Making and communicating decisions across an organization can be a challenge anytime. Making decisions during a pandemic is a whole new level of challenge. When the impact of COVID-19 started to grow, we at Buffer, like many others, needed to move as quickly as possible, gather a lot of information,…
Why Transparent Email Stopped Working For Us and What We Do Instead
When I joined Buffer and opened my new Buffer email account for the first time, the email count read 200. I was momentarily stunned. That was way more emails than I’d ever had in one place before. Usually, when you set up an email account at a new workplace, your…
Buffer Is Moving to a 4-Day Workweek for the Rest of 2020
In May, our entire team experimented with a 4-day workweek. The intention of this experiment was to help us all manage the stress and changes to routine caused by living through a global pandemic. We initially rolled out the 4-day work week experiment for only one month, with the main…
We’re Trying a 4-Day Workweek for the Month of May
As April comes to a close, and we look ahead to another month where our global team is living in various forms of lockdown and isolation, I decided that for the month of May, Buffer will operate under a 4-day workweek (at full pay) across the whole 89-person team. We’re…
How We Hold an Engaging All Hands Meeting as a Remote Team
Many companies have a regular All Hands meeting. Generally, this is a company-wide gathering for all employees (‘all hands on deck’) to hear from the organization’s leaders and discuss the state of the company. At Buffer, the All Hands meeting is a key element of our communication and culture. As…
Is Remote Work Greener? We Calculated Buffer’s Carbon Footprint to Find Out
I wish I could tell you that I have always been an environmental warrior. But my story is a more common one. I’ve always done my best to care for the environment. I cycle, walk or take public transport as much as I can. I use my refillable water bottle…
Business as Abnormal: Every Message We’ve Shared With Our Team (So Far) During COVID-19
Ever since a global pandemic exploded the ranks of remote workers in a matter of a few weeks, folks have been turning to longtime remote companies like Buffer for answers. We wish we had them. Buffer has been fully remote for almost 10 years, but this is not normal remote…
The Evolution of Onboarding at Buffer: How We Welcome New Teammates
As an always-evolving company, Buffer has shared a lot of our successes and failures along the way — and we view each of these ups and downs as chances to learn and grow. One area we’ve experimented with deeply in the past year has been onboarding – how we bring…
Sustainable Swag: Aligning Our Values with Our Merchandise
For the past few years, we’ve been on a journey to make sure our Buffer swag – the branded merchandise that goes out to teammates, customers and the world – reflects our Buffer values. Branded merchandise has a vast footprint on the environment — in terms of production, shipping, employment…
Introducing Buffer’s Family Support Fund
One of the most conversation-provoking perks we’ve ever launched at Buffer is our Dependents Grant. This benefit provides a $3,000 USD stipend to teammates for each person who depends on their salary (including spouses, partners, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.). When it first launched in 2016, the grant was designed…