We launched communities at Jibe

That is why we’ve launched Jibe Communities, where people can pursue their passions and that feeling of fulfillment that makes a job more than work.

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The worklife today

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The COVID-19 pandemic has shaped our lives in a way that required quite some time to adjust. Workplaces are not 100% physical anymore and people’s interaction is mostly virtual. This change in behavior has impacted both how employees perform their work as well as their well-being. Not to mention the constant tight competition from the tech industry in a global economic era, and the challenges of companies looking to provide not only the best products and services, but also a great working environment for employees have increased. To identify impactful ways of encouraging employees to perform well and contribute to the progress of the company is an ongoing struggle for any organization.

Recent studies stated that e-training, e-leadership, work-life balance and motivation are the factors that have a huge impact on the performance and well-being of the employees.

We’ve looked at all these factors, looked at our own work and learning practices, thought about how we can improve in these areas and came up with the idea of communities.

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Communities at Jibe

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Without getting too philosophical, we defined community as “a group of individuals who are passionately working toward something together.” Members can have different levels of dedication to the larger community, but they are all centered around a common focus.

We’ve also identified 3 types of communities in Jibe: 

• Communities of Product, which are focused primarily on discussing and learning about a specific product. These have the tendency to form naturally here at Jibe by virtue of teams working on a specific product. Whether it’s the team centered on electric vehicle charging software or smart housing data security, the members are passionate about building quality products that will shape the future. 
• Communities of Practice, which are all about helping members level up their craft and connect with other practitioners, independent of any tools and platforms. If you’re thinking of our learning programs here, or our shared Lunch & Learn events, you’re right. 
• Communities of Play, where members come together around a common interest like QA, innovation, food and so on, and have fun and talks around the topic. 

Most communities are one type with components of another community sprinkled in. We found our communities of practice to be a little too formal, and we had little space for play, so we set out to fix that. 

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Launching new communities 

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The focus of our new communities are the people and their passions, as we strive to improve togetherness and innovation. We decided we are building communities of practice and play around food and QA. 

The rules of the communities are… none. There is a Community Manager helping out with the operations of the communities and measuring the impact, but each community will grow organically around people’s passions. Speaking of passion, the first one was so easy to identify – the Foodie community. Our Solution Center is based in Romania and nothing brings people together here as well as good food and great wine.

Every Wednesday, during lunch break, our colleagues go out to a nice restaurant and reconnect with each other. Building strong personal relationships helps the team stay motivated and enjoy the ride of working together.

The second community we’ve easily spotted was the QA group. Our tester colleagues already work very closely together, but we’ve thought of ways to expand their horizons and get them connected with the outside world of QA. This is how our open door QA event idea was born.

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The first QA community get-together

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On 14^th of April we hosted the first QA community get-together, where we had fun sharing our knowledge, debated, played quizzes, and socialized around a drink and pizza. It was a blast reaching out to like minded-people and seeing our drive for building connections have an impact.

Oana joined us after mostly working from home at her new job, missing hanging out with like-minded people. “I liked the informal approach. I don’t think it would have been as much fun to have a speaker present and a QA session afterwards, I felt the need to interact with people. I enjoyed meeting new people, coming out of my comfort zone. I’m a sociable introvert, I like meeting people and keeping in touch with them.”

The hit of the evening was a round of Kahoot around QA topics, where people could show off their QA skills as well as their competitive sides. We’re relieved to report that no participants were hurt, and we’re definitely planning a round for the next event as well.

“It was a great experience. It really made a difference that people from more companies participated, all interested in the same field as you. I’m happy to hang out with my friends, but I did miss interacting with people from my professional field, who are interested in the same subjects as me,” shared Alex.

We are preparing more community events with great speakers and interesting content, and we’d love to have you participate as well. If you’d like to join us in the future, follow us on our social channels to stay updated.

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