When and where you work
Working hours #
Our working hours are 10:00-18:00, Monday to Friday. Some people work different hours by arrangement. Anyone is free to do that as long as their hours of work don’t make it hard for other people to get things done. For example, many people arrive earlier than 10:00 and leave earlier, which is generally fine.
Each team has a short standup every morning, where we each tell the whole team about a single thing we will get done that day. If you think you’re going to be late, you should let everyone know in the project Slack channel.
Most developers have maintenance responsibilities, which they do during their support rotation.
We do our very best to work at a sustainable pace. But sometimes, when we’re approaching a firm deadline or a launch, or a client is having an emergency, we work longer hours than normal. From time to time, there’s an emergency that means we have to work during unsociable hours to solve the problem. Neither of these happen very often, but they are a normal part of life at dxw.
Sending emails or posting in Slack outside of working hours can be a good way to get things off your mind, but it can create an unintended sense of urgency for the people who receive your message. Try to avoid creating that urgency when it’s not necessary. For example, by specifically saying that you don’t expect an immediate response.
Unless they are actually urgent, you can ignore messages you receive outside of working hours and handle them when you are back at work.
Working days #
Client days #
We charge clients “time and materials” for the work we do, based on a per person day rate.
We generally schedule team members to work on particular projects for a whole two week sprint at a time, and track and bill that time in half days and whole days. Delivery leads work with the finance team to track and invoice the time of the team; having regularly patterned working helps the process to run as smoothly as possible, without confusion and without taking more time than needed. Any working arrangement needs to make it straightforward to track, report and invoice for your time.
When working on a project we work as a single multi-disciplinary team. We’re often working on phases of projects where there’s a lot of unknowns and a lot of learning, so we use agile approaches and strongly favour being able to work together on problems. That’s often easier when co-located, particularly when working with clients, pairing, or participating in workshops. Any working arrangement needs to support active synchronous collaboration with the team.
Internal teams #
Internal facing roles, in which time is not billable to a client, have a more regularly structured full- or part-time working week.
We encourage people in internal facing roles to take part in dxw time activities to contribute to our culture and to improve our ways of working.
dxw time #
We regularly come together to work on our own projects and processes, most often on a Friday.
This dxw time is important for us to maintain our strong culture and identity, and to improve our practices, separate from the clients we work for.
Working from home #
We are able to work successfully in a remote capacity, from our homes. On occasions, it may be necessary to work from one of our office spaces, a client location or another location approved by dxw in order to complete a specific task. It is important that you remain contactable and productive.
Working from Overseas Policy #
dxw is a UK-based business, with staff working from locations around the UK.
We don’t support overseas employment unless exceptional circumstances apply. This is because there are usually significant overheads involved in complying with local employment laws, registering for and paying the relevant taxes.
If you believe there are exceptional circumstances, a request can be made for consideration via your line manager. All decisions must be made by a Director.
We will take the following factors into account for any cases we consider.
The legal framework for a decision:
- the individual’s right to work in a particular location
- the employer’s obligation to comply with the relevant country’s employment laws, and how complex and costly that is to achieve
- the employer’s obligation to comply with the relevant country’s taxation rules, and how complex and costly that is to achieve
Operational challenges we need to be comfortable with:
- management of time zones
- management of a fully remote team member
- client and contractual procurement needs
- the requirements of the role
We would expect individuals to meet any costs (travel, internet, equipment etc) associated with their working overseas.
dxw will always retain the right to ask you to return to the UK for work with suitable notice, in line with our employment contract.