How we work
The pillars
The totems are what we believe. This is what we actually do about it: the structures, rituals and conditions that hold the thing up. We became the first Semco Style certified company in Spain in 2022 and adopted four of its principles explicitly. Some of them we're good at. One of them we're not, and we'd rather write that down than pretend.
Semco Style
Certified in 2022, the first company in Spain to do it. The four principles below are the ones we committed to in writing.
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01
Trust
Trust as an operating principle, not a talking point. You're one of us, we trust you, and we expect you to earn your team's trust too. With that power comes responsibility.
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02
Self-management
Autonomy over supervision, to the point that it became a hiring requirement. If a role needs someone standing behind it, we've designed the role wrong.
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03
Extreme stakeholder alignment
Numbers, goals and clients are shared with the team: prices, cost per hour, internal budget and pricing models. Hard to argue about priorities when everyone can see the same sheet.
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04
Control without controlling
The one we're worst at, and we'd rather say so. Control doesn't exist: over hours, over afternoons, over anything. The only real lever is persuasion through purpose. We're still struggling with this one.
Structures and rituals
What the principles turned into once they had to survive a calendar.
- No middle management No intermediate layers, no rigid roles, no silos.
- Monthly 1:1s With everyone on the team, every month.
- Bi-annual retrospectives Company-wide, not per project.
- Management reviewed by the team Every six months, in writing.
- Career plan An individual growth plan with no pyramid to climb. Reviewed in 1:1s and in the semiannual assessment.
- No written HR rules Replaced by processes, conventions and the presumption of good intention.
- Collective decisions are binding Processes over rules. Once it's decided, it's decided.
Material conditions
The part that gets signed. Rated 96/100 on 4dias.es, which we mention because we're not above it.
- Four-day week
- 32 hours, 100·80·100: all of the work, 80% of the time, 100% of the salary. Since 2022.
- Fully remote
- No geographic limit: we hire across countries and timezones.
- Flexible hours
- You declare a lunchtime as a courtesy, not as a clock-in.
- 93 days off a year
- 23 working days of holiday, 14 public holidays, 52 free Fridays.
- Collective shutdown
- The last week of December and the first of January.
- Training budget
- Explicit, plus discretionary budget with a justified case.
- Reward program
- It exists. We've never detailed it publicly. Ask us.