A note from Glenn, CEO & Co-founder

We’re seeking to have an outsized impact on workplace productivity - to help every professional team around the world save time when planning their projects. We exist in a competitive category, against extremely well-funded teams, that are far greater in team size. To succeed, we believe in seeking a high density of talent and setting a high standard of excellence in how we work.

We’ve been a fully-remote company for over 10 years. A decentralized working environment, by nature, places greater emphasis on the quality of your output, versus effort or time spent. We reward A+ quality output, not A+ effort and B quality work.

I liken our culture to that of a sporting team, not a family. We’re motivated by our contribution to the team’s success, the opportunity to play with the best, and to be the best in our individual roles. Sporting teams are measured by their results, striving for more wins than losses.

Our Managers are coaches, often player coaches. Their primary role as a Manager is to develop high-performing teams. They help identify your strengths and weaknesses, they seek to improve your performance at Float. They’re not trained career counselors. Great players at Float define their own careers, they’re always learning, developing their skills, staying curious, and seeking out opportunities.

As a fully-remote team, we place an unusually high value and expectation on concise, proactive, and productive async communication. There’s a 100% overlap with high performers and great communication at Float!

We know that for individuals to improve, requires feedback, and we strive to deliver helpful feedback on your performance, regularly. Delivering radically truthful feedback is a muscle that only improves when regularly flexed. Today, it’s a value that is perhaps more aspirational, on average. We’re working on that. Fundamentally, we understand that honest feedback, delivered with good intent, is one of the fastest ways to improve.

Your track record at Float is the best predictor of your potential to improve. Even high performers go through rough patches, a good Manager understands that, and is there to support you through the troughs. Performance rated consistently low or trending down across two quarters signals that things are unlikely to improve in your time at Float. In seeking the best players, Managers must also be willing to say goodbye to people, to make room for more high performers.

We seek growth because it creates opportunity. We want to be a $100M revenue company in 5 years. We want Float to be the best place for great performers to stay. I find the most rewarding moments at Float, are watching team members thrive and grow. We’re on a growth journey, we’re learning as we go, and there will be times when it’s more effective to bring in someone with experience, who has traveled the path before than to invest in developing existing talent.

We seek to reward our high performers by prioritizing great pay, the most immediate form of compensation. If we do our job well, you should be improving your value in market. You should be very employable. We trust that you will be regularly self-selecting Float as the place to do your best work. We expect that you’ll be open to interviewing for other roles if it helps you validate your value in market, and the opportunities available to you.

I want Float to be where you do the best work of your career so far. We don’t always get things right, but we aim to treat everyone with the respect and dignity they deserve. And we seek to learn and improve together through every experience.

Advice for Everyone

• Drive your career, set the agenda: Schedule a regular, recurring 1:1 with your Manager every other week. You control the invite, and the agenda, and what you get out of it, is reflective of what you put in. Get into a habit of regularly adding agenda points ahead of each meeting, providing the Manager with the appropriate time to prepare for any big topics. Agendas should be a healthy balance of work and personal growth items.
• Rate yourself: Twice a year, your Manager measures your performance based on your role level on our Career Framework, and how you live our Values. Don’t wait until January or June for that assessment. Check yourself regularly against these measures, and seek feedback from your Manager on where the gaps are today.
• Be confident in your value: We hired you because we believe in you, and your potential to be a high performer at Float. We want to support your success! If there are times when you are in doubt about how you are performing, the best way to find comfort, is to seek answers with your Manager. 1:1s are regular opportunities to seek alignment in your role, your expectations, and how these evolve over time. In each review, your Manager is asked to respond to the question: ‘If you got a job offer somewhere else, how would they feel?’ If the answer is ‘Accepting’ or ‘Relieved’, the next step is to work with you to seek action to improve your performance in the upcoming two quarters or agree to part ways.
• A regular pulse on your wellness: Each week, you will complete an async check-in that is sent to your Manager. The intent of these check-ins is to do just that, check in! We don’t expect extensive answers each week, but please elaborate on where it’s helpful to better enable your Manager to support you. It asks, ‘How did you feel at work since your last Check-in?’, ranked out of 5. We all have our own personal barometers, someone's 5 is another person’s 3, but overall, we don’t expect to see many scores of 1. What we are looking for as Managers, are trends. Consistent 2’s, or scores trending downward week-on-week, tell us something isn’t going well. In your next 1:1, your Manager should be expected to prompt a discussion on why and be prepared to discuss what options and benefits may be available to you to help.
• Probation is designed for you and us: Our probation period is three months. This is our first opportunity to work with you, and for you to work with us. Maximize this time to make your own assessment of if Float is right for you. The probation period is designed to offer you an immediate opportunity to leave if things aren’t working out, so you can move on quickly to an opportunity that is a better fit - no hard feelings. Our intent as Managers, is to provide feedback early and often on how things are progressing. You should also be informed in advance of the 3-month period expiring, of the intent to progress beyond probation.

For Managers

• Everyone values feedback: Delivering radically truthful feedback is not only what people need to improve, but are desperately seeking. One of the most common pieces of feedback we hear from exit interviews is that the individual was disappointed not to receive feedback on their performance earlier, or for more candid discussions when their strengths weren’t aligned with opportunities at Float. Practice delivering radically truthful feedback, regularly. And remember, not addressing poor performance only defers the burden, not just to you, but to the other members of your team.
• Measure performance regularly: Twice a year, in January and June, you’re asked to rate your direct reports against their role level in our Career Framework, and how they live our Values. Get intimately familiar with these measures. Be prepared to speak to how your direct report is performing against these as part of your 1:1s. Don’t wait until reviews to deliver performance feedback that could have been delivered earlier, and enabled them the opportunity to improve.