Nitesh Agrawal
Collibra + Dive: Scaling remote team culture in a hyper-growth environment
Collibra is a Data Intelligence company helping enterprises make data meaningful since 2008.
With Covid-19 forcing Collibra to shift to remote, the engineering team wanted to build an environment that was conducive to teamwork, keeping up with the distance.
Amidst the uncertainty, *Collibra was named one of the 25 Highest Rated Private Cloud Computing Companies to Work for During COVID-19, owing to their people-first culture. Here's a story of how the engineering team at Collibra stayed connected and scaled their culture on Dive.
The imposed shift and its implications
Collibra was forced to switch to remote during the pandemic. One of the biggest challenges they faced was to understand how they could possibly sustain and scale their culture in an environment of deep stress and physical distance.
There were so many ways to fulfill their work collaboration requirements — through video conferencing, asynchronous communication, project management tools, and so on. But they had a challenge in replicating an environment that paved way for serendipity and synchronous off-work catch-ups. How can the experience of lunch discussions, watercooler conversations, and cubicle break-talks be delivered to their employees whilst they worked from home?
Another major challenge they faced was onboarding their new remote hires. They wanted to create a positive impact by making the new hires feel more comfortable, open, and ready to work well together with the team.
Leveraging Dive to build social relationships
The engineering team started hosting casual lunch meet-ups and watercooler sessions to keep their teams connected and engaged. They initially tried out Zoom and then Google Meet. But neither of these products could add a casual and fun flavor to these meetings. The team was then introduced to Dive through a referral.
After their first Dive session, they realized how refreshing and fun it was. And how it was perfectly suitable for their off-work conversations and hangout sessions.
"Dive became, sort of, like a cool place where we hung out. The main difference is this. You can either drink coffee and chat in a meeting room or experience the same coffee conversation at a cafe. You are basically having the same coffee with the same people but the environment is different. That's what makes the conversations more memorable." – Rafael, Engineering Manager at Collibra
Onboarding remote hires — a brand new way
The engineering team started using Dive for onboarding new people. It was essential for them to use a casual environment for onboarding because it provided a chance for the new hires to experience culture rather than just read about it.
The team at Collibra used the game "Two truths one lie" to onboard their new hires in a fun and novel way. They asked everyone in the team to state two truths and one lie about their organization and asked the new hires to guess which was what. This way the new hires got to know more about the organization in a fun and casual way. They were relieved of the pressure of serious meetings and were able to participate much better.
"The onboarding session was really cool. It was very engaging. People were acknowledging what is bad and good in the organization, in a fun way. It was very memorable." – Rafael, Engineering Manager at Collibra
Their virtual cafe
The team at Collibra used Dive for most of their off-work catch-ups and casual meetings. If Zoom and GMeets were their virtual conference rooms, Dive became their virtual cafe. Dive helped in bringing positivity into all the meetings.
"With people being stressed about the pandemic, it was a great idea to introduce a product that would let them celebrate small things, call out good work, appreciate and say kind things then and there instead of waiting for the right time. Nowadays when we have team meetings outside of Dive, we tend to miss the interaction and always think about how cool it would be to use a particular sound for a particular moment." – Rafael, Engineering Manager at Collibra
Since teams always went on Dive with an intention to socialize and have fun, they felt content and energetic after every session. It was hard to get out of a Dive session in a bad mood. Dive helped the engineering team at Collibra in creating a workplace that was “open, direct, and kind”.
