So long darkness, my old friend! In 2019, Qvik’s remote office is on balmy Mauritius
The first batch of Qvik’s remote office workers has arrived on Mauritius. It’s quite nice over there, they report.
This is the second time we are offering our employees the opportunity to work remotely in a tropical destination. Last year, we were in Phuket, Thailand. We wrote about the hustle you have to go through to pull of a stunt like this and, afterwards, we listed the things we learned during the experiment.
The most important improvement we made this year is securing ourselves a faster internet connection. Last year, even though the internet connection at the villa was supposed to be good, there were difficulties with video conferences. That was not cool. We ended up getting portable 4G modems as a backup for the unreliable web connection, and that’s what we intend to do this year as well.
This year we also chose a destination that is closer to our time zone. On Mauritius, the difference is just +2 hours, making it easier to arrange meetings and stay in touch with our team members in Finland.
We also informed our customers better by sending them a general info package about the remote office and keeping them in the loop.
Flying is not good for the climate. We try to compensate.
You can’t really escape the fact that encouraging our employees to fly to the other side of the world is not good for the climate. While Qvik is growing as a company and expanding to Sweden, our carbon footprint is also getting bigger.
We are working on a convenient system to compensate for all of our work-related flights the best way we can. As a start, we decided to donate our Christmas present budget to a non-profit organization that contributes to CO₂ mitigation.
Disclaimer: We are not naive enough to think that this will save the world and we know that, to some, this sounds like half-assed greenwash. But we’re trying.
So far, 24 Qvikies are going to Mauritius and many are also taking their families or spouses along. The average stay is from two to three weeks.
Our remote office will be open until the beginning of April. By then, it will already be springtime in Finland, and all Qvikies will return home to celebrate Qvik’s 10th birthday party. Good times!
