Working hours and location

Working hours

We want a balanced, healthy work and life blend for every team member. Partly, that’s why we are so adamant in our Office-first policy. Also, we do not encourage working beyond 8 hours per day. We want you to take much-needed breaks and enjoy your free time with your cat.

Everyone’s hired to work up to 40 hours per week, except the cleaning lady. She does 15 hours only. As you know, we follow a Maximum freedom, maximum responsibility motto, so managing those hours is up to you. And in all honesty, if you manage to accomplish all your goals in less time, good for you! You are dismissed, go home. If you love the silence and you prefer to work mostly at night-time, be our guest. If you love the sound of the chirping birds, and you prefer to work really early in the morning, you’d be an unicorn but our guest still! This is the “freedom” bit of the motto.

The only policies in place are the following:

• Check with the team to figure out if they need you in person.

• Make it easy for them to know how and when to contact you should they must.

• Be sure to have a good internet connection and ensure there's a decent overlap with our core working hours in the office, from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Portugal time.

But that’s pretty much common sense, right? If someone is depending on you or has expectations about your delivery, you should either make yourself available or let them know your schedule in advance so you can all coordinate affairs between yourselves. This is the “responsibility” bit of the motto.

Overtime

If you find yourself working extra hours, please report to Management or your department manager so we can look at easing your workload if it has become a persistent situation - it should never be the norm.

Occassionally, there are urgent deliveries that may require extra time, either on the weekends, public holidays, or pure extra-hours on a working day. For weekends or public holidays, see TOIL, below.

For during the working week, you should track the hours that you have worked extra and report these to Catarina, so that you can be compensated appropriately in your next payslip.

Time-off in lieu policy

Sounds French, sounds fancy, and here’s how it works if you have to work on a weekend or public holiday:

• Up to 4 hours, you get 1 full-day to hang around your cat.

• From 4 to 8 hours, 2 purr-fect days off in return.

• 2 days of a weekend and/or public holidays, you get 4 paw-some days with Mr. Whiskers.

Keep in mind, Maximum freedom, maximum responsibility. We won’t be asking you to prove exactly how long you’ve worked extra. This is fully determined by trust.

The Time-off in lieu policy only applies when you are asked to work at weekends or public holidays by Management. TOIL is not applicable for working extra hours at the beginning or end of a working day and you cannot simply decide to work extra hours, weekends, or holidays to get time-off in lieu in return.

In scenarios of extra work, don’t forget to log your time-off in lieu on Calamari.

Working location

The bottom line, you can work from wherever you see fit. Want to go to the Maldives for a while and get those code lines jotted down with an ocean breeze? Wait no more, off you go! Would you rather be in London and get inspired by Cats the musical every night? If you can afford it, the keyword above was “for a while”, be our guest.

Just never forget the overlapping hours mentioned above, nor our Office-first policy. In a nutshell, the policy says we are an office-first company that privileges and pushes activities and resources towards nurturing an office culture, even though you are free to work from anywhere. It also says we value human contact and the serendipity of the “being there” (or here, which is where I am writing from), which results in great moments that can’t be matched with an all-remote culture.

Lastly, it also says that based on your living distance from the office, you should pay us a visit a number of times per week.

On a separate policy, but one that kind of intertwines with the Office-first policy, we reimburse all public transportation expenses.