Written: 20 May 2022

Author: Kirsty O'Hara

2 min read

#FlintAntics  #PinkShirtDay  #Inclusion

Independent of Pink Shirt Day (which encourages communities to embrace each other, and stand up against bullying), the Flint crew recently discovered the Donut App features on Slack.

If you’re new the idea of Slack’s #Donut app channels – then let us explain:

In a nutshell the Donut App randomly allocates every team member their ‘person’ to connect with in fortnightly blocks. Every fortnight, you get randomly assigned a new team mate to connect with. #Donut sends you prompts of things you can reply to in the Slack chats, that get conversations going; and in many ways this gives you the permission to talk about things that are not work related – with the intention of better getting to know your workmates. The beauty of it is, you don’t get to choose who your #donut buddy is, and over time – you should get the opportunity to connect with a wide variety of staff across the team. This helps staff to feel less shy, getting to know people outside of their immediate circle of colleagues.

About a month ago we decided internally that it was important to foster more ‘water-cooler’ style banter, regardless of whether team-mates were in the office or working remotely.

Like many organisations, we have been lucky to welcome lots of new staff in the last 6 months – and setting up the Slack ‘#donut’ chats has not only helped the team to get to know each other better; but also on occasion has meant the team has been more motivated to make plans to meet and work in the Flint office – with the added motivation of going for actual donuts together in person (much more tasty than a cyber #donut).

‘Going for a donut’ in the Flint office generally translates to going for coffee, but hey – that’s a circle shape too and it still brings us together to interact and connect.

What we’ve noticed, is that just having a code phrase like ‘wanna go for a donut?’ has in real life translated to a way cooler way of saying ‘I’d like to get to know you better’. And in the world of remote working, has also given the Flint team the permission to set aside small pockets of time to get to know each other better.

When you’re working from home it can be easy to work too hard, and we all know that feeling of wanting to overdeliver and prove evidence of industry (especially true, when driven by the excitement of upcoming projects we can’t wait to deliver).

Just knowing that #donuts are part of the Flint culture, helps to balance out the over achievers amongst us, so that as well as working hard we also prioritise the value of getting to know our team mates better (more than just talking about the weather or morning commute).

So, if you’re working remotely – and you want a new idea to get your team connected, then give the Slack #donut channel a try.

And if you ever want to join the Flint team, prepare for random donut outings and occasions … for example, we even had donuts at our last team brainstorming session – which infused the board room table with a bit more colour and fun.

If you’re a Flint investor, we hope you feel reassured to know that we applaud a spirit of inclusion. We delight in seeing people of all ages, stages, genders, daily onboard with Flint. Truth be told, we wish we could share donuts with you all too – and who knows, maybe one day we will throw a giant real-life donut party to thank and celebrate every person who makes Flint possible - most of all our Flint investors!

Happy Pink Shirt Day!

Flint

Disclaimers:

This blog is not affiliated with Slack or Donut in any way. We just thought it would be fun to acknowledge that using Donut helps our team connect internally, and we are keen to foster conversations to learn more about how other teams work and connect.

In New Zealand Pink Shirt Day raises awareness to stop bullying, click here for some ideas you may like to integrate in the workplace. You can also donate to the Mental Health Foundation to help fund their anti-bullying campaigns and programmes.