How does wirkt. work?
Amicable, effective and driven to make the world a better place – the answer in a nutshell.
But it is even more exciting to take a closer look behind the scenes.
A week at wirkt. starts for some in the home office, for others with a beautiful view in our office. We usually work as a team and it has become customary for most of us to work one, two or sometimes three days a week in the office.
The common start is our check-in. We share weekend highlights and look at focuses for the upcoming week. These are as diverse as our group is. From an empowerment event with LANA Women, to a Diversity Breakfast at MTOP, to the selection of new Learning-Coaches in the Learning Circle, there is always a lot going on at wirkt. Our check-in on Monday is one of the few all hands on deck fixed points. During the week, we work operationally in our Impact Venture teams.
There are currently four of these wirkt. or Impact Ventures - MTOP, LANA, the Learning Circle and the Culture School.
Each of the wirkt. Ventures pursues its own vision and mission. The teams work independently towards their goals, supported by wirkt. in doing so. wirkt. serves as a sparring partner in strategic questions, supports the development of impact measurement or a sustainable business model and accompanies the scaling process. Furthermore, wirkt. Ventures are supported in funding, controlling, marketing, design, HR and IT. You can read more about this division of labour in the Social Innovation Studio section.
We are a team of 15 people – no longer small, but not huge either. It is an exciting time of development for us as an organisation. On the one hand, we can work creatively and try out new ideas quickly and easily; on the other hand, there are already processes and structures that help us work.
Flat hierarchies
One of the goals we have set ourselves at wirkt. is to manage with few hierarchical structures. By breaking away from classic organisational structures, each individual is responsible for his or her own actions and ,thus, takes center stage. It is also important for us to have clearly defined roles and responsibilities. What we do together is not chaos, far from it, but nevertheless quite different from what we see in other companies. At wirkt. We work as equals – within the company and with everyone who works with us.
Proven four-day week
In 2019 we decided to implement a four-day week. We divide our working hours from Monday to Thursday with the same salary. As simple as that sounds, the change was not so easy for us at the beginning. We are used to measuring our work in hours. Setting ourselves realistic goals, knowing when enough is enough for a week and enjoying Fridays for ourselves without feeling guilty was an interesting change for us.
More about this and further insights into our daily work will be published here in our blog.