 was our founders' first experience of collaborative work and it has been a huge inspiration on our company culture. In this blog post, I will share what we really wanted to keep from 42, and how we adapted it to Meilisearch.

Learning how to learn
---------------------

If 42 doesn't have any teachers, you may wonder just how skills are taught. Sadly, students do not drink a magic potion that unlocks all the questions about life, the universe, and everything.

Rather, students are confronted with projects they're expected to complete. By asking other students who were there before them, searching for resources by themselves, and trial and error, they ultimately discover new techniques that allow them to make progress.

This very hands-on approach allows one to develop the ultimate skill: learning how to learn. Students continuously develop their own special toolbox to tackle new challenges and projects. After a while, they know how to acquire the competences they need.

Meilisearch took its first steps (aww 🥺) with this principle very close to our heart. We learned many things in the field—and we still do! In the Integrations team for example, Amélie, Bruno and Charlotte (the ABCs of tool integration) deal with 35 repositories written in 15 languages. Though a solid understanding of different languages and programming paradigms is essential, the most important skill for their job is assimilating new contexts and adapting quickly to different ones.

When we hire new people, we look for curious learners who have the ability to become experts in their fields. Then, to allow each person to thrive and pursue their own interests, we developed a Career Framework that guides and supports curiosity and growth. For example, as they gain experience, some people might want to become managers; others might want to deepen their expertise and further specialize in their original role. Whatever each one of us chooses, the Career Framework is there to help keep us curious and constantly learning new things!

Don't let me be misunderstood
-----------------------------

In 1831, the mathematician [Evariste Galois wrote about science education in a magazine](https://publimath.univ-irem.fr/numerisation/AAP/AAP82004/AAP82004.pdf) (link leads to a PDF document in French): "When will \[students\] be given time to ponder this mass of knowledge... why do examiners only ask candidates questions in a convoluted way? It seems that they are afraid of being understood by those they are questioning... Do we think that science is too easy?"

Obfuscation of knowledge to flatter egos is still very common 191 years later. We believe egotistical and self-important personalities are a recurring problem in companies that expect employees to compete with each other. Though the underlying goal might be to keep “the best” people and discard everyone else, this sort of elitism is pure gatekeeping—something we're convinced is always a disservice to product quality.

At Meilisearch, our goal is to be understood by as many people as possible. Our experience at 42 showed us people from all sorts of backgrounds could work in IT as long as they were given free access to the knowledge necessary to learn the trade.

This is why documentation has been a cornerstone of Meilisearch from the start. We want to make all developers feel they can understand and use Meilisearch, regardless of whether they're just starting out or have many years of experience.

Learning > Ego
--------------

However, pride is a very natural human emotion and it can be quite hard to let go of it. (I deliberately avoided writing "let it go" so you wouldn't have [a particular song in mind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0MK7qz13bU), but I'm afraid the effect is now busted. Sorry about this.) For instance, it can be hard to embrace constructive feedback, especially if it touches upon something we feel is very important.

Loving to learn new things has been very efficient in our experience. If you replace your own ego and pride with something more powerful, such as the incredible joy of learning something new, it starts to be easier to embrace feedback!

Learning new things from different sources makes our jobs way more enjoyable. We are constantly tickled by new concepts. Sometimes our coworkers feed us new thoughts, sometimes we stumble upon them serendipitously, and sometimes we just simply seek them out when trying to solve a difficult problem… Whatever the source and the final result, we love the journey.

Collectively responsible
------------------------

If you are feeling alone in your quest to shed your own ego, don't worry! It can very well be one of the most difficult things to achieve. We all want to feel we have good ideas and that our work is appreciated!

This is another aspect where 42's approach is helpful. The philosophy behind 42 is that peers are collectively responsible for the outcome of a project. This means that we're all in it together and acknowledges that all victories (and all losses) are a collective effort. Your colleague might have written a crucial bit of code, but they wouldn't have been able to without your support.

And what does that support look like? Glad you asked. A person may be the owner of the project they're working on, but their peers are the judges of whether it's all good and ready to launch. This means people have to be very rigorous in their reviews. The quality of your project is their responsibility too! We care about code quality, and in exchange we give all the attention in the world to your individual mission. Even individual projects at Meilisearch are collective because something that's  useful to one of us is useful to all of us—we are a team and if something allows you to work better, we all work better.

Our new hires adapt very quickly to this way of working. It's more comfortable and pleasant to be in a constructive dialogue with your colleagues than to compete with them all the time.

Constant feedback
-----------------

At 42, feedback goes hand-in-hand with a constant change of status: a person reviewing a project one day will be reviewed the next day. As the reviewers and the reviewees are always switching places, students naturally grow to both make thoughtful and constructive comments and  take feedback seriously, whatever the source. Our biases may falsely lead us to disregard criticism when they come from people we deem less experienced than we are. A collective accountability can lead to accepting a remark based on its own merits rather than the individual delivering it. Of course, this is not to say all criticism is relevant or that specialized experts are wrong and beginners are always right, only that we shouldn't be too quick to dismiss important feedback on a huff.

As a company, this way of thinking is very important to us. We want everyone working at Meilisearch to be able to voice their opinions and be heard. We cultivate patience and kindness in the feedback we give: it's a win-win situation because everyone will eventually give _and_ take feedback at different times—yes, even the founders and the managers!

This develops an inner sense of ownership. People feel collectively involved in the quality of the work we make. This is something we want to keep at Meilisearch's core because it has a huge impact on how we approach our own projects and the sense of joy and satisfaction we get from collaborating.

* * *

At 42, strong individual performers who can't work within a team will not pass the pool (4 weeks of intensive coding to select people who will join the school) if they haven't mixed well with others. This resonated with us: Meilisearch is a team and we think we are collectively stronger as such. Though it's very human to want to be a hero and save the world, it's not actually sustainable, efficient, or the way to produce the best possible code.

We are continuously building upon our experience with the 42 philosophy. We are now functioning within a more structured environment that gives us the necessary freedom to collaborate with a bigger team, in different time zones.

As an open-source company, our contributors and community are at the core of what we do. It makes sense to follow the same principle internally: being able to rely on our colleagues, and them on us in turn, means we can continue to learn and experiment in a safe environment, while being sure our work has been thoroughly tested and commented on. We can then truly say that Meilisearch is greater than the sum of its parts—and be very, very proud of it!

P.-S. Are you wondering if this article is the fruit of collaborative work? But of course! Many thanks to [Charlotte](__GHOST_URL__/author/charlotte/), [Quentin](__GHOST_URL__/author/quentin/), [Ferdinand](__GHOST_URL__/author/ferdinand/) and [Morgane](__GHOST_URL__/author/morgane/) for reviewing this post, and especially to [Gui](__GHOST_URL__/author/gui/) who penned many of the sentences you just read.

How Meilisearch built upon the computer science school 42's collaborative approach

Working as an employee experience manager in a hybrid-remote team heading to an offsite by the sea, I hear the usual questions: _“How long are we staying? How's the weather over there? What time are we leaving?”_

Later, sitting in a taxi to the airport with the Paris-based squad, clutching their sunglasses and their headphones, a voice asks quietly: _“By the way… how tall do you think Bruno is?”_

And as we look around, we realize nobody quite knows the answer to that question.

Despite countless hours spent working together over the past year, many of our coworkers haven’t seen more than our torsos and chosen Zoom backgrounds.

![Picture shows the Meilisearch team](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/ZIDT5OR2sgNCiDzSGMOJ9XQ6_EzCXjkTlCi2i6IIXcT9apT3941_NOd8HAoqJREwVpGySo9xtcOgJM3z3acmIJk7W60PeNm6BiTPPDqZf8Pp-mz_MhOGLtrPQmAN0FRsQMUnf6wXfp4XP1dXxA)

It seems a long time since our last offsite in Hyères, France. In just a year, Meilisearch grew by ten more people. We now have enough to fill a soccer team!

As our company gets larger, it becomes harder to know everyone. With the offsite, our goal is to provide a venue for Meilisearch-ers to meet in real-time and in the same space. They can get to know each other even if they're not working closely together.

In fact, a question we loved hearing during the trip back is, _"Who did you discover during this offsite?"_ Because the feeling when you're reminded that your colleagues are people you are proud to be working with makes it all worth it!

Bringing the Meilisearch touch to our company offsite
-----------------------------------------------------

Meilisearch was created with the idea of being a people-first company. Early on, we chose to go with a [4-day work week](__GHOST_URL__/how-we-implemented-the-4-day-work-week/), and later on implemented flexible working hours and unlimited remote working. Today, our team is hybrid-remote. Anyone can choose to work remotely, from the office in Paris, from a coworking space, or a mix of it all.

Although we think the offsite is the best way for everyone at Meilisearch to meet their coworkers, we know being away from home can be tiring. We want to ensure that work-life balance can still be maintained during this time.

![Picture shows the coastline](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/VNPl48tHSfINJbHUrmy7qRrKuL-32l_IeKkjor5EGzzjw9mdl6nLnhVwnWQn_i7svlzSJGTMyTMWT1ep6eENzEJMenByQhxfeC_G0I1jTtWdBgvgpVUWV5LoUn-M-s9vXjz1YURKWM9A2DUVew)

Of course, there are limits to what we are able to do compared with a normal week. However, we try our best for our offsites to be a gentle and positive experience, with dedicated _free time_ for people to spend as they wish and a room for each person. Our HR team takes care to apply the Meilisearch touch even when scheduling an offsite.

The offsite itself is not strictly mandatory: though we believe meeting and working in real life with the team has immense value, if someone at Meilisearch has a personal priority, we either find alternatives for them to be able to attend on slightly different days or let them out.

We do not think it is our role to enforce presence at any cost: if an employee tells us something in their private life is more important this year, we believe them no questions asked. If our colleagues do not want to board a plane or just don't feel like getting away at this time, we follow the same principle.

Similarly, the team-building activities are meant to be accessible to every team member present at the offsite, but we do not insist on participation. This year, we had a fantastic time walking all around the old town of Dalt Vila on a scavenger hunt. We did our best to find clues and take pictures in small groups. The views were breathtaking, and we collectively took far too many pictures of animals. (Although there were some debates about whether dragons counted as animals.)

![Picture shows two iron dragon sculptures on a balcony](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/wD5Gr6kuyy5RrQqzYQPsy2qmSHSgxjizzvGDvBjEUhV-qBRrU60BynQGhQOnPUDhgDAt3KlBYwGwEN-P3t4k6TlZMDNXEtHOWilx5rLpgASBTnaSme1MLNcta_VT20ypzrxWWtFXROsBw1Bvbw)

On a different afternoon, some of us went biking alongside the coast and through the countryside, while others stayed at the hotel to enjoy the pools and spa. We were delighted to use electric bikes that afforded us all ten brand new muscles (disclaimer: no biology textbook was consulted during the writing of this blog post) and all the more serenity with which to admire the clear and sparkling sea.

At Meilisearch, we can strive together with different approaches and activities. Our initiatives and needs are valued, and we believe this frame of mind creates a space in which people feel confident to chat with their coworkers and build our projects together.

Learning communication: a skill rather than a talent
----------------------------------------------------

During the offsite, we participated in two workshops on considerate communication.

One morning, we practiced listening without interrupting: in pairs, we listened to the other person speak without saying anything for seven minutes. Another day, we worked the other way around and formed small groups who could ask as many questions as they liked on a given subject (_”How to make sure our recruitment process is diverse?”_ or _“How can we communicate better in the Product Team?”_), while the person who was officially in charge took notes without responding. It was a whole new way to brainstorm for us!

We were also quite surprised to be reminded through a practical case just how many ways there are to interpret one message.

Communication is essential in any company or, for that matter, any kind of relationship. We believe communication can be impeded when people don't dare to reach out or do not have the tools or safety to express themselves. That is why we are very attached to a company culture in which we can publicly disagree, yet still commit to finding solutions together.

In another blog post, I explained [how we were building informal communication within the team at Meilisearch](__GHOST_URL__/how-we-create-space-for-casual-conversation-within-our-remote-team/). The offsites are a cornerstone of that strategy: it's one of the only times of the year in which we have an opportunity to directly observe other colleagues and pick up on some of their behaviors through osmosis. As we cannot rely on nonverbal communication or context much in writing, it's essential for all of us working remotely to communicate well.

We believe that communication can be learned. Although it's sometimes seen as a somewhat vague or innate concept, there are indeed skills that come with being able to express an idea, listen to someone, take or give feedback with grace, and work well together. And what better way to learn these skills than to experiment together?

![Picture shows a view of the coastline with blue transparent sea and a blue sky](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/F-y2dEkpbzPChexYeylQEPylnJwuUdPLP0I1HCddleVorqo-husmq4UH9UQTcj1OVqSb7RefHzNyjxeRw3xz177fI9873s6oWP3MlwymAyAmawRisD_18KPZlDnjdfsoR80jMAP7zK4mtcwHow)

We are very excited to continue improving our offsites as Meilisearch grows. After each offsite, we send a survey to everyone in the team to get their input and make the next ones closer to their needs.

As more people join us, we will continue to experiment with the formula. This could mean one all-staff offsite a year in addition to a team-specific offsite. We also want to work on sustainability and offer still more freedom regarding food and downtime.

In the end, though, there is one thing we will never change: that our offsite is not about discovering our colleagues' height, but how interesting they are as human beings.

![Picture shows a sunset over the port from a rooftop](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/ONk_QHJh95N2K2c1cKQiYCNA732gzXEFNwMlyhmwGTHwtCI406YsOY-nPOG4phmTKpiTnI7igywDbivwsZVRq1U2ayRVhCvp6bnr-XpjsZhlChbkvN9Yqm04XpJ8jfiL92nKp1NcvqQoKGHj4Q)

Meilisearch Offsite 2022 in Ibiza, Balearic Islands

My weekly 1:1 meetings with my manager (hi [Thomas](__GHOST_URL__/author/thomas/)!) aren’t always about the operational aspects of work. They actually more often revolve around how we’re feeling at the moment and getting past certain doubts and challenges: am I handling this correctly? how should I give this person feedback? I feel stuck in this situation, what are your thoughts? Often, one of us would make a joke about how much we could charge as psychotherapists and we’d end the conversation with “that’ll be 90 bucks, thanks”.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/therapist_meme_15b8b1425a.png)

We thought “there _must_ be other people here that are asking themselves the _exact_ same questions”. Since hiring a full-time shrink for the company wasn’t possible, Laurène, our Employee Experience Manager, started looking into mental health solutions for the people at Meilisearch. Pierre, one of the founders of [Strapi](https://strapi.io/), recommended [moka.care](https://www.moka.care/), and we implemented the solution at the beginning of 2022.

Mental health is just as important as physical health
-----------------------------------------------------

Leaving aside factors that are out of our control, from pandemics to wars to personal events, the world of work is a handful in itself and can have a major impact on our self-confidence and general mental health.

More specifically, the world of startups can be overwhelming. The median age generally isn’t very high, a lot of managers are fulfilling their roles for the first time, it’s common to quickly gain responsibility over a new scope and wear a lot of different hats at once. It’s intense, motivating, and incredibly interesting, but adapting to constant change requires a lot of energy and can be very unsettling for some of us. Because of that, we try to take our time as much as possible, ask ourselves the right questions, and bring a balance to our work environment.

As a software company, we don’t need to purchase machinery, raw materials or distribution solutions. As a remote-friendly startup, we don’t need huge offices that would probably cost a fortune. What we _do_ need is the skills of the people we work with. Supporting their well-being and providing the best possible working conditions is crucial to providing a great product. Our main investment is the people that are part of Meili.

This translates into several initiatives, such as implementing a [4 day work week](__GHOST_URL__/how-we-implemented-the-4-day-work-week/), offering a fully paid 3 months leave for all new parents, and, more recently, proposing a mental health solution to all coworkers.

A lot of companies offer gym memberships for their team members to feel physically healthy—why not also encourage mental health?

moka.care: a door to mental health
----------------------------------

[moka.care](http://moka.care) is a web platform that offers team members access to sessions with work coaches and professionally trained therapists (psychotherapy, hypnosis, sophrology, etc). By making use of it, we want to put mental health on the same level as physical health.

This seems like a good solution for us because we wanted to offer therapy _and_ coaching solutions to address targeted topics, thus covering different types of needs. In the several subscription options they offer, we chose to start small (4 sessions per person per year) because we didn’t know if people would be open to trying this out. Our idea is to adapt along the way and offer a larger number of sessions if needed.

When using moka.care for the first time, you get an orientation phone call. In it, a trained adviser will ask you questions and assess your situation in order to direct you towards either a coach or a therapist, based on your needs, preferences, and the language you speak. After that, everything can be done through phone, video calls, or in person, depending on your preference.

It’s important to stress that **everything** is confidential. The only data our HR team has access to is the number of people that have created their account and booked a session—that’s it. The names of the employees and types of sessions that were chosen are never disclosed.

All companies play a part in creating work expectations
-------------------------------------------------------

We’re very proud of the search engine that we’re building, for a bunch of reasons. One of those reasons is that we’re open source and therefore able to offer our solution for free to developers and companies who need it. Moreover, as a company mostly populated by software engineers, we strongly believe that the collaborative aspect of open source and the diversity it brings makes for powerful and relevant software.

We’re also thrilled about the company we are building, and the freedom we have to shape our teams and their work experience. We are a tech startup: in this sense we evolve in a fundraising ecosystem that allows for companies like ours to be very visible, giving us the power to influence the world of work in a certain way.

We ourselves have been influenced by several companies: we adapted and implemented [Buffer’s career framework](https://buffer.com/resources/career-framework/), we took a lot of ideas out of [Alan’s](https://blog.alan.com/bien-etre-au-travail/a-quoi-ressemble-un-onboarding-a-distance) and [Payfit’s](https://switch.payfit.com/en/eight-tips-to-guarantee-a-successful-remote-onboarding/) employee onboarding, and our first equipment offer for team members was influenced by [Oyster HR](https://www.oysterhr.com/). We are taking initiatives towards employee well-being with the idea that, as we gain more and more visibility, we might influence other companies to take similar actions.

_And who knows: on top of revolutionizing search, maybe we’ll end up revolutionizing work?_

Our first steps to support the mental health of our team members

The Meilisearch context
-----------------------

We are a French tech startup, founded in late 2019. From our origins with three cofounders, the company expanded following rounds of successful investment bids. Today we number 25 colleagues, including developers, and specialists in developer relations (community), product management, human resources, and documentation.

What is knowledge management?
-----------------------------

Knowledge management (KM) is the systematic management of an organization's **knowledge assets** (information that can be useful) for the purpose of **creating value** and **meeting tactical & strategic requirements**. It consists of the initiatives, processes, strategies, and systems that sustain and enhance the storage, assessment, sharing, refinement, and creation of knowledge. Knowledge management has a strong tie to organizational goals and strategy.

KM is a role that organizations often bring in at a later stage of their development. In recruiting a KM role early on in the company’s development, Meilisearch is choosing to develop positive KM practices in good time, and this has several benefits:

*   showcasing not only our codebase and community but also our knowledge capture and reuse, we increase our attractiveness to future colleagues
*   focusing on collecting, connecting, and creating knowledge allows us to work more efficiently and innovate, as we reduce duplication and learn from past experiences and experiments
*   optimizing our processes and procedures for how we work together makes our jobs more interesting, as we reduce toil (avoidable repetitive effort) and increase autonomy

My job is to help colleagues understand the challenges of knowledge management, and give them the tools and techniques to become effective knowledge managers themselves.

Exploring the KM environment at Meilisearch
-------------------------------------------

In my first couple of months at Meilisearch, I spent time with each team to learn how my colleagues worked together, both within and between teams. I was able to make general recommendations, such as setting up and coaching the Senior Leadership Team, and implementing some changes to the structure and setup of our regular meetings.

Now it was time to explore at a deeper level. To learn more about the KM environment, provide a starting point for measuring improvement, and discover pain points and common themes, I designed a research project.

I sought to combine the benefits of short questions and answers which are quicker for the participants to reply to, and the richer nature of longer responses. To achieve this, I created the KM opportunities survey, which included the option for participants to have a follow-up 1:1 information clinic session with me.

Key KM findings from my research project
----------------------------------------

My colleagues value my emerging role and can see the benefits of taking a step back and reflecting on our KM practices. My recommendations focus on what we should **stop**, **keep**, and **start** doing across the topics of:

*   meetings
*   processes
*   finding information
*   reusing work
*   news and notifications
*   keeping up (information workflows)
*   common goals and shared strategy
*   defining the scope of our roles and responsibilities
*   shifting towards asynchronous working
*   documenting and communicating

As well as being foundational elements for good knowledge management, much of this advice also supports designing for remote-first and asynchronous working, which is essential to Meilisearch’s development as we welcome new colleagues across different time zones. [Read the full report](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5877236).

Next steps
----------

To put these recommendations into actions, I have set three strategic priorities for KM at Meilisearch for 2022:

1.  Employee **onboarding**: getting colleagues up to speed quickly (reduces business costs and affects our ability to scale the company)
2.  **Strategic alignment**: building a shared roadmap based on a common understanding of our organizational vision, mission, and strategy (and making sure everyone in the organization understands when there’s been a shift in direction and adjust accordingly)
3.  Meilisearch **knowledge base** and its management: starting with making the most of the existing key content repository

I will also be working with each team to help them choose 3-5 aspects that are particularly important to them, and support them to make improvements in these areas. Across the organization, we will be creating a culture of coaching and peer learning to allow all of us to be multipliers of the skills we’re sharing.

As one participant said _“we shouldn’t go on as we are… making some changes would mean we’d all feel better at work. And it’s funny that we can iterate on Meilisearch but not on our ways of working”._

Here’s to an iterative approach to improving our collective culture of knowledge management at the individual, team, and company level! If this work environment inspires you, check out [our open positions](https://jobs.lever.co/meili).

If you’re interested to learn more about KM and small organizations, register for our free webinar “[Start small to move mountains: knowledge management at a start-up](https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwuduqpqDwuGdUEiDxN-N4FlnXFd-hoNIHw)” at 12:00 CET (11:00 UTC) on Friday 25th February 2022.

Kicking off knowledge management at Meilisearch

When your office changes from a physical place to a virtual space, there comes a time when you realize an important member of your team is missing. It may not be apparent at first—the feeling comes gradually.

After counting everyone twice and checking that we hadn’t mislaid our COO in the wilderness, we had to face the facts.

What we had lost was our coffee machine.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/PXL_20211119_081346843_2_7836815556.jpg)

The deserted kitchen at Meilisearch's parisian office

With it, we lost the informal discussions we used to have in our kitchen looking out on the rooftops of Paris. The small details of our coworkers' lives we learned day by day, the discoveries—that another team slew a bug, or that someone had a ready-made answer to a question bothering you: all these pouches of intimacy and shared knowledge had to be created anew.

Meilisearch veterans had a structure to fall back on, but **for new arrivals, this level of trust had to be built from scratch, without a physical office**. In this article, we'll take you with us on that journey and explain how we encourage informal discussions at Meilisearch.

We pay special attention to our onboarding process
--------------------------------------------------

**We try to make sure each new member of the team feels welcome on their first day.** We want to take away as much stress and awkwardness as we can to make the first few weeks as smooth as possible.

Before the start of the contract, we schedule meetings with each and every person in the team. **The lineup of the calendar for the first two weeks is already clear**: our priority is for new Meilisearch members to chat with everyone. They typically last 25 to 50 minutes and can be with 1–3 persons at a time. The goal of these meetings is for everyone to explain what they do at Meilisearch of course, but also to break the ice for further discussion down the line: it's the mixing of the coffee beans!

In between chatting with their new coworkers, the new recruits can read our Team Page on Notion. **Each person has a detailed profile** with their communication preferences and their preferred work style, their quirks and the qualities they value, what may drive them nuts and what people might misunderstand about them.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/PXL_20211119_081317469_2_38cd23ba4c.jpg)

To be or not to be, that is the question

Each member can then share anything they like about them. We believe our biographies are a concentrated dose of a few months of small talk, all in one place!

We create dedicated spaces in our chat and schedules
----------------------------------------------------

**We are very proud of our team: it’s a collection of people with diverse interests and backgrounds.** We believe this stems from our roots at Ecole 42, but that’s a subject for our next blogpost! This makes our discussions interesting and sundry.

Our Slack channels reflect some of that range: we have channels dedicated to cats, food, cinema, games, music, books and of course: the #**random** channel! This is where we speak of our travels, share photos of the first snow, and recommend pieces of content that we enjoyed. We even developed an emoji-rating system for movies and cultural experiences!

Any Meilisearch employee who wishes to can join the Random Coffee channel and **be randomly matched with another person for a coffee later that week**. It's a time to chat about anything and everything—the brewing time.

We use huddles on Slack for weeklies and other meetings. But sometimes, we need a [rubber duck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging) who talks and listens to us rather than the written chat! Our team is most fond of Discord and coding together with their mics on.

We organise special events
--------------------------

We started doing after-work hangouts on Zoom during the first lockdown in France. Then there was a slight decline… until we realized we really missed them! **These events are not mandatory.** We play games together: Skribbl, Gartic Phone, Codenames… and anything we feel like!

Twice a year, we also have our in-person get-togethers: the offsites! **We strive to make them a comfortable and enjoyable experience for everyone, accommodating people’s needs and leaving plenty of pockets of free time.** We share some experiences and have fun together. These are our coffee add-ons: the milk, cream, glitter, and sprinkles on top!

We're always chasing the perfect blend
--------------------------------------

We believe Meilisearch as an organisation has a responsibility to build and provide the space and tools to make communication possible. **But we also firmly believe that the next step is giving the wheel to our team members and trusting them to have the discussions they want.**

We are always testing and researching ways to give our team members a leg up on the long process of building connections. As such, we expect to release a part two of this blog post as soon as we discover new flavors to add to our coffee mix!

P.-S. The Team Tea of Meilisearch wishes to reassure any future coworker that yes, we do have tea, and no, we aren’t all coffee maniacs.

Let it brew: how we create space for casual conversation within our remote team

When new people join us at Meilisearch, we love the moment when they realize, "that was real!". We put a lot of emphasis on well-being at work during the recruitment process, and we are delighted to see that it is a tangible reality for our teams on a daily basis.

We are convinced that the well-being of our team members is a prerequisite for their performance at work. And for us, this doesn't mean office foosball, but two main axes: the balance between private and personal life and the daily application of our [values](https://handbook.meilisearch.com/guide/values.html) (commitment, quality and simplicity, openness) to enhance the role of all our individual positions in the service of the collective.

It is in this context that we adopted the 4-day week in early 2020. We explain why, how, and what we get out of it.

**In the beginning, there was confinement**
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Following the announcement of the first lockdown in France in March 2020, from days spent in a common space working, eating lunch, and taking our breaks together, we switched to 100% working remotely in our respective homes.

The organization of our work time changed radically: no more transportation time, fewer interruptions, more concentration. But also less break time, less informal discussions (which are also part of the work, let's not forget it), and days that had beginnings and ends that were less and less clear.

During this period our working days became longer in spite of ourselves, mainly because we no longer had the routine of arrivals and departures from the office to serve as a reference point.

We have always been very attentive to well-being at work, and naturally, a question arose: **how do we keep our work from taking a further toll on an already bad enough situation**? To remedy the fatigue that was beginning to grow, we switched to a 4-day week, without impacting our salaries.

**How does this work in practice?**
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Although contractually nothing has changed, the members of Meili work in general **from Monday to Thursday.** The hours are not more important than if we had remained at a 5-day week.

**Friday is a "free" day**. There is no obligation to work, or not to work for that matter, which can be a good way to reduce the pressure we may have about our productivity. We don't ask anyone to indicate if they worked on a Friday. The only rules that exist are:

*   No internal meetings can be scheduled on a Friday
*   When requesting time off for one or more full weeks, Friday must be included in the request

**A system based on trust**
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Not working on Fridays is **more of a** **flexibility than a rule**. We consider that everyone is responsible for their work organization and that each member of Meili must be free to use this day as they wish.

**To put it plainly**: if you feel that you have worked enough during the week, you do not work on Friday. If you are behind and haven't done everything you needed to do, then you have Friday to keep going.

This system assumes a **relation of mutual trust**. Each member must be honest and transparent about their workload and organization, make progress reports and alert their manager if they are overloaded. Conversely, the manager must be clear about their expectations and work objectives and be able to monitor their team without micromanaging.

**The benefits for us**
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Since the first confinement in France, life has resumed its course but we have chosen to keep the 4-day week. First of all, because working remotely has definitely become part of our way of working (we are almost totally remote), but also because we have noticed that this has not affected our productivity, quite the contrary.

It is obvious that this initiative benefits a better **life balance**. For some, this day is dedicated to personal projects such as contributing to open source projects, for others it allows them to do more sports, to rest, to take care of their young children.

In short, the temporary adjustment we had put in place to address a specific problem worked so well that we adopted it permanently. The 4-day week is a very good way for us to encourage personal development and has given very good results at Meili. It is now part of our initiatives to promote well-being at work (we promise to tell you more about the rest of them very soon).

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