dbt Labs delivers workplace choice to global employee base

dbt Labs is a fully remote tech company with almost 400 employees distributed across the globe.They launched their hybrid program, powered by LiquidSpace, in May 2022 as an employee benefit to enhance workplace experience. This was an investment in their people and culture.

Jennifer Mancino, People Operations Coordinator, told us why. "While it's amazing to be able to work from home, we realized not everybody has a suitable space to work. We had received requests for individuals to use coworking spaces and I was on a mission when I first started, in January, to find a solution so everyone had a good place to work, at home, or elsewhere."

"Our company values are work hard and go home, and we are human. We structure our compensation and benefits, hours and location policies, work and management styles to support this."

How has LiquidSpace impacted company culture?

"It's huge for togetherness. We have a great culture here, but eventually people do miss connection and camaraderie and this has helped a lot. It's always great to see when people post in Slack that they got together. This will enhance our quarterly team off-sites too.

We're finding people tend to stay a little bit longer and have drinks after work as well. And that makes me so happy because it's increasing the camaraderie."

Has LiquidSpace improved employee satisfaction?

"We have a quarterly, anonymous survey to make sure employees are getting everything they want out of us, and our rate did go up last quarter since we introduced LiquidSpace.

Everyone is saying they’re enjoying it and I've not had one complaint.

We had one employee who wanted to book a space that was a little bit more than her budget. She worked really closely with Sarah (Anderson, Senior Customer Success Manager) and the owner of the space, and they were able to adjust it to make it work for us and for her, so that was such a plus. And now she has a dedicated desk there every month."

Does it help with recruitment too?

"It's a big benefit. We have a stipend spend to set up a home office, and now with LiquidSpace, it's like a 2 for 1.

The recruiting team definitely pushes it - if you want to go and work in the city for a few days, absolutely go ahead and do that, you want to go to Florida for the week but you want to work and also be on vacation, sure you can do that too.

I think it really helps sell to new candidates. They could go anywhere, they could go to England, go to London and work at a LiquidSpace there."

What controls have you set?

"Everyone has a budget of $250 a month to use as they choose. That seems to be enough - everyone's been able to find a spot that's working for them and no one has needed to go over that limit.

People Managers have an additional $1,500 per quarter to use for larger meetings or conference spaces to do more in-depth work with their teams.

I've seen a jump in bookings since we added that budget."

How did you encourage your teams to start booking?

"We use Slack, so I created a Notion page on our general channel, documented exactly how it works, who to contact if you need help and blasted it out to the whole company. It was so well received!

With Sarah's advice, I made a Slack channel specifically for LiquidSpace, which she's in.

In it we promote adoption and ask people to show us the great spaces they've been to. They can ask any questions, and Sarah can chat with people directly.

We also had an all-hands, our whole company meeting, where I give an overview of LiquidSpace. So the company got a live presentation and then could learn more asynchronously through Slack."

Did it take a while for people to adopt?

"They were straight in there! We have a few people who have dedicated desks and we've seen a lot of people rent spaces together.

It's hard when you're remote to get together with teammates and that's what we're seeing now, which we love.

We have different regional slack channels to arrange get togethers, and that's how people are arranging collaboration days."

What other options did you explore?

"I looked at WeWork, but it was pay per person. Not everyone at dbt Labs needs a solution away from home, so it wasn't a good fit. It would be a lot of money to put something in place that might not be used. LiquidSpace's pay-as-you-go model gave us the flexibility we needed.

How did you find us?

"I came across LiquidSpace in a quick Google search and thought it sounded perfect. It's pay-per-usage, so if people did want to use it, that's awesome, but if they didn't, no problem.

I had a call with Hayley (Rogers, Enterprise Account Executive), who is amazing. She talked me through everything and it was really a no-brainer. We could have a portal, it could be set up in our Okta, everybody could have access when and if they needed it."

Who was involved in the decision to go ahead?

"My supervisor, Head of People Ops, and the Finance team, who needed to make sure we had budget. I compared WeWork, Regus, and LiquidSpace, in terms of cost and process.

Our Finance team brought it to our CEO and CFO. Then we went through Security and IT.

It took about 2 months from beginning to end. I was surprised it went so smoothly and got approved

so quickly."

Was LiquidSpace’s geographical reach an important factor?

"That was huge. I wanted to make sure there were places people could book wherever they were - we have people in Australia and Europe.

I focussed on where we had employees at the time and there were numerous options for them in LiquidSpace."

Have there been any concerns about productivity?

"It's all completely trusted here. There's total flexibility. One of our values is that we work hard and we go home, and we really mean it - when we are on we are focussed, when we are off, we can be

fully disconnected.

It's about having that work-life balance. It’s definitely been a huge factor in my life since I started here, it’s been amazing. It's so refreshing.

Some people are more productive when they’re social, so being able to balance working from home or working from a LiquidSpace means we have options for everyone."

Do you review the data insights?

"I do. I go in there a few times a week to just check on things. My favorite part is the map and seeing where people are at this point in time. That’s always fun to look at."