…Testbirds

The highest possible level of employee satisfaction is one of the main objectives of Testbirds’ HR strategy. Being a trusted employer means establishing self-leadership and a supportive work environment, as well as creating a feel-good atmosphere, where an employee isn’t just a “human resource”, but a human being. This belief system was also one of the main driving factors for our founders when they started the company in the first place.Yesterday was Testbird’s birthday and we (digitally) celebrated not only the 8 successful years of crowdtesting, but also that we as employees really value working for a company that creates space for creativity and self-fulfillment. Today we want to shine a light on why we think it’s super cool to work at Testbirds.

Focus Business Top Employer

By the way, it’s not only our employees who are so positive about Testbirds. Actually, Testbirds is “Top Arbeitgeber Mittelstand” (top employer in the category medium-sized enterprises) according to the business magazine Focus and the employer rating platform kununu for two years in a row. In 2018 and 2019, Testbirds received this award that’s based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the ratings on kununu. Categories like overall satisfaction, recommendation rate and total number of ratings are factors that count into the evaluation.Of course, we’re very happy and proud of this, although the award alone doesn’t paint the full picture. To get a better understanding, we did a little poll among our colleagues asking what the best thing about Testbirds as an employer is. Here are the top 5 reasons why Testbirds is our “Top Arbeitgeber”!

Flexibility

At Testbirds, we have very few top-down processes and as employees we’re very flexible in our working style. Here are a few quotes from the team, when they were asked “What do you like the most about your employer”:

“The core hour model: I can start at 7 or 10 in the morning and work as long as I like in the evening (heard about other company offices, where you get kicked out at a certain time). And at the same time collaboration is still possible because people know they can expect me to be around during core hours.”“The founders did not decide how often the Crowd team has to meet, what the structure of the team meeting is like, how the agenda has to be formatted, etc. That grew within the Crowd team.”“Vacation planning: We can plan very flexibly compared with other companies where you have until Dec 31st 2020 to submit all your vacation for 2021.”“I can bring my dog to the office.”

(At any given moment there can be between 3-7 dogs in our office – yes, it’s amazing)

Support

Personal development is highly valued at Testbirds, both by the employees and the company. We have many opportunities for internal training and are encouraged to share our hobbies and skills with others in our Bird University (every so often someone of us functions as the ‘professor’ of our internal University teaching things like 3D-printing, Microsoft Excel, Singing, Lacrosse, etc.) Also, once a quarter we have a Personal Growth Day, where we can use our company-paid personal development budget and develop our skills in areas such as public speaking, user experience interviews, interaction design theory, or work on our German skills. Everyone can decide individually what area he or she wants to develop personally, all inclined with the respective responsibilities they have at Testbirds.

“I think Testbirds has fostered an environment for people to feel that they can try their ideas out, learn from mistakes, share knowledge. All this helps put the very best of our colleagues’ talents forward”

Testbirds also supports part-time working models. For example, I feel very supported in following my individual goals as a musician. I only work 50% for Testbirds and study Jazz Music and Vocal Pedagogy at the University of Music the other 50% of my time. My manager and the founders know that I am a dedicated and reliable Birdie and they support that I also need time to do gigs, go to rehearsals, or to university etc.

Fun

“The atmosphere at the office and company has always felt so friendly and familiar. It’d be so sad to feel like you work among ‘strangers’, I think Testbirds has actively created so many opportunities for us to connect with one another through social events, so that we don’t lose touch with one another.”“I have the nicest colleagues in the world. I never have the feeling to be alone with problems or too much workload. There is always a helping hand… Don’t forget the parties!”

We really have a lot of fun at Testbirds (yes, we know this sounds cliché). At the moment it’s a bit tough with everyone working from home, but the company still finds so many ways of keeping us in good spirits and maintaining our positive company culture. This week, for example, we celebrated the Testbirds birthday with a big digital party. We were invited to several virtual party rooms with online games or with music and a “digital dancefloor” and even got tips on how to prepare ourselves for the event, including decorations and cocktail recipes.

Transparency

Whether it’s the latest company-wide announcement or smaller interpersonal topics – a transparent communication style fosters reliability and gives a feeling of appreciation. At Testbirds, there are several recurring meetings for the sole purpose of exchanging information and knowledge, and a variety of trainings regarding communication, feedback, and project presentation skills.

“I really value the transparency at Testbirds. The open and honest communication about the business, what it’s doing and where it’s going, helps me to feel like I am a part of the company rather than ‘just’ an employee. This feeling of being trusted helps me to trust and feel invested in Testbirds.”

Trust

Trust is a big part of our company culture and might be the core value that makes the points mentioned above possible. We strongly feel that our founders and colleagues know we all have the best intentions in mind for the company, but that we’re still all individual human beings, with individual needs, that sometimes have nothing to do with work. Especially now, when we’re working from home, this is more important than before and this transparency is also one of the key success factors in why we’re currently thriving from home.For our team, trust means that we have very free hands in how we work, when we work, and where we work. It also means that it’s okay to be offline for a while in the afternoon, because we need to take care of our kids or want to go to the hairdresser, as long as we let our colleagues know and hand over responsibilities if necessary..

“Trust, responsibility, self-leadership and an eye-level relationship with one another and our testers and customers, is the best thing about Testbirds.”“… to be honest it is the only way to bring work and childcare together. Otherwise I don’t know how to handle child care of a toddler and get my work done.”

Skyrocketing the digital world – together with Testbirds

Another big plus is the field of business we work in – we’re able to combine the human world with the digital world. We work with people, in fact, a huge bunch of wonderful people who make up our 400K strong tester community. On top of that, we always have one eye on the future, because we test the apps of tomorrow. That can be very inspiring and exciting.If you like the spirit here and want to join our Testbirds swarm, we have open job positions and are looking forward to welcoming new ambitious people to our team.