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Hybrid working has become the workplace model of choice, blending the flexibility of remote work with the intensity, collaboration and community of focused in-office work.
Tuesday and Thursday have become the most common days to be in the office. This seems to ease employees in and out of the working week and often hinges on bookable hot desks and the temptation of a free meal.
At Isometric, we do things differently. We have a much more deliberate and intentional attitude to hybrid work.
Working together
Fixed office days means you can be sure you won’t rock up to an empty office. When we’re in, we’re all in.
One of our Operating Principles is “Go Together”. We want to be physically co-located in the office three days a week because we move faster through intense collaboration. Almost everything we do is cross-functional so it’s vital that—in the limited time we have to execute—different teams can work together as a closely knit unit to accelerate our mission of scaling the carbon removal industry responsibly and fast.
Our London and New York teams work from the office on Mondays and Fridays (each office has their own “middle” day in the office: Wednesday in London and Thursday in New York).
We start the week strong on a Monday with our weekly kick off meeting: “Ex Ante”. This is where we set out what we want to achieve by the end of the week. Mondays also feature lots of 1:1s and planning meetings.
“Middle” office days are for more collaboration, high intensity brainstorming and—of course—socializing. You’ll find the team getting lunch together and enjoying it on the terrace. We organize regular after-work activities and our famous board game evenings.
The final office day is a Friday. This is when we do reviews, retros and close out the week with our all hands called “Ex Post”. In this meeting we transparently celebrate wins and share learnings as a company, sending everyone into the weekend on a high.
Dedicated focus time
Rigor underpins our work at Isometric. We need our team to solve problems that nobody has ever tackled before, using first principles thinking. We know that requires uninterrupted time to think deeply. “No meeting” Tuesdays protect time on non-office days to independently go deep on a problem.
Getting the balance right
Our office-home-office cadence helps us balance collaboration and deep work, catering to the energy needs of introverts and extroverts. We also get the benefits of quieter commutes and emptier meeting rooms in our office building on Mondays and Fridays.
Our approach doesn’t work for everyone. But, by building our hybrid working policy intentionally, we’ve created a lasting and authentic approach that balances collaboration and deep work. So far, it seems to be working—and we wouldn’t be surprised if many more companies replicate it in the future.
