Giving Away Home Improvement Stipends For Developers

Adjusting to remote work takes time. As people are getting used to the idea of remote work, they are looking to improve their current workspace. Have you recently been asked by an employee to compensate for their home office upgrade. Maybe a new chair or monitor?

Sounds like a great idea, but you might be worried that other people will ask for their home improvement stipend, and that will snowball into your whole company wanting one! It's a very valid concern, because you don't want to provide exclusive benefits to some workers and not others.

Don't Give the Money Away

Sam Claassen, Head of Growth at SafetyWing offers an alternative way of looking at this issue. His main advice is to not give money away for doing nothing, but to instead turn it into an event that might serve several benefits. The answer is a Hackathon! It will also help you to get your leadership excited.

Checklist for your next Hackathon

1 🚀 Choose a project that aligns with your Company mission

It should sound challenging, but exciting. Are you a rocket company? Does it sounds like a launching a spaceship? Then most likely the project is a good fit.

2 ⏳ Pick the right timeframe

Remember that school paper assignment that you could postpone until the last hour? This hackathon shouldn't feel like that. It's a balance between concentrated work and enough space to foster new connections.

3 💲 Offer a BIG incentive for completing the Hackathon

Giving out a few hundred dollars to every employee (not just winners) might be enough for your company. Make it generous. It should get your folks excited.

4 👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 Create teams

Create fair teams, but try to connect people that normally don't work together. That fosters new communication.

🤔 Fun Fact

Did you know that Twitter was started as a hackathon project in a podcast company Odeo?