Welcome! We're so excited to have you with us! We've created this Primr to help you adjust to your new role with us. We're trying to give you a way to understand everything there is to learn about what we do at Sweepr. Feel free to come back to this as often as you like. This is a living document, which will serve as a reflection on our culture we are creating here. We expect it will evolve all the time as our team grows and develops.
The Primr name came to us in a dream. We joke. It came after a process of writing down every possible name this could have, and then looking for a way of make it unique to us, Sweepr. Take a look at what primer means:
A primer gets you ready for what comes next. You could use one kind of primer when you are learning to read, or another kind when you are preparing to paint a room. Any way you use the word primer, it's a first step or preparation for something else. There's primer you use before painting, and an engine primer that prepares a machine to be started.
If you’ve just joined Sweepr you've come to the right place because you'll have the insiders knowledge about the culture we've created by the time you've read it.
So if you're someone reading this for the first time, or the 15th time, you are learning the basics of conduct in the company, understanding what makes us unique, or actually having a first experience of our culture.
When you read this, tell us what we forgot, and we’ll add it in. (Watch Primr grow with our team!!!)
Our vision is that every customer, in every home, feels cared for, empowered by and confident with the technologies they use every day. Sweepr will be successful when receiving support is as natural as turning on the radio or checking the weather.
Our mission is to create delightfully simple customer care. At Sweepr, we want to transform the experience of asking for and receiving help. We picture a world where people are surrounded by technology and embrace it, troubleshoot issues seamlessly and enjoy the ways technology makes life better.
Our three core values embody the mission and vision of our company’s founders in our everyday actions.
Be Bold. We are on the side of action, choosing to be risk-takers as we solve challenges. We try new things, collect evidence, change and try again, quickly correcting when things don’t go as planned.
Serve the experience. We hold an unexpectedly great customer experience as our highest calling in everything we do. We are not a technology company, but an experience company.
Care generously. We challenge and care for our colleagues, customers and users in a generous, respectful and honest way, choosing to approach our work with a sense of possibility and positivity.
We were founded by Alan Coleman and Jim Hannon in 2018, and have grown a lot since then. We asked Alan just how it all began.
"So how did it all begin?"
“So there's a couple of stories and it's almost hard to remember exactly which ones came in which order, but one of the initial ones was me having to try to fix Wi-Fi problems in the house and finding that the whole process of going through and talking to an agent was really difficult. I ended up in conversations where the level of technical detail you needed to have the conversations were unreasonable. I said to Jim, our CTO, when I came in that morning ‘like why on earth do you have to do that? Why was I needed on that call?’ Would it not have been possible for there to be some kind of software to represent the problem for me, rather than pass through the events and the situation in the home and then some piece of software on the other side that could say oh now ‘I'll just reboot the router’ or ‘I'll just do this’. It looked to me like the customers like contributing to the solution or interpreting what we saw. There is a specific quantifiable thing wrong and it was in this kind of human interpretative layer which slowed things down. There was that kind of moment.
Another moment was myself and Jim coming in and saying oh yeah like I'm always having these problems with my son when he's playing his fortnite, like when he starts moaning about the you know Wi-Fi being laggy and I started thinking about what we're trying to do and to analyse what it meant to have a good game playing experience. I said I was kind of surprised to see there were six or seven things in order for it to work. You have to have Fortnite servers working, you have to have the Xbox Live working, the Xbox, the Xbox extender, the router and the wiring straight to the home and he said all those things crossover. Like I bought the TV off somebody and the Xbox off somebody else. I pay a recurring charge to Xbox Live and for the extender on Harvey Norman. The router provided by Aer and so on. The more we kind of picked at this, I have realised actually this whole situation like connectivity in and of itself is becoming materially important and we started kind of thinking we need a better way to help people get back online when stuff doesn't work....
the problems change. You can change the people and people always have questions and they're always going to need help. They don't give a damn about the complexity of what happened to make that work and in a similar way, customers have no tolerance for when they have a problem, for someone to say it's a complicated, start chasing around trying to ring that person. Like we’re trying to understand what piece of this connected home is no longer working. You have a question and you either want the answer or for it to be fixed immediately, or you want someone to take the responsibility for fixing it and giving you the answer off your shoulders. I deposited my question now... I don't want to say it again and I don't want to say to someone else. I don't want to wait for 30 minutes until someone answers me. I just want the answer. I just want a thing fixed. I want it back working again. So that philosophy drives what we’re trying to deliver as a user experience to people involved with Sweepr. It's that simple. But as we can see as the homes become more complicated it becomes even more difficult to simplify, and Sweepr is really about simplification. It's battling to maintain simplification and hiding all the complexity, behind all the complexity of the instructions or the steps that need to be taken or the operations that companies have that need to happen so we're trying to build a kind of protective layer around support that only delivers simple experiences.”
“Are you ever inspired by sci-fi or utopia culture?”
““I guess I would say is the question is one of the things I'm gonna contest when I was coming from my idea is to what extent is that idea feasible? Then the second question is that does it feel inevitable, right? So could we be verbalising problems and having something go fix the problem that you're having. It feels like that's not technically insurmountable. And do I think that's how that will work in the future? Yeah I probably do. I probably feel like I won't be punching numbers into a phone to wait to talk to human feel like no, now there will be a point in human history where actually the whole idea of getting help with something that's not working in your house will just be, you know, you just speak to something intelligent and the intelligence will go figure it out. I suppose that sort of way the future looks like is definitely inspired by the fact that I watch SyFy and grew up watching Star Trek. It feels like the technology and those things don't like, to me, most of them feel like they're somewhere on the path of human innovation. It’s not that I'm not there. It’s just like, when will I arrive? When someone says you're starting a company in something like this, just trying to see, well, how we arrived at that point now and if we have, could we be part of that picture? Because I feel like we might have, and that’s something that drives me... to kind of test the veracity of what we do.”
There are a growing number of us currently, so as we gain another brilliant individual we will add them in here. Our company culture is created by the respect, kindness and empathy we show each other every day. We’re building next generation technology with the latest AI and interaction modalities like voice but… what we’re really creating are amazing customer experiences.
We’re a team who’s different in lots of ways on the outside but we’re united by a vision of what’s possible and the challenge of solving the most difficult problems.
We span the globe with offices in Dublin, Madrid and remote employees in the US, so our team do a bit of travelling from time to time. We work hard but we also believe in play, laughter and family. If you’re just joining us, here’s our cheatsheet of Who’s Who in case you forget.
Wondering how to explain what Sweepr does to your family and friends? Yeah, believe us, it’s difficult to put into a few words. But no worries… we got you covered here in Primr! We asked the team to describe what they do in the simplest way possible:
“We move the point of technical triage from within the call center to within the home”
Management and Admin
“I write documents about our products. These are technical overviews and user guides”
Professional Services
“We transform the data of the machines in a way that is understandable and usable for the users”
Engineering
“We use what we know about human behavior to make our product easy and fun to use”
Design
“We build the Sweepr product features”
Engineering
“We build the Sweepr applications. My team in particular builds the user interfaces for the web based apps (called Tools), and for the end-user app (Mobile app)”
Engineering
“Product development (brick-after-brick)! I belong to a team that types in stuff to get Sweepr going...”
Professional Services
“Magic”
Engineering
“We design all things from product to print and help shape the overall experience within the company and for our clients.”
Design
Here we are. All of our lovely faces! If you’re new, you can use this to aid you in not forgetting our names as soon as you hear them.
This part is especially important if you’re about to join our team . There’s going to be lots to take in, but that is exactly why we made the Primr. There are lots of things we wish we knew when we first started here. As our team grows, our common experiences grow. Sharing the knowledge is just something we can do to give our new team member some support, and just to be nice people too.
So we asked the team to come up with some stuff they wish they knew when they started working at Sweepr. Here’s what they had to say:
“I never thought I would be informed about business, clients, investments, revenue being on the product development side of things. In most jobs, one knows these things through a newsletter. But, the directors in Sweepr keeps business transparent and get you involved with the company majorly. “It is not 'Get this done....', It is 'We need this indoor to accomplish that..”
Management and Admin
“That we were terra forming a brand new market”
Engineering
“I knew the product would be cool to work on but I didn't know it would turn into this metropolis of a product that seems to not really have existed anywhere else, which is pretty awesome.”
Design
Good news! You’ll be set up at a desk, which you can make your own space, and say hey to your neighbours. Make yourself feel at home by personalising your space. It's about time someone brought in a potted plant. That could be you.
More good news! You’ll be issued an Apple Macbook, which is the only supported device for Sweepr employees right now.
For security purposes, all laptop device disks are to be encrypted and their Firewall enabled. For Macbooks, this requires you to enable the following settings on your own machine:
System preferences > Security and Privacy > Firewall > Turn on Firewall.
Keep your computer safe when your transporting it, like doing your absolute best to prevent it from getting stolen is a big one. MacBooks are not cheap. If you want to bring in some of your own equipment, go for it, so long as it doesn’t put your Sweepr laptop in danger. If there’s a piece of equipment you need to complete your work, mention it to your manager and we can help you out there.
We use Slack for talking between each other, and there are different channels for different topics. You can read up the chats and be as nosey as you like. Send us all a big wazsup message by typing @channel+your message into Slack. Notion is super handy for task lists and a brilliant place to keep communal documents. We have the Sweepr Design Kanban, which shows tasks that have been appointed, started, and done. If your on the design team, Figma is the main tool we use, along side the Adobe crowd. The development team use Jira.
Slack is such an important tool that it needs its own section. If you’re unfamiliar, Slack is a rapid communication tool. You’ll use it to instant message your colleagues, whether they’re across the world or a desk away. (Yes, we really do Slack our desk neighbors. The struggle is real.) There are channels for different teams and for joking around. It’s all very 21st century.
But here’s the thing: for our colleagues who are remote (aka, an office of one), Slack is their lifeline to the rest of the team.
So, Slack your colleagues. Especially the ones you can’t see. Post fun stuff on the #random and #general channels. It’ll be awesome.
You can take lunch with your desk neighbours or your team members, just Slack 'em if they're free, or go solo if that’s your thing. In the Dublin office there's lots of great places to eat around, as we are in the centre of town, so grab a bite and watch out for the seagulls. Some people say staring them straight in the eyes is the best way to fend them off. In the Madrid office, we usually have lunch in the office but there are a lot of places around the office to have lunch too. There's a microwave in the kitchen too if you bring your own food. Snack away at your desk, cuz feeding our hard working grey matter matters.
We might have given you a task to do by now, which probably will get you exploring the different tools. Just navigating through these, and clicking around is a great start. Over the next few weeks, you'll be learning a lot but don't hesitate to ask questions. All questions are good questions.
At the risk of seeming evasive, check with your manager on expected work hours. Things vary by location, so be sure to check in on when you need to show your bright shiny face. We’ve also got a variety of time zones happening across our team and customers, like so:
This is how it works out in everyday language: Acala usually gets started and finished an hour before Dublin. Then when we get to the American team, those folks are getting started in the middle of the afternoon for the Europeans and hold down Sweepr’s ‘second shift.’ Once you figure out what time it is for you and the rest of the team, here’s the important stuff to know:
As with any innovative and ambitious group of people, there may be times where we finish up a little early or a little later than your expected hours. This is especially true if you’re working with a client in some other part of the world. Some accommodation might be necessary.
In general, it’s good to aim to be in the office, or active on Slack with good wifi access if you are working remotely, for your expected working hours because collaboration and talking with your team are all part of the process in doing what we do.
We suggest you not always be the one to take a late meeting, or an early meeting, and that you divide up the requests for after hours meetings to be respectful of everyone else's time.
Collaborative and team based work is how we do things here. You’ll learn some amazing and valuable things doing this, and can teach a thing or two at the the same time.
We all have different skills, knowledge and approaches, so to work as a team you must be acknowledging this all the time. Having respect for one another, helping each other to understand something your trying to do, giving feedback that is constructive, and receiving it too is the best way we can make the best work possible and have some fun too.
We also suggest you read back through our Sweepr Values to see what we think is important. And, we’ve also created a Sweepr Values Self-Assessment that lists out the behaviors we expect for each of our three values.
We can't (de)stress this enough. Taking breaks is part of working.
The clarity you can get from a stroll around the office, or the building, is worth ten times that time sitting at your desk in a daze.
To have longevity in your role, you must remember that it's a marathon, not a sprint. Dedicate the tasks that require the most focus to the part of the day you feel most energised and creative. It’s different for everyone, like for some, it might be early in the morning first thing after getting to the office or getting settled at your desk (if your remote), or later after lunch.
Take a minute to check your posture. Stretch your arms up, breath in, and refresh your sitting position with a straight back. Maybe you could start a chain reaction of break taking, arm stretching, posture improving Sweepr team.
Earphones are how we listen to tunes, unless you’re the only one in the office. In that case, no one’s going to be around to complain about having Abba on loop, which they shouldn't. Abba rocks.
Fill your team in on the work you’ve accomplished since the last stand-up, and mention anything that might be relevant for your team members. Keeping your team in the loop prevents problems further down the line, so be as open as possible.
The point of a standup is to be concise, crisp and highlight anything that’s blocking you from completing your tasks. Get in, get out and move on with your work. That’s the basic idea. If there’s more to say, schedule another meeting for the discussion.
It's possible to work from home, but check with your manager first. The best way to work remotely is to make sure you’ve got good wifi, and that you’re online to communicate with your team. Here's the thing about remote: if you're unreliable when you're remote, that means you're unreliable at work.
Being green on Slack shows that you're available and able to respond if someone sends you a quick question. If you're trying to get some dedicated time for work, it's ok to be on Slack but set your status to.... busy. Or something explanatory. But still respond to your manager if you get pinged.
Also, some of our team is going to be remote pretty much all the time. That can make everyone a little sad, so we encourage you to make sure you're sharing the love by posting funny, educational things on the appropriate channel, sending a quick “hi” to people and other fun messages can help them feel included and valued. Don't underestimate your ability to brighten someone else's day with a quick message or email.
Here's the good news: we're an Irish company and as such, we understand the importance of holidays.
If you're not Irish, rejoice! We all get 23 days of holiday bliss per year (that's vacation time for you Americans!). Make sure you book each and every wonderful day with your manager in advance to get the okay, then send a note to vacation@sweepr.com with your dates so it hits the holiday calendar.
And then… pack your bags and wish us all goodbye or adios! (And bring us back some treats, please?)
Because we have offices in not only Madrid, but the United States too, you might be a lucky duck and get to go on a trip!
We cover all the costs, like flights and accommodation. Ask your manager about expense limits, especially if your travel will be charged to a client. And do keep in mind that we’re a startup, so we really want to keep things as financially reasonable as possible.
When you return, you’ll be asked to file an expense report in our online tool, Expensify. Your manager will fill you in. Just make sure you keep all your receipts for flights, ground transportation, meals and accommodations.
Here’s some basic etiquette ahead for how to arrange meetings, everyone’s favorite topic (not!).
A meeting is appropriate when you want to discuss a topic and arrive at a decision. In other words, there should be a goal or outcome you want to achieve as a result of the time spent. Sometimes, the goal is just to see and interact with the people you work with or be accountable to each other (as in, standups). That’s great and a good use of time. But if your issue can be handled with a quick Slack, email or drop by a desk or two, don’t just knee jerk to create a meeting. Next, ask yourself how much time you want to spend to arrive at your goal. Consider whether you want to, can or should limit discussion to get a decision in 15 or 30 minutes. Don’t be an unconscious one-hour meeting maker. It’s a bad look.
Ok, great… so now you know you need a meeting and you’ve got your time frame. What else is there to know?
If you’re going to have a meeting with someone, which a lot of the time can be arranged on Google Hangout, then check their calender first. Select a slot that they can attend, which may be later/earlier in the day that you think if you’re considering time difference for your remote colleagues.
When you create a meeting, make sure you include all team members that are required to make decisions. You should have a clear agenda, and have clear goals set for your meeting.
It’s also good form to record any results or outcomes from your meeting, and share with the participants after via email or other meeting minutes, especially if there are action items.
As the professional, it’s critical to your continued growth to reflect on how you think you’re doing in your current role.
We do a review because there is always room for improvement but always room to congratulate yourself too. You can chose when you want to do it, so it doesn’t break your flow. Generally speaking, it’s fairly standard to do a full performance review once a year, but every 6 months is even better. It’s also important to ask for continual feedback from your peers, managers, clients and other stakeholders.
After a feedback session is done, we always have more clarity on where our strengths and weaknesses lie. Obtaining feedback and determining your own professional goals (with or without support), is something you should confidently take initiative on yourself too. In other words, don’t hesitate to reach out to your manager for a feedback session. It will be truthful, honest and transparent. You’ll probably realise you know already what your team leader, or co-workers think of you. Good leaders and members of teams know that when they tell someone when they do something good, at the time they do it, they will do it again, way faster than if you’re only told twice a year. It’s the best way to make sure you’re always aligned on what’s important, especially in the constantly-changing world of a startup.
When we’re close as a group of people, it shows in the work we do. Fun events are vital for our relationships with each other to grow. Having fun together, away from our normal tasks, is one way to create happiness at work.
Did you know that the more engaged people are at work, the more productive and efficient they are? Also, research has shown that engaged employees lead to less turnover, are better able to keep their customers and create more profits for their companies. Finally, work engagement also leads to more well-being in people’s overall lives.
That’s a lot of benefit from being engaged at work, right?
Getting involved in work activities also gives us a chance to get to know people outside of our teams. So we run a few events every year, organised by the Cultur team. If you can think of an event that would put a smile on everyones face, let the Cultr team know!
In addition to employee events, being engaged also means that you enjoy the work you do. Everyone is different and what lights you up is going to be unique to you. For all of us, there will be parts of our jobs that are awesome and other parts that we just have to do. If you ever feel like you’re not as engaged as you’d like to be or you’re no longer feeling positive about your tasks, it’s important to talk to your manager. Let them help you figure out how to remedy the situation, for your own good as well as Sweepr’s.
Our Code of Conduct is an agreed outline of the kinds of behaviours we support, and the kinds we do not. It helps to know all of this so that you’re clear on what behaviour is appropriate at work and what isn’t, especially with such a diverse team. There should be no vagueness that all employee and customer interactions are expected to be positive, inclusive, safe, happy, nurturing. We never support abusive, violent, inappropriate, disrespectful, discriminatory or harassing behavior. This expectation extends through all our shared professional lives, such as the physical office space, events, and online. This Code of Conduct applies to our business and every single team member here at Sweepr.
Being harassed is a lonely place and many people do not speak up about it. These behaviors that are not tolerated at Sweepr, and if someone behaves in a way that is outlined here, there will be and investigation and appropriate consequences.
Harassment is defined as any conduct that annoys, threatens, intimidates, alarms or puts a person in fear of their safety. Depending on the specific behaviour involved, harassment may be considered a crime, especially if it creates a hostile environment based on a person’s race, age, sex, religion, national origin, color, disability, pregnancy or other individual differences. This type of harassment is called discrimination.
It’s important to know that harassment is how a behaviour lands for the receiver. Please choose your words and actions carefully at all times and when in doubt, refrain from any overly familiar or casual comments or actions that make others feel uneasy about your intent.
If you experience bullying, harassment or discrimination of any kind, reporting it allows change to occur. The steps you can take to reporting these behaviors include:
Reporting anything you feel is harassing behavior from another colleague is important, but we also recognize it can be difficult a lot of the time. There can be many barriers to reporting. For example, your resulting emotions, poor memory, not wanting to cause trouble, or being uncomfortable with talking about the incident are all reasons people don’t report. While these are all completely normal reactions, it’s important to all of us and the health of our organization that these incidents come to light. Please select any member of the management team to receive your concerns as soon as an incident occurs.
Our content at Sweepr, including ideas, writing, communications in all channels, customer information, is a large part of what makes our business thrive. As such, it’s critical that you be aware of how to appropriately share content, as well as when sharing is not appropriate. Deciding what content to share refers to both personal content (about yourself or your colleagues) and work content (what you and your colleagues are doing). Sharing includes verbal, digital, or printed channels.
Here’s the mantra to remember: if any doubt, check it out. Please ask your manager “is it ok to post/say/write this stuff?” before sharing something. Some things are obviously not for sharing, like personal information about your colleagues, photos of your colleagues without consent, or details of any of our clients. Instead of assuming something can be shared, ask first. We know how exciting it is to show the world your Sweepr endevours.
Information and Data security is a critical element of the Sweepr business. The collection of end-customers data related to their connected environments for the purpose of providing contextually adaptive care to them places a clear obligation on Sweepr to treat this data with security in mind. Any breach of such data would be particularly problematic for the Sweepr business and no reasonable measure will be withheld to ensure that such a breach does not happen. Any suspected unintended disclosure (breach) of corporate or customer data must be notified immediately to the COO or CEO, or in their absence another member of senior management. This will trigger a risk analysis by our Data Incident Review team with appropriate action being taken up to and including notification to the appropriate Government Authorities.
Data in this context includes all data controlled or processed by Sweepr in relation to its employees, its clients and the end customers of our direct clients and typically includes data such as:
Individual contact details including email addresses, phone numbers, addresses etc.
Information customers provide about their networks, devices and services and other aspects of their connected environment.
With great laptops comes great responsibility. Well, there are certains things you should know and not overlook. Knowing the correct use of your computer is so important to the workings of our comapny.
So first of all, only allow Sweepr employees to access and use your computer. Keep your passwords safe and to yourself. As well as this, use your computer only for work related activities. Your work laptop shouldn’t substitute for a personal laptop.
Because the computer stays as property of Sweepr, assume your actions online are not private. So that means not downloading or opening unlawful material, which is all risky business for our business.
If you're working remotely, only use secure wifi connections. If you're in doubt, then wait until you can check with the provider.
Employees have a duty to report the following to management:
Suspect emails/email attachments/websites
Obscene/illegal material found on any corporate IT resource
When using your Sweepr email, do not open any mail which looks unrecognisable or unsafe. This goes the same for using the internet.
This is all employee's company; there is as yet no all seeing overseer watching over everything. So everybody has a part to play in making sure we stay safe in our IT use and within the law when it comes to privacy and data protection. It’s a dangerous world out there on the Internet! We need everybody to help!.
Excessive use of the corporate IT resources for personal reasons
Persistent downloading of illegal/obscene/offensive material
Loss of corporate or customer data or loss of machines and devices containing corporate data.
Just as we inspire each other in our team all the time, we also like to get inspiration from people who are doing amazing things outside our team, or even outside our field. Feeling inspired helps us to do the best work possible and jumpstarts our creative process when we feel we need it. It’s actually essential to know what’s going on around you in order to make great work. If you’re interested in an event or having someone come into talk to us, tell your team leader, because we’re up for funding something that will refresh your professional momentum.
Technology sure does move fast, it's something we know too well here. Learning new software, or keeping up with software updates is part of life, but if you’re interested in taking on more challenges by learning a new skill, we’ll help you figure out the best ways to get it done.
Moving forward and getting better not only happens as a team, but as individuals as well. Speak to your manager if you need some time spent towards up-skilling. Moving on up, in terms of your role, is a great opportunity that is available to you here. We will support you in your quest for greatness.
If you’re not well, take some time off work or at the very least, work from home. Don’t be that person that comes into the office spewing some plague all over the office. Yuck! Follow your grandmother’s advice and get yourself some tea, chicken soup, or some other secret recipe that’s been handed down through the generations and get yourself better.
If you’re sick for more than two days, please consult with a healthcare professional. Just ask them for a note, just so we’re all clear on what’s going down.
And get well soon! You’ll be missed… but don’t worry, we’ll have plenty for you to do when you return.
Congratulations! You’re going to have a baby or other small dependent person!
What an exciting time… so much to look forward to. So many responsibilities, new costs, late nights, mouths to feed, maybe nappies (diapers for you Americans) and don’t even get us started if you’re staring at the approaching teenage years with all the stuff related to driving, college, alcohol, budding romance. Whew! So it’ll be… what? Like another 20 years or so until you can just worry about yourself again, if you’re lucky?
But we digress.
During this joyous time, it’s important that you know we support you in bonding with your child. These aren’t called “the formative years” for no reason!
For new parents of natural and adopted children, parental leave is available. Please check with your manager to understand specific requirements of your country location, as these vary widely.
And best wishes from the whole team! Parenthood is the most exhausting, confusing, ridiculous, draining, amazing thing you’ll ever do!
Ah, life events. They happen to all of us and they can be so anxiety-producing when you think about work in combination with these pivotal moments.
We want you to know we’ve got your back when unexpected events occur. The key to making these situations work for everyone is clear and open communication. The sooner you can let us know what’s happening, the sooner we can take one worry off your plate.
If you’re dealing with a loved one who needs support, a death in the family or any other unexpected situation, please speak to your manager about options for leave or other accommodation. Together, we’ll figure out your needs and how to take care of the unique responsibilities of the value you bring to Sweepr.
It’s unfortunate that it isn’t as easy to mention when your head doesn feel quite right that day as it is to mention a strained neck, or a tummy ache. Your colleges are all here to support and help you, so if you need to share a worry, or tell someone you're not feeling quite ok, then do! If you feel unable to work with your current mental health situation, speak to your manager, and then a plan of action such as therapy, some time off ect may unburden you. Having a healthy mind is important for your work, but like the body, and as we are all humans, it’s not going to work perfectly all the time. We encourange conversation around this topic, because it happens to all of us at some point.
Office life doesn have to mean sitting down all day long, which can be pretty bad for your body. It’s probably a good idea to get up and around, especially during lunch. Walking to the shop, or even taking a break to go for a stroll is highly recommended. Get that blood flowing. If there’s something that you think would benefit everyone in Sweepr, suggest it and maybe it just might be the thing to really spark energy in the teams.
Making real change is something we’re serious about. It’s Sweepr’s reason for being! What is the point in having a business unless it’s making a meaningful contribution.
Businesses hold a special power in social responsibility, because we effect so many people’s lives through our example. Being good and doing good means having a positive impact on the world, for both people and the environment.
Our posture as a good global citizen adds to Sweepr’s value for ourselves and our customers. We’ll invest in social responsibility through the resources we use, the clients we work with, and the diversity of the people that join us. As our results begin to stack up, we’ll strive to do even better. We also hold the view that we can always do better, so we invite everyone to question things, initiate conversations on improving how we do things, and to ask the people in our company over accepting best practises.
How can our actions ensure positive change for our environment and the people who are associated with us? By being serious about being leaders in sustainability. A great place to create change is in the home, and as Sweepr is a home product, it’s essential that our impact is a positive one.
As an innovation company, we see the solutions that are out there and then taking them further. We’re aiming to be 100% sustainable and carbon neutral. This of course does not happen overnight. As we grow from a start up to a bigger company, the scale of our efforts will grow too. Here is a list of our immediate actions we are doing right now to ensure the safety of our future, and everyone elses.
We see our company as successful when our teams are diverse in all ways. Diversity means differences across a group of people in terms of their gender identity, race, sexual orientation, physical abilities and disabilities, age, sex or religion. In fact, research has shown that diverse teams make better business decisions and are more profitable than those that are more homogeneous.
When diversity is ignored, all of us lose out. However, diversity is a conscious choice. When our team represents a multitude of people, we can see things from many different perspectives, allowing us to be innovative and lead by example.
When interviews are held for job openings, we have at least two people from our side, who differ in the ways stated above, so that we know we're hiring a person suitable for the job, who has not been selected due to unintentional bias.
Having a diverse team means attracting talented people who don’t necessarily think like we do. We accept that businesses adopting strong diversity policies can begin the difficult work of dismantling historical imbalances, because such a large proportion of people belong to businesses workforces.
It’s not enough to be diverse, but we must recognise that a sense of belonging is a core psychological need. But a sense of belonging does not just happen on its own.
Belonging doesn’t take a linear journey, but a more zigzag one. It is an ongoing process, with much of the time it takes effort and trial and error to get results. Inclusion must be created, one person at a time.
For everyone to feel included, everyone should be able to access the same resources equitably. So rather than just providing each person with the same resources, we have to acknowledge and appreciate setbacks.
When you come to work, we ask that you bring your authentic self to work. If you concentrate on making yourself fit, you are wasting time and energy on something that prevents you from expressing your unique creativity and brilliance. Sometimes it only takes one person, which can cause someone else to feel allowed to be themselves.
We also ask that you be observant, with an eye on helping your colleagues feel included. Here are some ways you can encourage greater inclusion:
Offer kind words. If you see someone doing something that you find authentic to them, say a few kind words, or even just “thank you.” You don’t need to agree with someone else to acknowledge that they spoke from their heart.
Encourage all opinions. If you observe someone who isn’t contributing to a meeting or discussion, encourage them to share their thoughts.
Know about group bias. Did you know that psychological research has shown that people in groups tend to only share information known to all group members? That’s right! There are many ways that group bias can limit decision-making, especially if different perspectives aren’t surfaced. If you suspect groupthink is taking over your meeting or team, you need to speak up.
Ask for pointers. If there is someone who’s different than you and you’re feeling unsure how to best include them, respectfully ask them! It’s a lot better to say something like “Hey listen, I’m not sure what the best way to handle this situation is for you” than to just plow ahead and risk doing something that could be interpreted incorrectly.
Just as someone might have green eyes, or blue eyes, or be right handed, or left handed, some people may have or experience being differently able to others. This comes under mobility, eye sight, dexterity, speech, reach, balance, strength, stamina, hearing, touch, knowledge, understanding, memory, or sense of direction. We are creating a place where not only our product is accessible by the use of Universal Design, but is a place where everyone has equal opportunities to work with us, to be treated equally, and to feel comfortable and able to do the same things.
What is Universal Design you say? It is “the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability. Simply put, universal design is good design.”
This follows Inclusion naturally, because to be inclusive is to be accessible. As a company, we all must look outside of ourselves and consider others. How we do this is by how we treat each other, our customers and our users. We also ensure that we work in an evironment that is suitable for all the needs of each employee at Sweepr. We can also ensure that the language we use with our team and our customers is not exclusive, avoiding technical jargon that others may not understand where possible.
We use sooo many words that still make our heads spin, so we’ve made sure to include them and their meanings, (in case Google doesn’t know our super cool secret language.) There are so many teams of us doing different things, so whether you’re a designer wanting to understand the development team’s lingo, or a manager interested in design terms, or working in a different geography, it’s all here.
A technical problem or question that an end-user wants resolved. It depends on the context of course, like issue would mean something completely different if someone said “I think there's an issue with my cactus, it hasn't been the sharpest this morning.”
The one or more Interactions with Sweepr that an end user has to have in order to resolve a specific issue.
A categorization of an Issue into a specific class of problems or questions (e.g. “buffering”, “onboarding”, “disconnected”).
Any of the networks, devices and services used by the end user and for which they may seek support.
A specific Issue that Sweepr has been suitably configured to resolve.
A single continuous use of Sweepr by an end-user consisting of a series of Steps. Now you’re talking!
Any single exchange between the end user and Sweepr or between Sweepr and an external system.
One step presented by an interactant (human or Sweepr) followed by one contingent response by the partner.
One specific type of User Input, being a single spoken input from an end-user (typically routed to an NLP engine). Like when you would utter a word.
A communication from Sweepr that asks the user to take an action or answer a question.
Any of the networks, devices and services used by the end user and for which they may seek support.
A single Utterance, tap, swipe or text entry from an end-user.
A single piece of contingent communication from Sweepr to the end-user or from the end user to Sweepr (may be visual or spoken)... and much quicker and more efficient than a message in a bottle.
The first User Input by a user or Request by Sweepr that begins an Interaction. “Hey Sweepr....”.
A single sequence of Steps which is a potential solution for one or more specific Issues. Resolutions may implement data gathering Steps during execution solely for the purpose of controlling progression through the single solution logic flow within that Resolution.
A Command that moves to end the Interaction; ending the interaction must be jointly negotiated. Until next time.
A Command that conveys miscommunication or confusion by the end user.
Questions that a user responds to which provide relevant information for use in clarifying an Incident.
Data that Sweepr can gather and test which provide relevant information for use in clarifying an Incident.
The first stage in an Interaction when a user engages with Sweepr through one of the supported channels and presents the first User Input to the system, usually presented as a statement of their Issue, or when Sweepr initiates an Interaction by notifying the user about a potential Incident. “Sweepr, there’s a problem with my...”.
The stage in an Interaction which is used to fully clarify all details of the specific Incident by identifying the Issue Type and gathering relevant contextual data for all the Care Points likely to be impacted by the reported Issue. This involves both User Diagnostics where the user is asked clarification questions and Technical Diagnostics where Sweepr uses software integrations to gather information.
The stage in an Interaction which is used to apply pre-defined rules and/or machine-learned rules to select probability-of-success-ranked potential Resolutions to the identified Incident.
The stage in an Interaction which is used to deliver a Resolution to an end user.
The stage in an Interaction which is used to identify whether a specific Incident has been resolved successfully. This may involve either or both of User Feedback where the User is asked whether their Issue has been resolved successfully, and Technical Feedback where Sweepr uses software integrations to assess whether the Incident has been resolved successfully. The subsequent stage may be any of return to Clarification Stage, Prediction Stage or progression to Closure Stage.
The stage in an Interaction which is used to finish a specific session with the end user and depending on the success or failure of the Resolution(s) that were attempted may involve escalation to another support channel.
So, when a user writes or speaks with their device to get help from Sweepr, we call that an utterance. We process that utterance with a natural language processor to form an actionable Intent. Sometimes we need more information from the user to do that, so we request some clarifications, like “Did you mean this device”.
If the user said “Why is my movie lagging all the time”, we might process that utterance and ask for the clarification “Which service is affected by this”, to which the user would select “Netflix”. This could result in a processed value of “Netflix high latency” or “Netflix is buffering”. That is the intent.
That’s a wrap! So after reading this, we hope you feel more up to speed with your role at Sweepr. We’d love to know what you think could be added to this site, to keep it a true reflection of our ever changing teams. We wish you the best of luck on this part of your career journey, and we’re so glad to have you. If in doubt, this section contains the way we have translated our company values into behaviours. We know you’ll do great, but if your unsure about a way to go about something, please do check this.
Be Bold is one of our company values, which speaks to how we show up at work. This value is about being both thoughtful and decisive as a skill, yet we rarely think about how to do that all the time. Here are the 5 indicators that demonstrate how you can Be Bold at Sweepr:
Trusting yourself and taking initiative vs. waiting for direction is a BOLD move. Practicing integrity in all you do by choosing what is right over what is fast, fun, easy or comfortable. Taking risks, even when the outcome is uncertain, is an expectation from you that's there because as an intelligent individual, your unique way of perceiving, creating and doing things are valued too. Being BOLD often means seeking out new ideas that challenge your own beliefs, clarify others’ perspectives, and allow you to innovate and grow my skills.
Our second corporate value is Serve the Experience. There are 2 indicators of how we demonstrate this value at Sweepr:
Serve the experience is about caring for our customer’s experience and their customers’ experience. It means being concerned about how our customers interact with us and the things we build, as well as how Sweepr end users interact with our products.
When we Serve the Experience we listen to others, carefully considering their perspectives and challenges as we create innovative products and services to help them.
Our final corporate values is Care Generously. There are 7 ways we can demonstrate this value at Sweepr:
Care generously is about leaning into difficult conversations, meetings and decisions. It’s about recognizing and congratulating others on their good work. It means extending the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words and actions of others, and giving and receiving feedback in a respectful and daring way. It includes owning personal mistakes and discussing them in an open and honest way. Valuing play and making time for it, so you can be a full contributor of strategy, perspective and creativity is caring generously, as well as approaching work with a sense of possibility and positivity. YOU are the living example of what we value at Sweepr. How you choose to present yourself in everything you do tells the world who we are, as much as it says who you are.