Workaway in Portugal — Building Connections in a Distributed Team
At Teamtailor our Product team is distributed across multiple locations around Sweden, Poland, Turkey, Spain, and Portugal. Some of our developers and designers live near our offices in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Linköping, and Krakow — and can choose to meet up with colleagues by working from the office when they want — but many work fully remotely and communicate with their team members via digital tools like GitHub, Figma, Tuple, Notion, Slack, and Zoom.
That collaboration works great, but we firmly believe that it is easier and more effective when it sits on a strong foundation of trust and relationships that have been forged by spending time with each other in person. Getting to know each other by working side-by-side, having fun, and sharing meals and experiences.
We invest heavily in this through an annual company trip, where all employees from across the world travel together for an intensely fun week in an exciting location. In 2022 (after a break during the Covid pandemic) 220 of us had a magical experience on the island of Rab in Croatia, and in October this year we estimate that we’ll be around 300 employees when we travel to Sicily.
In the Product team we also have a concept called “Workaways”: self-organized smaller team trips where 4–10 people travel to a destination to work together in person for a week. In the past we’ve had workaways in Istanbul and in Kraków, and in April four of us traveled to Ericeira in Portugal where we stayed at Lapoint Surf Camp. In addition to being in a beautiful location right by the Atlantic ocean, the camp also had a great coworking space where we could work during the days. Good breakfast and lunch to keep our energy levels high. A scenic walk into the picturesque village for dinners in the evenings. And surf lessons during the mornings!
One of us — José — had joined the team just a few weeks earlier. He works remotely from a different part of Portugal and had never met anyone from the company in person. A key part of onboarding when joining a new company is getting to know the people you work with. This was a great opportunity for José to do that in a different way from the Zoom calls, remote pairing sessions, and GitHub code reviews of regular work. Here’s what he had to say about the experience:
It was great to finally get to personally meet some of the people I work with every day! I love how the company promotes flexibility by allowing someone like me to work remotely from my home in Portugal, while also providing these opportunities to meet other members of the team in these fun but still productive trips. Not only have I bonded further with my day-to-day colleagues, but I also feel like I’m more connected to the company as a whole, since this deeper connection with these colleagues translates into feeling closer by association to other ones that I still haven’t personally met. Can’t forget the surfing as well, or the dinners in the village centre, everything was super fun and I can’t wait to be a part of a next Workaway!
In conclusion, our Workaway experience in Ericeira, Portugal was a remarkable opportunity to strengthen the relationships within parts of our distributed Product team. The combination of working together in a beautiful location, sharing meals, and enjoying exciting activities like surfing created a unique and enriching experience. For José, who had recently joined the team and works remotely from Portugal, it was an invaluable chance to connect with his new colleagues on a deeper level. This Workaway exemplifies our commitment to fostering relationships and trust within our distributed team, ultimately enhancing our collaboration and productivity. We eagerly look forward to our next Workaway adventure and the lasting connections it will create.
Want to join us on our journey? Check out our openings in the Product team, or Connect with us to follow along with our updates.
