Hello, friend. 

At our March all-hands meeting a few weeks ago, the team talked about feeling like we’re right back where we were in 2020: in a moment of incredible anxiety and doomscrolling, with co-workers, families, and friends who are directly impacted by what’s going on, and none of us knowing what the world will look like next.

As people-first leaders, it’s our job to guide our teams through moments of crisis, even when the situation feels helpless. If team members are affected by a current event, it’s our job to be mindful and care deeply. If team members express the desire to help, it’s our job to find organizations we can support, financially and otherwise.

And it’s also our job to lead by example and remind everyone to take it easy and be kind to others and themselves.

At the meeting, I shared how I’d argued with my therapist for ten minutes after she told me to stop doomscrolling. She eventually had to say “Enough!” for me to see the larger point: at times like these, we need to seek good news and find ways to share moments of happiness with one another.

For us, that happened as we celebrated two team members who are leaving (one of them after 14 years!) to fulfill their lifelong dreams outside of Wildbit. While it’s bittersweet to see them go, the joy of seeing two people we care about go out in the world to do something they love has been hard to contain.

Keep finding moments like this to celebrate with your team. Doing it feels very important, right now.

PS: 20+ years of people-first resources 📚

We’ve published a lot of things since starting Wildbit in 2000, and recently collected a selection of our best work in our new Wildbit library. If you are looking for help or inspiration, we hope you’ll find some of it useful.

With 💚
Natalie & the team at Wildbit

Hello, friends. 

Building a people-first business requires us to be intentional about the choices we make, and that includes the language we use.

For example: companies often promote work-life balance, but I’ve been thinking of how the term creates really strict walls around both ‘work time’ and ‘life time’. It may mean that if you’re working 9-to-5 but it’s 4pm and you’re really drained, you’re still going to sit there for an hour and stare at your computer just because that’s your ‘work time’.  

What people-first companies tend to do is create an environment for work-life integration instead. We recognize that each team member has hours that suit them best and we honor their individual needs: someone might want to work at 9pm if they’re excited about what they’re doing, while someone else might choose to put work away at 2pm and go for a bike ride with their kids. All of that is okay.  

I shared this idea during a conversation with Rand Fishkin two weeks ago. We also talked about how, as company founders and leaders, we both achieved better decision making, better prioritization, and better results by focusing on deep work and not adhering to hustle culture. If you’d like to revisit some of the highlights and re-watch parts of the discussion, it’s all available on our blog.

PS: “spreading joy” as a team KPI

The team has done it again! We published another webcomic (the first one, Postmark Express, is from 2021) with a surprising and delightful narrator.
Please check it out, and enjoy another way we measure the success of our work by bringing joy to others. 👏🎬

See you next month,

Natalie & the team at Wildbit

Our team at Wildbit believes that businesses exist to serve humans, which is why we strive to be profitable, team-centric, and sustainable instead of chasing growth at all costs. And we want to highlight other people-first companies and help job seekers connect with them, which is why we’ve been building a job board, People-First Jobs, where companies are carefully vetted using a list of criteria that we believe characterize people-first businesses.

These are companies that put people first by having reasonable hours, flexible schedules, and remote work options; that enable deep work through async communication; that value a diverse and inclusive team; and that focus on outcomes and professional development. They don’t have to check all the boxes on our list, though we look for as many as possible.

But these principles and criteria are still a bit abstract. How do they translate into the kind of workplace or work culture that puts people first, where people can thrive and do their best work? What does such a workplace look like in more concrete terms? How can companies create and cultivate a working environment where people feel empowered and fulfilled?

What makes a workplace people-first?

I’ve thought about these questions a lot while surveying and talking to job-seekers. Here are some of the things I’ve learned through my research and one-on-one conversations:

• People want to work for companies that care for their employees, invest in their team, and support and empower team members to succeed.

• They want balance and flexibility—a humane workload that allows enough personal and family time, and the ability to choose when and where to work.

• They want clarity and transparency—about job responsibilities and how success is measured; about salary and benefits; about the team culture and how the team works together; and about how decisions are made.

• They want to do work that is important and meaningful, and be allowed the autonomy to take full ownership of the work they were hired to do.

I’ve also reflected on my own experiences of having worked in various kinds of work environments, ranging from a large corporation to a bootstrapped SaaS company to running my own business. (In my early twenties, I even drove a truck!) Each of those workplaces had some positives and some negatives; in some work environments I felt energized, whereas in others I felt drained. But all of those experiences helped me come away with a better understanding of what makes a great workplace—one where you feel engaged, empowered, and fulfilled.

So, what makes a workplace people-first? I’ve identified a set of key characteristics based on my research for PFJ and my personal reflections. I’ve grouped these characteristics into four categories: respect, responsibility, relationships, and results.

The four Rs of a people-first workplace

1. Respect

A people-first workplace respects the value of people’s labor, the need for uninterrupted time to focus, and each team member’s desire to structure their work in a way that suits them. Respect is crucial for creating a work environment where people feel safe, supported, and valued, which in turn promotes job satisfaction and well-being, and enables people to perform at their best.

• Fair wages and reasonable hours. A people-first company offers fair wages and sets reasonable hours, recognizing that more hours do not equal better results. When people are adequately compensated and have enough time for family and leisure pursuits, they can show up at work well rested, energized, and motivated.

• Deep work. Creating the space to focus without interruption makes it possible for people to buckle down and do meaningful, productive work—or ‘deep work,’ as Cal Newport calls it. This means respecting people’s time and attention by minimizing meetings and other distractions.

“Deep work is the work we hire people to do; the specializations and expertise that define careers and help businesses grow. Deep work is what a writer does when they write or an artist does when they paint or, in the software world, what a developer does when they write code.”

—Natalie Nagele, CEO at Wildbit

• Inclusive policies and processes. A people-first team works in a way that makes it possible for everyone to participate fully. This might mean flexible hours or remote work, or prioritizing asynchronous communication so that people can respond when it’s most convenient for them. It might mean having robust family leave policies, inclusive hiring practices, and so on.

2. Responsibility

Team members want to feel like their contribution matters, so they can take pride in accomplishing the work they are responsible for and entrusted with. Conversely, being micromanaged by someone else can be utterly demotivating. A people-centric team allows people the autonomy and independence to do what they were hired to do, take ownership of their projects, and then reflect on their work in order to improve over time.

• Autonomy and independence. Letting people work independently means the company trusts them to do the work they were hired to do. It might mean giving them the freedom to choose their own hours, or work in whatever way makes sense to them—and trusting that they’ll get the work done.

• Ownership of one’s work. People are more likely to feel excited and energized at work if they can take charge of a project, make decisions about it, and take pride in its execution. Being able to take ownership makes the work meaningful and fulfilling.

“In the company we aspire to build, managers should not have to be involved in every decision and become bottlenecks, and team members should feel confident in their own expertise and ownership to push the company forward.”

—Åsa Nyström, VP of Customer Advocacy at Buffer

• Time for reflection. A company that invests in its people should allow them the time and space to reflect on their work. This allows people to not just iterate and improve, but also to think about why and how they do the work they do, and what it means to them.

3. Relationships

If a company puts people first, it follows that it values and cultivates strong relationships—which extends to all the people impacted by the company and its culture: not just the team, but also the customers and the larger community. A people-centric company cares deeply about the wellbeing of its team, the success of its customers, and the impact it has on the surrounding communities and the world at large.

• A strong team culture. A people-first workplace works hard to cultivate a team culture that is diverse and inclusive, and prioritizes the needs of team members and their families. It provides the space and opportunity for people to interact and bond with teammates, and is transparent in its operations and decision-making.

“At Wildbit, we’ve found that people are happiest when they’re given a chance to do the work they love, on projects they believe in, with people they care about.”

—Natalie Nagele, CEO at Wildbit

• Caring for your customers. A business depends on its customers in order to be profitable, but it should, in turn, be genuinely invested in their success rather than viewing them as a resource to be exploited. It’s a two-way relationship: the success of your customers will ensure the success of your business.

• Caring for the community. From an ethical standpoint, it’s important to think about the impact a business has on the surrounding community, on society, and on the environment. Ideally, a company should strive to have a positive impact rather than a negative one.

“True impact is external. It happens in our families, in our communities, in the environment around us. We’ve found that having a positive, lasting impact requires a bigger-picture mentality that looks beyond the confines of Wildbit as a company and examines our place within these social structures.”

—Natalie Nagele, CEO at Wildbit

4. Results

Any workplace rightly cares about the results they produce—but financial goals such as revenue and profit are only one piece of the puzzle. People-first companies recognize that how we work is just as important and meaningful as the work itself, so they go beyond traditional metrics and put emphasis on the process and how the work is done.

• Regular reviews. A people-focused team helps team members define individual goals and takes the time to review progress and provide feedback in a way that is supportive and empowering. When goals are not met, team members work to understand why, and how things can improve.

• Learning and development. Investing in the team means creating opportunities for people to hone their craft, learn new skills, and pursue opportunities for professional development so that they can be the best version of themselves.

• Mentorship. A big part of helping people grow in their roles and meet their goals is providing mentorship. Team leaders and senior members can help their junior colleagues to better understand the industry and think about their career path.

“We put a lot of effort into our one-to-ones. We try to make them not about status, not about a project, [but] about who are you as a person. What do you value right now? Why are you here at work, like what is motivating you? What is challenging you?”

—Katie Womersley, VP of Engineering at Buffer

Putting people first is a long-term commitment

Anyone who has suffered through a toxic work culture can attest to the importance of a work environment where people can flourish and reach their full potential. But creating and cultivating a people-first culture in the workplace takes a lot of conscious effort: people-first leadership is a long-term commitment that requires openness, transparency, and a willingness to learn from one’s mistakes.

We want to support founders and leaders to build and grow people-first businesses, so if you want to learn more about our people-first principles or follow our journey, please sign up for our newsletter or get in touch. If you’re a people-first company, consider becoming a PFJ member so that our growing community of job-seekers can connect with you.

Let’s work together to build a more human and sustainable future of work.

PS: Special thanks to Nausheen Eusuf for her help researching and shaping this article.

After a few of us read the article, we thought it a good idea to invite Rand for a follow-up chat with our CEO and co-founder Natalie Nagele. We like to talk about the small details that build a big business, and we particularly like to do so in public, where our audience can ask questions that help us dig deeper.  

Rand came over on February 9th. If you missed the conversation or would like to watch it again, click play below (the video is split into chapters if you want to skip to the bits you care about) ↓

📚 Links and resources from our panelists

• Rand’s book, Lost and Founder
• Natalie’s guide to deep work at Wildbit
• People-First Jobs
• SparkToro
• Cal Newport, Deep Work
• Bo Burlingham, Small Giants

💡 Highlights 

1. Hustle work is never ‘done’

Rand: “To me, hustle has always meant working hard for the sake of work; that it is respectable, and impressive, and important, and valuable to work many long hours because working long hours is a goal in and of itself. It is not the outcome that one is seeking, but rather the practice of it. [...] I absolutely shared those beliefs and followed, and worshiped, and was in awe of many of those people who wore their hard work and long hours as a badge of honor. I have slowly, over time, opened my eyes to the reality that maybe this is not true: and now in the last few years, I’ve come around to the idea that I think it’s a problematic at best, pernicious myth.”

Natalie: “With hustle culture, there’s no end. There’s no ‘done’. There’s no ‘enough’. In the context of focus work, hustle culture creates this perception that it’s never done, which also adds a lot of anxiety to our culture.”

2. Deep work is fulfilling but tiring work

Natalie: “To me, [doing] deep work and getting in a flow state is magical because you’re using your superpower, you’re able to accomplish something, and your mind wants that. It’s beautiful—but it should exhaust you, and it probably does. And usually, if you do 2 hours of really good deep work, you [then] need to take a break, take a walk. To me, that’s why it’s hard: it’s hard on your body, on your mind. It’s like you’ve used up a lot of energy, like powerful energy in your body and your mind.”

“Newport’s book [Deep Work] talks a lot about the capacity of your brain to do deep work; and the capacity taps out at about 4 hours a day […] versus the alternative, which is react[ing] to things all day long. We’re using a different part of our brain. We are probably exhausted, but it’s from distraction, it’s from multitasking, it’s from too many inputs that don’t align. And it’s not as fulfilling, because we didn’t actually do anything that used a flow state.”

3. Data can help convince managers of the value of deep work  

Rand: “How do I embrace [deep work and chill work] practically myself, and then try and convince other people that I work with: my boss, team, client, et cetera? One of the best ways to do it is to present conversations like the one we’re having. There is an incredible amount of data out there that shows that you do your best work in this deep state of flow, that 4 hours a day is the maximum for that, that if you are well-rested and emotionally happy and feeling psychologically safe, the quality of your decision-making and the quality of your work goes up massively.”

Natalie: “In most cases, your boss cares about output. So if you can, change the narrative from ‘hours’ or ‘response times’ to what are we trying to accomplish here? There are conversations to be had. I think sometimes it’s really hard, especially in larger organizations, to try to change the entire culture of the organization; there’s some value in trying to find small iterations of that, to just start to show that deep work works, that being ’on’ all the time isn’t necessary.”

“Your boss would be really surprised when they found out how much time you don’t spend doing work that you’re getting paid for. Nobody hired you to check email—I don’t think any of us had a job description that says email checker. You’re hired because you’re a software developer, designer, a writer. That’s your unique ability. That’s what they’re paying you for.
One of my favorite ways is to start recording your time: record your hours for two, three, four weeks, and hand that to your boss. When they start to see that it’s 70% meetings, 20% email checking, and 10% maybe getting the actual projects done, they can quantify that math really fast, and you’ve just became a really expensive robot. And they don’t want that.”

4. Focus is crucial to deep work and flow—especially in a remote-first setting

Rand: “I try and find a time, place, and position where I know that I do my best work—which is generally here in this office, which is out back in my house. I have my email not open, and I’m just in whatever state of flow I need to be in, and I concentrate on it. And in the first 15 minutes, if I can’t get into that state of flow, I will go do other work, clear out my backlog, and try to come back to that big project later.”

Natalie: “I schedule it, so it has to happen. Cal [Newport] talks about this a lot. There’s different ways to do it, but I’ll schedule deep work on my calendar; I know myself enough to know the hours of the day and the meeting that comes before and after, and what that means.”

Rand: “When you switch to a remote-first work environment and a distributed team approach in many time zones, you as the leadership team or the manager or the person who’s doing the work has to build a structure that does not require time-sensitive collaboration. Your job is to design projects that are useful and valuable to the business, that don’t require the same hours from people. And this also is a key to deep work—because you can almost never have multiple people deep-working, same time, same time zone. And that flexibility creates a lot more mental health opportunities for people who like to work out in the morning, or got to pick up kids from school early, and so on.”

5. Why we should talk about work-life integration 

Natalie: “I’ve thought a lot about work-life integration, more than work-life balance. If you have fulfilling work, where work-life balance falls apart is that it tries to create really strict walls around work and really strict walls around life. And what that does [...] is it creates an artificial sense of rest, and then it forces a strict work period.”

“What we’ve tried to do instead is create an environment for fulfilling work—it may come at a point where it’s 8:00pm and you’re really inspired and got excited about something and want to work: that’s okay. And then come in later the next day, take a rest, pick up your kid from work, go do a two-hour bike ride [...]. It’s not forcing one versus the other.”

6. What makes a company people-first:

Rand: “I think this is when the leadership and the structure of the organization care more about the long-term health, and happiness, fulfillment, quality-of-work that the team does, than it does about raw financial or economic growth. And I think that weirdly enough [...] if you prioritize people, very often you end up doing better at the economic and financial growth. It’s kind of awesome because you can prioritize the thing that, if you are a human being who cares lots about other human beings and less about the quantity of capital in your bank account, you can do the right thing and also increase the quantity of capital in all the bank accounts. You can do both. That’s the important message. Both can be accomplished.”

Hello friends,

Company founders and leaders have the power to create spaces where our people can do their best work. It’s our job to ask deep questions and think carefully about what ‘work’ is and how it should fit into the rest of our and our teams’ lives.

Back in 2017, when Wildbit decided to experiment with a 4-day workweek, we didn’t just cut a day from our schedule: we chose to fully shake up the way we thought about work. We’d learned that knowledge workers can only do about 4 hours of focused work per day, so we asked ourselves: if we buckled down and got some really thoughtful, meaningful work done, could we work less?

I know how this may sound. As a society, we are used to linking hard work to being virtuous and having a solid work ethic, whereas seeking to work less can be perceived as laziness. But we saw an opportunity to practice deep work and refocus on the quality of work we delivered rather than the number of hours we worked.

What started as a small experiment has now become a central part of who we are as a company. For us, deep work results in better decision making, better prioritization, and better results.

__________________________________

A few months ago, Rand Fishkin (CEO and Founder at SparkToro) wrote an article about hustle culture and chill work, which he defined as “an appreciation for the fulfillment and rewards of high-quality work, but never letting work intensity overwhelm the rest of life.”

Rand’s perspective felt familiar to Wildbit: it’s how we feel about deep work. So we decided to invite Rand over to have an open conversation about how we’re both using deep work and chill work to grow our respective companies—and we’d love for you to join us.

The date is February 9th, and the place is wherever you are.

Some of the things I’m excited to cover include:

• Our respective definitions of deep work and chill work
• What reasonable workloads & pace look like
• Whether chill work and deep work can scale—and what their downsides may be

But we’ll also answer YOUR questions. You’ll find more info on the sign-up page.

We hope to see you there 💚
Natalie and the team @ Wildbit

Companies are an expression of the people they’re made up of; they re-shape themselves and evolve every time you bring someone new onboard.

In 2021, we added 12 people to our now 36-strong team. Having 33% new faces on a Zoom call has been challenging: it means the company we were in January is definitely not the company we are in December (and we don’t know what the Wildbit of next year will look like either).

2021 was also difficult because it was yet another year where we didn’t all get to meet one another in person. This definitely had an impact ​​on our morale, motivation, and feeling of connection to each other—for both old and new team members alike.

Growth and change are hard to embrace. Some of Wildbit’s longest-tenured team members might even remember me saying “We are never growing past 15 people” a few years back—but plans change, businesses evolve, and we need to be able to rethink our ideas if we want to move forward.

(If you have 15 minutes to spare, I recommend this talk ↓ about the importance of not getting stuck on a narrow path.)

Change also brings new energy and new ideas. Every new person brings with them their journey and merges with our collective one as a team; together, we feel inspired and challenged to continue our path of pursuing excellence.

Goodbye to a challenging yet formative 2021. And cheers to whatever new adventures 2022 brings on.

🎉 some highlights we’d like to share

Throughout 2021, the Wildbit team kept doing what we love with people we respect and like being around. Here are some highlights we thought you might enjoy: 

• People-First Jobs has been growing steadily: head over there if you’re looking to find (or hire for) a role in a people-first company next year.
• The first-ever comic book about email deliverability brought readers a lot of joy and paw-some dog puns. Go take a look, cowpoke.
• Accessible Palette was born from a designer’s frustration with how colors work online: this (free) tool can help make the web a little more accessible for all its users.
• As people kept grappling with the ‘Great Resignation’, returning to work, and balancing remote vs. hybrid vs. in-person settings, we shared our experience as a remote-first company that runs a 4-day workweek (we even ended up on Good Morning America and CNN).
• We also implemented location-agnostic pay and took a people-first approach to hiring. If you’re bringing people on your team next year, we hope you’ll find some of our learnings useful.

Thank you for being with us in 2021, and we’ll see you next year. 

💚, Natalie and the team @ Wildbit

Hello friends,

Last month, I asked you to share your questions and thoughts about building and growing a people-first business. You sent deep, kind, and powerful thoughts our way (thank you!) that reinforced our team’s desire to organize ‘something’ where we can all discuss the topic together.

Around the same time, I found myself at a conference with Sahil Lavingia (Founder at Gumroad), talking about how we run our respective companies. It was the first time in a really long time that I was sharing ideas and actual space with another founder.

After I talked about running Wildbit as a people-first company, Sahil joked that he runs Gumroad Sahil-first instead. It sounded like we couldn’t be further apart in our positions…

...but, as always, there is more nuance to the story.

Sahil and I decided to have a follow-up conversation and talk about the reality of building and growing a people-first company. We'll do it live, online, and with an open Q&A, so you can join and ask us the deep, difficult questions nobody else is asking.

The date is December 7th, and the place is wherever you are.

Find more info and rewatch the session →

With 💚
Natalie and the team @ Wildbit

Hello friends,

This week we celebrate Wildbit’s 21st birthday. Being in business this long feels important when the average US company lasts less than 20 years before it’s bought out, merges, or gets liquidated. Tech companies like ours rarely make it past year 5.

And yet, here we (still) are! 🎂

21 years come with a lot of experience, some baggage, and a few inevitable questions about what comes next—not just for Wildbit, but for the world of business in general:

• How do we make the right decisions when there is so much we don’t know?
• What perspectives, options, and opinions are we not exploring?
• What will the future of employment look like?
• What role can people-first companies play?
• What even counts as a people-first company, after the year and a half we’ve all had?

Right now, we don’t have most of the answers. That might have scared us before, but growing up means learning to sit in discomfort and uncertainty instead of needing to be 100% sure all the time.

While the future of employment, people-first businesses, and Wildbit are on my mind, I’m also curious to know what’s on yours. What business challenges are you facing that keep you worried? Is there something you’d like to do or change at your company but don’t know how? What do you want to know about what we’ve learned over the last 21 years?

The team and I enjoy having conversations about the small details that build a big business. We will probably host a few office-hour sessions in the next few months to share our experience and answer your questions.

So if you want to give us a birthday present this week, get in touch and share what’s on your mind: our inbox is open for you.

With 💚
Natalie and the team @ Wildbit

Like most remote-first companies, when the pandemic hit last year and the world plunged into remote work, we had a general feeling that “We’ve got this.” We knew that how we work, communicate, and support each other wouldn’t change; we excel at deep work and async communication. And while we were not prepared for the emotional toll it brought us, overall we were correct: we stayed productive, created flexibility, and made it through.

But with that said, something has been missing.

What most people don’t realize is that remote-first is held together by infrequent but hugely powerful in-person meetings. To be more direct: I don’t think remote-first works without in-person retreats and gatherings. Retreats are the glue that bonds us together as a team.

Natalie and I have continued to run Wildbit because of the people we work with: to creatively solve challenging problems together, to share experiences together, and to gain new perspectives together. And if I think back to the last 20 years of Wildbit, some of the most memorable experiences took place on retreats.

Since 2007, we’ve consistently had a retreat every year, and a few times even twice a year. As a remote-first company, we have to make space for these connections in person: remote communication, whether asynchronous and synchronous, just isn’t enough on its own. Remote-first companies still need the little moments of connection, the shared energy, and the sense of belonging that happen when we just sit around chairs and talk, get to know each other, and support each other both personally and at work.

During the pandemic, I’ve heard a lot about how to do remote properly, especially from pioneers who have been practicing remote work for many years; what I have not heard is how the lack of in-person retreats has impacted, negatively, on remote teams.

Our last retreat was more than two years ago. I have not seen most of the team since then. There are about ten new people I’ve never even met. And I can say with confidence that this has had an impact ​​on the entire team's morale, motivation, and feeling of connection to each other and the purpose behind our work.

It’s not surprising that we’ve all been through an emotional roller coaster - questioning our expertise, our purpose, our place. Without the connection of our family, our friends, and in this case, our coworkers, we tend to question "why" we are doing this at all. This is a time when I need and miss the team most.

In the tech industry, we tend to toot our own horns about how great we are; how we have everything figured out. I saw a lot of this early on in the pandemic with remote work. What we can’t forget is that we’re all still human: we crave in-person interaction, no matter how introverted we claim to be. And remote-first, in my experience, can’t work without those in-person interactions.

With a global team, we’re still not quite ready for a retreat in 2021 or even early 2022; each country, and each person, is at a different state of readiness to re-enter the world. Instead of a full company retreat, we’re scheduling mini-retreats where small regional or functional groups can get together. I just returned from our leadership retreat in Park City, Utah where nine of us got together to plan Q4. It was so refreshing to hang out with the team casually and feed off each other’s energy.

It’s not the same as a full retreat, but it’s a start. And at this point, we’ll take whatever we can get!

Hey there,

If you’re reading this, chances are “What does a people-first business really look like?” is a question that’s been on your mind recently.

Being people first doesn’t come with a playbook, and can look quite different depending on whether a business is small or big, bootstrapped or VC-backed. I want to tell you what being people first looks like for us; and then, if you need more examples, I’ll show you where to find inspiration from other people-first businesses.

What people first looks like at Wildbit

Our team believes that businesses exist to support human beings, so we built a company that allows us to do the work we love, on projects we believe in, with people we care about:

What this approach translates into:

• We choose not to pursue growth at all costs and ignore the traditional markers of ‘success’ you’d find in most business books. In practical terms: we kept a reasonable pace (and stayed profitable) without accepting external funding or cutting corners to grow faster and bigger, even with countless opportunities to do so.
  
• In 2017, we implemented a 4-day workweek and encouraged our team to use the fifth day to make an impact in the communities they care about.
  
• Early this summer, we introduced location-agnostic pay so team members in the same role get the same salary, regardless of where they live.
  
• We focus on personal fulfillment and on understanding how our motivations impact our happiness at work, and then we act on that understanding. Last year, we shut down a well-built product because its lack of traction was causing frustration and low morale. But nobody was fired. Nobody got a pay cut. We just moved on, together, and started working on new projects that felt more fun and rewarding.

​People first is a framework that guides everything we do. We make business decisions as a company by considering the motivations and needs of four main groups of people, or ‘constituents’: founders, employees, customers, and community.

You can visualize these relationships as a pulley system: unless you pay attention to all elements at the same time, an imbalance is inevitable—and while you can’t always perfectly balance it all, for us people first means you at least try.

Where you can find other people-first companies

Wildbit is not unique. There are a lot of team-centric, profit-focused, sustainable companies out there doing incredible things. The problem is you don’t often hear about them: it’s usually the funded, growth-at-all-cost companies that get most of the attention and praise.

We started People-First Jobs (PFJ) last year to solve this problem: we wanted to shine a light on businesses that optimize for people over profits while continuing to grow and innovate. There are currently 67 companies listed that have been manually reviewed by our team, adhere to specific criteria, and have answered questions about their team and culture.

I’d like to invite you to go and take a look now, bookmark the page for later, or sign up for PFJ updates. If you’re running a business of your own or are in a leadership position, we hope you’ll find these companies’ approach useful and inspiring. And if you feel like it’s time for a new job, you might just find what you’re looking for.

Until next time,
Natalie