We're Going Hybrid in 2023

Earlier today, we announced that Wizeline is officially moving to a hybrid work model in the new year. During Covid, Wizeline grew from 500 Wizeliners globally to ~2,000 - over 90% hired remotely and over 50% working in cities where we didn’t have offices. We scaled operations in Spain without offices and started and scaled Colombia without offices. In Mexico, we went from having over 75% of Wizeliners working out of Guadalajara to over 50% working across 40 different cities. So… we were successful, why change anything?

Although the Wizeline People team did a great job keeping everybody engaged with virtual cooking classes, workout sessions, and happy hours, and Academy kept everybody trained and onboarded with new technologies, we missed the personal connections, mentoring, and spontaneous collisions of ideas that allowed us to build new technologies. One of the early Wizeliners, Alexis, always talks about about getting together Friday afternoon on the deck, after TGIF to drink a beer (or Equally Attractive Non-Alcoholic Beverage) and discuss the latest advancements in new technologies and how they could help a customer.

Most of us have learned how challenging it is to brainstorm, in the moment, or mentor, at the right moment, over a scheduled Zoom call. And building the trust between individuals and teams?to help make difficult decisions is just that much harder if you haven't spent time together.

But before we talk about what is changing, I want to talk about what is staying the same. While we’re working to maximize collaboration, we also want to make sure that Wizeline can integrate well into people’s lives. Being present in those important or necessary moments — a sick family member, running errands at the bank, or being able to head out early for a family vacation — will still remain.?

We are also going to continue to hire remotely - we believe that talent is evenly distributed around the world, and awesome people always have a home at Wizeline. But we will build out offices where we have a high concentration of Wizeliners working remotely: Morelia, Hermosillo, Aguascalientes, Colima…

So what is changing? For Wizeliners near one of the Wizeline offices in Guadalajara, Mexico City, and eventually Monterrey and Queretaro, we are targeting Wizeliners to come in 3 times a week. If one week someone doesn’t come into the office, it’s ok. We’ll leave it to the manager to manage based on outcomes, but on average, the target will be about 3 times per week. There are also people who absolutely can’t come into the office for various reasons — and we will try to accommodate them. We are not going to dictate start or end times, and there will not be time cards. If people want to come in late and leave early or come in early and leave early to avoid traffic — awesome! We believe we hire ambitious, self-driven people, and they will do the right thing!

We’re also continuing to focus on making our offices a place where people want to be - a place to collaborate, brainstorm and enjoy each other's company.? Check out the Guadalajara amenities…

As with most things, I am sure that this program won’t be perfect at the start. And we may even lose people through attrition, but we think that the value of being able to work closely and collaborate as we build Wizeline together is worth it. Join us!