Mini Workshop Culture: By Delighters, For Delighters
Spending more than half the day together in the office, our Delighters truly "live" here. Since sharing our daily routines and work is second nature to us, we don't just focus on our own tasks. We actively discuss and give feedback on the challenges other teams and colleagues face, and even freely voice our opinions to help shape the company's policies and organizational culture. Today, I'd like to introduce that very culture.
What is our Mini Workshop culture?
When teammates buried in the same project are the only ones proposing ideas and pushing things forward, creativity can eventually run dry. To solve this practical struggle and steer us in a better direction, we created a company-wide culture called the "Mini Workshop."
The Mini Workshop is an event where individual teams—including squads, TFs, and groups—throw a topic out to all Delighters in the company for a joint ideation session. Any Delighter can jump in. Everyone is free to attend based on their own schedule, and depending on the hosting team's plan, little gifts and meals are sometimes provided.
The most recent mini workshop was the "Culture Workshop" hosted by the Branding TF team. Since it was a prime opportunity to pitch ideas about various benefits and cultural initiatives that affect every Delighter, we hit a whopping 100% attendance rate.
To thank all the Delighters who gave up their lunch hour to attend, the Branding TF team prepared delicious Shake Shack burger sets! The delivery arrived without any labels distinguishing Coke Zero from regular Coke, which led to an impromptu blind taste test right before the mini workshop kicked off. 🤣
The theme for this Culture Workshop was creating a company that's a joy to work at! The first item on the timetable was taking time to write down ideas that make us think, "If we had this policy or culture, coming to DelightRoom would be so much fun!" We spent 20 minutes pulling out our deepest wishes while enjoying our tasty burgers. Can you see the rapid hand movements of Jason, our king of passion, already firing off work-related ideas right out of the gate?
After a lively and chatty ideation session, our next step was sharing everyone's ideas with the group. Many Delighters contributed more than five ideas each, and some suggestions even drew collective gasps of awe from the crowd during the discussion.
From long-tenured Delighters to those who had just joined, everyone filled the whiteboard with brilliant ideas reflecting their unique perspectives and situations. Among them, the most powerful was Jake's short and impactful one-liner!
"A month-long stay !!! Let's work remotely! ^___^"
Amidst an overflow of highly competitive ideas, the nerve-wracking voting time arrived. Each Delighter was given three stickers to vote for three items, including their own if they wished. Everyone carefully re-read the Post-it notes and started placing their stickers one by one. The backs of Sol and Jason look quite serious as they ponder where to cast their final votes.
Once the voting wrapped up, we took time to organize and share the ideas that received the most votes. The idea that snagged the top spot was "Happy Hour," proposed simultaneously by both Jake and Joy. The suggestion was to carve out half a day on a Friday afternoon for everyone to have a day-drinking chat over some beers in the office. It garnered a lot of support because the barrier to entry is relatively low, and it requires few resources to execute. A flood of other potential Happy Hour activities poured in besides daytime beers, so we plan to integrate those as well~ Additionally, various ideas like anniversary ceremonies for long-term members and providing a remote work guide earned plenty of votes to reach the top ranks. The People & Culture team is currently working on systematically institutionalizing the diverse ideas from the Culture Workshop, so things are about to get even more fun for our Delighters 🙂 I’ll be sure to introduce this part soon, too~
With the announcement of the results, we completed all the agenda items and wrapped up the delightful Culture Workshop with a "no-lose" lucky draw prepared by the Branding TF team. There were technically no losing tickets, but Liz and Sean, who won the cardholders—which were implicitly considered the dud prizes—look extremely thrilled! 😆 (There were tons of valuable gifts like bags, tumblers, and hardcover notebooks!)
As part of the Branding TF team's plan, we decided to select MVPs through a judging process to reward Delighters who submitted the most feasible, innovative, or just plain cute ideas from the Culture Workshop with small gifts. The awards ceremony took place during our company-wide town hall meeting.
Jake, who earned the most votes and submitted the highest number of fun ideas, and Chris, who made Delighters smile with the most heartwarming and cute idea, were jointly selected as the winners.
So far, I've shared a glimpse of DelightRoom's unique culture, where it isn't just one specific team, but all of us brainstorming and putting in the effort together to build a slightly more enjoyable company.
Please keep an eye out for DelightRoom as we continue to evolve into an even more fun place to work. And if you feel a burning desire to help build a joyful company with us, we are eagerly waiting for your application! 😉
We'll be back soon with more news from DelightRoom~!!!