每个大洲上的国家_700名员工和多个大洲：Alconost如何建立无办公室业务模式

每个大洲上的国家

We decided to take the «no-fixed-office» route from the very beginning of our company. For a boutique translation agency focused on the IT industry and working remotely with clients, this seemed like a natural fit. 15 years later, Alconost has over 700 employees spread across the globe, including translators, marketing professionals, PPC advertising experts, sales staff, editors, localization managers, and video production whizzes. And, still, we think an office isn’t the most effective way to operate. As one of the company’s co-founders, I can share just how we managed this.

我们决定从公司一开始就采取“不固定办公室”的方式。 对于一家专注于IT行业并与客户远程合作的精品翻译公司而言，这似乎是很自然的选择。 15年后， Alconost在全球拥有700多名员工，包括翻译，营销专家，PPC广告专家，销售人员，编辑，本地化经理和视频制作专家。 而且，我们仍然认为办公室并不是最有效的运营方式。 作为公司的联合创始人之一，我可以分享我们的管理方式。

Not having an office makes the most positive impact on business growth

没有办公室对业务增长产生最积极的影响

Our clients are located throughout the world, and our managers often have to send emails outside of normal business hours. When you’re dealing with major time differences, problems could easily take days to resolve. But not for us. Our employees aren’t bound by the limits of the standard 8-hour workday, and we can count on them to respond to emails and queries promptly whenever possible. Getting a quick response is key — even if it’s just to hear “I’ll look into this and get back to you tomorrow.” It’s a win-win: the client feels better and we’re happy.

我们的客户遍布世界各地，我们的经理经常不得不在正常工作时间之外发送电子邮件。 当您处理主要的时差时，问题很容易需要几天才能解决。 但不是对我们。 我们的员工不受标准的8小时工作日的限制，我们可以指望他们尽快响应电子邮件和查询。 快速响应是关键-即使只是听到“我会研究这个问题，明天再与您联系”。 这是双赢：客户感觉更好，我们很高兴。

We like the officeless life not because it allows us to take our time. In fact, it’s the opposite, and we can clock our turnaround times in minutes, not hours. Half of the orders made via our online translation platform — Nitro — are delivered in less than 2 hours. And anyone who emails us with questions or inquiries about Nitro can count on a reply within an hour. This kind of response time simply isn’t possible with fixed office hours.

我们喜欢没有办公室的生活，不是因为它能让我们抽出时间。 实际上，情况恰恰相反，我们可以在数分钟而不是数小时内记录周转时间。 通过我们的在线翻译平台Nitro进行的订单有一半是在不到2小时的时间内交付的。 通过电子邮件向我们发送有关Nitro的问题或疑问的任何人都可以在一个小时内得到答复。 固定的办公时间根本无法实现这种响应时间。

由Alconost撰写 (Written by Alconost)

我们的成功秘诀很简单：远程工作+人员+自由-控制 (Our success formula is simple: Remote Work + People + Freedom — Control)

Our formula of success is remote work, top talent, flexible hours, and no micro-management. Each is an integral and indispensable element. The first — remote work — is a fairly simple proposition: you work when you want as long as you get the job done right. The same thing goes for the schedule: we aren’t concerned about what work hours our employees keep. The most important thing is that problems get solved and projects get done quickly and the rest of the team isn’t held back by delays. I personally usually write articles or scenarios for videos at 2 or 3 am, when other day-to-day issues have been squared away, and I can get more done in those two hours than I could the whole preceding week.

我们成功的秘诀是远程工作，顶尖人才，灵活的工作时间，而且没有微观管理。 每个都是不可或缺的要素。 第一个是远程工作，这是一个非常简单的主张：只要您能正确完成工作，就可以在需要的时候工作。 日程安排也有同样的事情：我们不必担心员工的工作时间。 最重要的是，问题得到了解决，项目得以快速完成，并且团队的其他成员也没有因为拖延而受阻。 我个人通常会在凌晨2或3点写文章或视频场景，而其他日常问题都已经解决了，那两个小时内我可以做的工作比前一周要多。

We don’t make our employees track their work, or install software on their PCs that would work essentially as a timeclock while covertly snapping screenshots and sending them to us. Our approach is the opposite: we believe that a stopwatch and calendar are productivity killers for our workers and the company both. When someone is dedicated 100%, the visible, quantifiable result is successful projects and satisfied clients and coworkers. And so, it’s just as noticeable when someone is giving less than their best. And for us, ultimately, the result is the real value, and more important than the process that produced it. Our objective is business development and not supervising or over-controlling.

我们不会让员工跟踪他们的工作，也不会在他们的PC上安装本质上可以用作时钟的软件，而不会秘密地捕捉屏幕截图并将其发送给我们。 我们的方法恰恰相反：我们认为秒表和日历对我们的员工和公司都是生产力的杀手。 当某人奉献100％时，可见，可量化的结果就是成功的项目以及满意的客户和同事。 因此，当某人付出的钱少于自己的最佳成绩时，它也同样引人注目。 对我们而言，最终的结果是真实的价值，并且比产生价值的过程更为重要。 我们的目标是业务发展，而不是监督或过度控制。

Ultimately, the result is the real value for the business, which is more important than the process that produced it

最终，结果是业务的真正价值，这比产生它的过程更重要

And of course, no formula would work without the key variable — our people. What kind of employees do we look for? Someone who thinks the point of work is to sit and keep busy for 8 hours — that’s probably not the sort of guy or gal we’re looking to work with. Someone just looking to make money — also, no.

当然，没有关键变量(我们的员工)，任何公式都无法奏效。 我们寻找什么样的员工？ 认为工作重点是坐着并保持8小时忙碌的人–这可能不是我们要与之共事的那种人。 有人只是想赚钱-同样，不是。

How do I identify good talent? I asked a lot of questions during interviews, sometimes pretty personal questions — even ones that may seem a bit off. And by the end of the interview, I get a pretty clear picture of the interviewee’s personality. When I look back at all the job interviews we’ve had, I see that we could usually say whether someone was the right fit or not after talking with them.

我如何确定优秀人才？ 在面试中，我问了很多问题，有时是非常个人的问题，甚至是看起来有些偏离的问题。 到访谈结束时，我对受访者的性格有了清晰的了解。 当我回顾一下我们曾经进行的所有面试时，我发现我们通常可以在与某人交谈后说出某人是否合适。

Mistakes are unavoidable, of course. Sometimes a person loses motivation and their work slips. But we fight for each employee: we strive to find the reason for performance issues, to get that person engaged and given them new and perhaps more interesting work. If we lose that fight, we part ways.

当然，错误是不可避免的。 有时，一个人会失去动力，工作会滑倒。 但是，我们为每位员工而战：我们努力寻找导致绩效问题的原因，让该人参与进来，并为他们提供新的，也许是更有趣的工作。 如果我们输了，那我们分道扬ways。

动机与倦怠-残酷的怨恨比赛 (Motivation VS Burnout — A Grueling Grudge Match)

When we speak of the importance of motivation and incentives in the workplace, it becomes all the more critical for employees of the officeless company, and we’re not just referring to pay. When you’re not working alongside your boss, co-workers, or subordinates, you can lose the sense of being a team. Often after half a year of telecommuting, an employee experiences a certain kind of crisis unfolds: they lose the sense of working in a company and may lose sight of the common mission and the corporate culture. Yes, we also have a corporate culture: valuing our clients, going the extra mile, and placing a premium on anticipating and being ready to answer client questions before they’ve even asked them.

当我们谈到工作场所的动机和激励措施的重要性时，对于无办公室公司的员工而言，这一点变得尤为重要，我们不仅指薪酬。 当您不与老板，同事或下属一起工作时，您可能会失去团队意识。 通常，在通勤半年后，员工会遇到某种危机：他们失去了在公司工作的感觉，并且可能看不到共同的使命和公司文化。 是的，我们也有一种企业文化：珍视客户，加倍努力，并在客户提出要求之前就预见并准备好回答他们的问题。

There’s no one accepted approach to tackling this problem. The one that has worked for us is asking employees to write articles for the media or speak at a conference. When you’re working on a speech or article, you remember what you’ve learned and immersed yourself in the topic, getting you back in the swing and flow of things. Sometimes it helps to just have informal get-togethers, to meet up and have a whiskey or two. In either case, managers need to think ahead on how to keep up morale and motivation so that our employees don’t burn out and resign themselves to a big office and Friday after-work parties just so that they feel social connections.

没有一种公认的方法可以解决这个问题。 对我们有用的一种方法是要求员工为媒体撰写文章或在会议上发言。 在撰写演讲或文章时，您会记住自己所学到的知识，并将自己沉浸在主题中，让您重回正轨。 有时，非正式聚会，聚在一起喝一两杯威士忌会有所帮助。 无论哪种情况，管理人员都需要提前考虑如何保持士气和动力，以使我们的员工不会精疲力尽并辞职到大型办公室和周五的下班后聚会，只是为了感到社交关系。

It is vital to maintain contact with every employee and provide them with appropriate feedback

与每位员工保持联系并向他们提供适当的反馈至关重要

If a job is done well, you need to remember to congratulate them. And if it’s done poorly, you need to have the guts to say it, while judging the work and not the person. The most important thing is to not stay silent. I speak from experience: unfortunately, once myself and company founder Alexander Murauski moved with our families to live for three months in Montenegro (another advantage of working remotely, btw). There were so many issues we had to deal with in our day-to-day lives at that time that we lost contact with employees. Because of that, we lost a few people who we might have retained and better motivated had we at least been more virtually available.

如果工作做得好，您需要记住要向他们表示祝贺。 而且，如果做得不好，您需要勇气说出来，同时要评判工作而非人选。 最重要的是不要保持沉默。 我的经验是这样说的：不幸的是，一旦我和公司创始人亚历山大·穆劳斯基(Alexander Murauski)与我们的家人搬到黑山住了三个月(顺便说一句，远程工作的另一个好处)。 那时我们在日常生活中必须处理的问题太多，导致我们与员工失去联系。 因此，我们失去了一些人，如果我们至少可以提供更多的虚拟资源，这些人可能会留住他们并有更好的动力。

AlconostAlconost提供

Nor do you even have to go somewhere to lose contact. Sometimes it happens when you get too deeply buried in something and your coworkers feel left out. And now I know what a real danger this poses!

您甚至也不必去某个地方失去联系。 有时，当您被某个东西深深地埋葬而您的同事感到被排斥在外时，就会发生这种情况。 现在我知道这构成了什么真正的危险！

Trello，Slack和云 (Trello, Slack and the Cloud)

We searched long and hard to find the right tool for assigning and managing work. We tried Megaplan and Bitrix24. Then we tried out Trello — simple and easy to use — and had our solution, although we’re continuously tweaking things here and there. We usually work with translators through the cloud for large localization projects. Everything else we do through email, Slack, Skype, or Google Hangouts to have a huddle through a group conference call.

我们经过漫长而艰苦的搜索，以找到合适的工具来分配和管理工作。 我们尝试了Megaplan和Bitrix24。 然后，我们尝试了Trello(简单易用)并提出了解决方案，尽管我们不断地在这里和那里进行调整。 我们通常通过云与翻译人员合作进行大型本地化项目。 我们通过电子邮件，Slack，Skype或Google Hangouts进行的所有其他操作都使您无法参加小组电话会议。

尽可能使例程和简单的业务流程自动化至关重要 (It’s crucial to automate routines and simple business processes wherever possible)

We save all documents and files on Google Drive. We don’t use Microsoft Office or other offline software. Instead, we work with online documents only. The advantages of this sort of approach are that documents can be accessed from any device and texts can be aligned and collaboratively edited in real-time.

我们将所有文档和文件保存在Google云端硬盘中。 我们不使用Microsoft Office或其他离线软件。 相反，我们仅处理在线文档。 这种方法的优点是可以从任何设备访问文档，并且可以对齐文本并进行实时协作编辑。

We also created our own company “Wikipedia” that collects and systematizes our knowledge, rules, important links and best practices. We keep it all there: from step-by-step instructions on setting up company email inboxes to working methods in Trello. Our Wikipedia, like its namesake, is constantly updated with new information, which makes the training of new employees faster and helps optimize overall workflows.

我们还创建了自己的公司“ Wikipedia”，该公司收集并系统化我们的知识，规则，重要链接和最佳实践。 我们将所有内容保留在这里：从有关设置公司电子邮件收件箱的分步说明到Trello中的工作方法。 我们的Wikipedia就像其名字一样，会不断更新新信息，从而使新员工的培训更快，并有助于优化整体工作流程。

It’s key to automate routines and simply business processes as much as possible. This helps save time, reduce overhead, and free up resources for more creative work. After all, five minutes a day spent on menial and trivial stuff makes up about a week over the year.

这是使例程自动化并尽可能简化业务流程的关键。 这有助于节省时间，减少开销并释放资源以进行更多创造性的工作。 毕竟，一年中花在五分钟的琐碎和琐碎的事情上的时间大约占一周。

And of course, you need the right toolset to be able to work wherever and whenever: most modern devices and mobile internet to get the job done nicely. For example, I managed to spend an entire day writing out scenarios for video clips, meeting with clients and managing our team while waiting in the customs control line at the border. All I needed was my 5-inch screen mobile phone.

当然，您需要正确的工具集才能在任何地方和任何地方都能工作：大多数现代设备和移动互联网都可以很好地完成工作。 例如，当我在边境的海关管制线等候时，我花了整整一天的时间来编写视频剪辑的场景，与客户会面并管理我们的团队。 我所需要的只是我的5英寸屏幕手机。

给远程工作者的三点建议 (Three points of advice for remote workers)

My first piece of advice: come up with your own specific schedule. Wake up at the same time every day, find the most productive time for yourself. People need to get into a rhythm.

我的第一条建议：制定自己的特定时间表。 每天在同一时间醒来，为自己找到最有生产力的时间。 人们需要有节奏。

Second, there need to be certain conditions for you to work remotely. And if none, you need to create them. You can’t work in a two-bedroom apartment with children running around where household chores are a constant distraction. You need your own enclosed space. For me, that space is my home office. Alconost founder Alexander Murauski uses a small office in a business center (he has two boisterous children at home).

其次，您需要具备某些条件才能进行远程工作。 如果没有，则需要创建它们。 您不能在带孩子四处奔跑的两居室公寓里工作，而家务杂事经常使人分心。 您需要自己的封闭空间。 对我来说，那是我的家庭办公室。 Alconost创始人亚历山大·穆劳斯基(Alexander Murauski)在商务中心使用了一个小型办公室(他家里有两个讨厌的孩子)。

And the third bit of advice: when you have a flexible schedule, your workday can imperceptibly overtake your personal and family life. There is no clear division between working hours and off-hours the way there is in an office. This can be incredibly tiring for some people and is an early sign that that particular schedule isn’t working for you. If you like your work and love doing it, then you can do it in any of the 24 hours in the day. I personally don’t like the word “work.” I’m not working, I’m living and doing something at the same time. And that makes me happy because it’s life lived to the fullest.

第三点建议：如果您有灵活的日程安排，那么您的工作日会不知不觉地超过您的个人和家庭生活。 在工作时间和下班时间之间，办公室之间没有明确的区分。 对于某些人来说，这可能会令人厌烦，这是一个早期信号，表明特定的时间表对您不起作用。 如果您喜欢自己的工作并且喜欢这样做，那么您可以在一天的24小时内完成任何一天。 我个人不喜欢“工作”这个词。 我没有工作，我同时生活和工作。 这使我感到高兴，因为它的生活充实了。

Author: Alconost co-founder Kirill Kliushkin

作者： Alconost联合创始人Kirill Kliushkin

This article was contributed by Alconost, a global provider of product localization services for applications, games, videos, and websites into 70+ languages.

本文由Alconost贡献， Alconost是产品本地化服务的全球提供商，提供应用程序 ， 游戏 ，视频和网站70多种语言的版本。

We offer native-speaking translators, linguistic testing, a cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, and any format for string resources.

我们提供以英语为母语的翻译，语言测试，带有API的云平台，连续本地化，24/7项目经理以及任何格式的字符串资源。

We also make advertising and educational videos and images, teasers, explainers, and trailers for Google Play and the App Store.

我们还为Google Play和App Store制作广告和教育视频和图像，预告片，解释器和预告片。

翻译自: https://habr.com/en/company/alconost/blog/469865/

每个大洲上的国家