A day in the life at Substrakt

So, what’s it like to actually work at Substrakt? Our amazing HR & Finance Adminstrator Laura walks you through her typical day at work.

I’ve worked here for 5 years and I love it. I’m truly grateful to work at a company that gives me the freedom to work remotely, provides fun and interesting projects to work on, and houses  a bunch of wonderful people.  

We also work with an incredible range of cultural organisations around the world which means every day and every new piece of work is exciting. Our clients include the National Theatre, PAC NYC, Malmö Opera, Henry Moore Foundation, Shakespeare’s Globe, Scottish Ballet, Kettle’s Yard, Leeds Heritage Theatres, Southbank Centre and Folger Shakespeare Library – to name just a few! So it’s really cool to see the work that comes out of these partnerships.

A quick word on being a remote-first company. Our team is spread across the globe. We’ve got folks in the UK, Canada, Sweden and Poland, so most of our interactions are online. This means we’re not limited by geographical boundaries when it comes to hiring, we welcome applications from everywhere! 

We do have a beautiful office based in the heart of Birmingham (UK)’s Jewellery Quarter, where folks within distance can work if they like (I’m in here every now and again). And for those who aren’t within distance but still like to get out of the house we offer a remote working pass for access to a huge range of coworking spaces (I can help to organise this!)

Because we’re largely remote, it’s really important that when we do get together as a team in-person, everyone that wants to join can, so we’ll always try to make that happen. We arrange quarterly team days plus a winter and summer social to bring everyone together, have some fun and get to know eachother better.

Anyway, a bit more about me…

As Substrakt’s HR and Finance administrator I talk to the majority of people across the company. I’m the person you meet first on your first day to help you get  set up and make sure you’re settling okay. But yes, I can also be that person nagging you for receipts or asking you to complete a survey.

So what does my day actually look like?

9am

95% of us are fully remote, including me. So after the usual school run chaos, I make a coffee and open my laptop.

We’re an agency who uses  Slack as our main internal communications tool, so first things first, I catch up on my messages to see if anyone needs me urgently. Then I check my emails and diary for the day.

10.30am

Once a week I’ll join the weekly Business Operations team meeting at this time (there are 4 of us in this team). 

These meetings are structured as something called an L10 – a style of meeting that’s been developed under the EOS framework we’ve adopted to help  keep us all on the right track (don’t worry, we don’t expect you to understand any of this until you join!).

12pm

I usually have my lunch break here. They’re 30 mins, but if you need a longer one, then a lot of us simply start earlier or finish a little later.

2.30pm

On Tuesdays we have our team meeting via Zoom, where everyone from the company joins. This is one of the highlights of the week, as one of the team  ‘shows and tells’ us something about themselves. Examples of previous show and tells have been Ash’s obsession with eels, Steph’s sailing adventures, Emma’s posse of incredibly talented friends and my own rather obsessive plans for my son’s Lego birthday party.

The second part of the meeting is then a chance for leadership to do a quick update on anything we need to know.

And the meeting ends with shout outs – where staff nominate colleagues who they feel deserve a special mention that week.

3pm

The afternoon can bring various tasks. The work here is varied as we deal with so many different clients. Personally, I can be sending invoices to clients,  planning our next social event or coordinating someone’s onboarding plan.

Our delivery team will be busy making sure our new website builds are on track, our support team will be ensuring our current clients are happy, our consultancy team are working on a myriad of different projects and our internal working groups are busy discussing their upcoming plans.

What are working groups? Folks across the company have joined groups aimed at improving a specific part of the business. For example, we have an internal culture working group that meets fortnightly to discuss ways we can improve Substrakt’s culture. Examples of other groups include Accessibility, Technical Standards and Design. 

4pm

Every week my manager, Tara, and I have a catch up. I value these so much, especially as I work from home. It’s half an hour to just say hi, catch up about life, she asks me how I’m doing (both personally and professionally) and then we spend the last 10 minutes going through my tasks for the week. I may see Tara in other meetings throughout the week, but this meeting is purely to focus on me.

5pm – end of the day!

I genuinely do love working at Substrakt. The people, the work, the culture and the ambition are all reasons I look forward to seeing what each day might bring! Plus, I love organising a social…