
Rules for Work: The Zaarly Employee Handbook - StartupBuilder
http://handbook.zaarly.com/
======
tptacek
I like this as a document.

One thing to remember though: an Employee Handbook has legal status. It's
usually the primary vector that companies use to establish policies. For
instance, the Zaarly handbook doesn't mention discrimination at all (except to
tell employees to expect the men to use the women's restroom --- w.t.f.?!).

If you're going to do something like this --- and I'm not saying you shouldn't
--- have a button-down version as well. It should make clear that employees
are exempt from overtime, that you don't tolerate discrimination, that
employment is at-will, when re-hired employees are considered formally a "re-
hire" vs. "LOA" (so their benefits clock doesn't reset), and any expectations
you have about client-facing conduct or not rm'ing the production servers, so
that in a dispute, you can point to the document that spells stuff out.

The other thing to remember is that you'll occasionally be providing this to
candidate employees during your hiring process, and again, there are
formalities that you want to make clear.

I'm rewriting our handbook right now and targeting something in between this
and the standard HR issue (actually, I'm targeting something more along the
lines of Valve's guide, which I think is fantastic). It's tricky to get the
tone right. One place I am taking advantage of a direct, common-sense tone is
our anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policy stuff, where I can write
forcefully and directly and not put off anyone I'd actually want to work with.

~~~
001sky
_an Employee Handbook has legal status_

\-- I'd be wary of this generalization. It is more the opposite. If that makes
sense.

~~~
robinjfisher
The original statement is _generally_ correct. Employee handbooks don't have
contractual status (i.e. they can be amended at the company's discretion) but
do have legal status insofar as employee's will be expected and, in most cases
be contractually bound, to abide by the terms of the handbook.

~~~
danielweber
It can bind employers, too. In most states, the answer to "what happens with
unclaimed vacation pay if I quit?" is "go see what it says in the employee
handbook."

------
moocow01
I think this misses the point of an employee handbook completely. Its meant
for when things go wrong... employees are not looking at any company handbook
on a day to day basis to figure out how the company runs and how they should
act. They only crack it open when shit hits the fan and they need to know what
to do...

\- Think one of your co-workers is not performing up to par - might want to
consult the employee handbook

\- Think you might get laid off - might want to consult the employee handbook

\- Wondering how much time you can take off - might want to consult the
employee handbook

Employee handbooks are stuffy, boring and read like a dictionary. It is
essentially a very light contract between the employer and employee - writing
a contract about how there basically are no rules probably makes everyone feel
like they are forward thinking but helps very little. Here are some tangible
examples...

\- There is no rule on vacation so my coworker "John" takes a lot of vacation.
Hes pretty responsible about it but sometimes he's out and we really do need
him - its begun to frustrate me a little. Is he about to be fired or can I do
this too - Im doing a ton of work but would like to go to Europe for 6 weeks?
(The problem here is that there is a very real limit on vacation - the limit
is a magical number/level of output in the founders/investors/manager's heads
and may depend on their mood day to day. What one's expectation of acceptable
time off may not match anothers.)

\- I like to wear unqiue clothes but now a couple coworkers have started to
tease me in ways that are really starting to bother me. (As a side note I
think this was part of what occurred with that Kixeye debacle while it was a
vary extreme case.) Lets see what the handbook says... oh.

\- "Tim" produces like crazy - the problem is that he is not big on
communication and doesnt want to be apart of our meetings. Hes doing great
work - its just not integrating with the direction everyone else is going.

It probably sounds like Im advocating for the other extreme where every detail
is mapped out. Im not - it can be too extreme on structure but I dont think
the other extreme is any better. In all honesty this would drive me away - it
looks like a dream until money is low, stress is high, somebody is abusing
something, or there is political in-fighting (which definitely can happen at
small startups).

~~~
erso
I don't ever want to consult an employee handbook. I especially don't want
someone to tell me to RTFEH.

At Pivotal we have an e-mail alias for making any kind of request that will
get routed to the right person and dealt with/responded to quickly. No
guesswork required, no flipping through an employee handbook.

There's also a person everyone gets assigned that they can go to at any time
with questions about how to enter their time, what to do about a bad situation
at work, or whatever else they want to talk about.

There should always be a person available, not (just) an employee handbook.

~~~
dagw
_There should always be a person available, not (just) an employee handbook._

Obviously, but that person isn't omnipotent. Perhaps that person has never
taken maternity leave and doesn't know the routines. Having things written
down somewhere makes it easier to find and eliminates any guesswork.

The other advantage of a handbook is anonymity. Perhaps you want to look up
the routines for maternity leave without announcing that you are/plan to be
pregnant.

------
ssharp
IANAL, but while I think it's nice that they give these sorts of freedom, this
sort of "no rules!" attitude can become a liability as a company grows.

When Jane gets told, "sorry you can't take 10 weeks of vacation this year",
even though Tom got 10 weeks of vacation, you leave yourself open to all kinds
of legal trouble. What looks like bureaucracy and bloat in bigger companies
are most likely regulations put in place to protect both employee and employer
rights.

I think the key to any HR policy, even an overt lack of HR policy, is to make
sure its applied consistently.

------
jpdoctor
> _Rules for Work -- We do not have these._

Note: This was written by folks who have never been on the receiving end of a
stupid employee lawsuit. There are reasons why you need an employee handbook,
and almost all of them are legal CYA.

Seek out better legal advice than these guys did.

~~~
ktsmith
I could also see this handbook being used against them in the case of
harassment, discrimination or wrongful termination suits.

~~~
jpdoctor
> _this handbook being used against them in the case of harassment,
> discrimination or wrongful termination suits._

Exactly. And since courts tend to favor employees, Zaarly's corporate neck is
very exposed.

Here's one example:

> Whatever it is, it’s cool.

> Also, it is a place where the guys frequently use the women’s bathroom.

All any woman has to do for a harassment lawsuit is point to that phrase in a
courtroom. "They will happily invade the place where women are exposed! and
it's corporate policy!"

Not the brightest idea in corporate leadership.

And another thing: Suppose they wise up and actually get a real company
handbook. All any woman has to do is bring out this version and describe that
"Zaarly has a well-documented _history_ of harassment against women."

Edit: s/discrimination/harassment

~~~
ktsmith
Unfortunately Lawyers get paid quite a bit to make exactly those types of
small things look very bad for their opponents. Another one that stands out to
me is in the clothing section.

> We will never implement any sort of expectations around what you wear, but
> we maintain all rights to mock your future mother-in-law’s choice of clothes
> if you choose to wear them to the office.

A decent lawyer will turn that into the company openly supporting and even
encouraging harassment.

~~~
SkyMarshal
I can't tell wtf that even means, but I'm pretty sure it's a prime example of
the less said, the better.

------
nsxwolf
These rules are nothing new. Every company seems to start this way and then
eventually each of these principles die with a little regulation here and a
little adjustment there.

~~~
ckluis
Cough. Netflix.

~~~
debacle
Are you holding Netflix up against the GP's assertion, or in confirmation of
it?

~~~
ckluis
Netflix is still amazingly liberal with its policies.

------
mvkel
Very, very pretty little scroller!

That said, the content is quite a bit of fluff with not much substance. What I
got from this: we all think Zaarly is really cool. We don't care what you
wear. We have nice chairs. Have fun!

This wouldn't help an incoming employee onboard any faster, or easier, which
is the point of a handbook, no?

It'd be nice to see a "your first day" walkthrough.

Oh, and there'd better be a _real_ policy behind this doc, as they're going to
be highly susceptible to lawsuits from their first few terminations.

For an excellent new employee handbook, see Valve:
[http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...](http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf)

------
debacle
> Disagreements that have not been addressed IRL will be promptly dismissed as
> misunderstandings until an actual conversation has taken place.

That's an impressively mature stance on employee conflict.

> Or maybe better, an extension of your parent's house.

That's a very simple and reasonable explanation for workplace use.

It sounds like you treat your employees like adults. I find that commendable
in the current business climate.

~~~
jacalata
Really? What does 'IRL' mean? Because I find a slight friction between the
statements 'you can work from anywhere, whatever hours you like' and
'disagreements are not considered real unless you've been in the same room'.
Oh so I can work from home but you'll ignore anything I say if you don't like
it, because I wasn't in the room with you. Got it. Sure you'll pay for my
plane tickets, I don't want a plane ticket, I want to work from home and have
you listen to me.

~~~
debacle
Judging from the rest of their handbook, it sounds like "IRL" means video or
voice chat as well.

------
hodder
I am just curious... Do these "take as much vacation as you want" policies
work out well in practice? Or do the policies unintentionally create a
competition to vacation less? Can anyone who works at a company with one of
these policies share their perspective? How much is the approximate median
vacation time taken?

~~~
abdelazer
IANAA, but... Remember that these vacation policies also offer a very
significant accounting benefit compared to PTO polices that let employees
accrue & bank PTO. The accounting downside for these PTO policies is that many
employees end up with huge PTO balances (lame for other reasons) that they
build up in advance of leaving the company. Because the company must pay out
in cash the whole PTO balance when the employee leaves, the company actually
has to keep (often very significant amounts of) cash on hand in proportion to
the collective banked PTO amounts. This is lame and it's avoided in "you get 0
but take as much as you want" scenarios.

~~~
ktsmith
> Because the company must pay out in cash the whole PTO balance when the
> employee leaves, the company actually has to keep (often very significant
> amounts of) cash on hand in proportion to the collective banked PTO amounts.

Depends on the state. Many states let the employer decide if they want to have
a pay out policy or a "use it or lose it" policy.

------
ropz
I know I'm gonna get downvoted, but something about it gives me the creeps.
It's almost as if the culture itself is some altar you have to worship at,
rather than being the consensual improv that great cultures turn out to be.

------
bengl3rt
Why are men using the women's restroom? Doesn't that make the women (assuming
any work there) uncomfortable?

~~~
temac
Probably they are considering this is cool.

~~~
ericnjorgenson
There are quite a few women that work here, actually. It's more like both are
unisex for all, but it has been comical to guests that see men coming out of
the women's bathroom.

They're each only one person... so... it's not at as odd as it seems. Inside
joke, perhaps.

Granted, there isn't much context there haha

~~~
adambratt
heh I almost messaged you after reading that line. I did a bit of a double
take.

------
codewright
>If you want to coast, we recommend you apply for a job at Craigslist

Catty much? Amusing assertion given that Jeremy Zawodny works there.

~~~
projectileboy
Clicking on the link, I believe they mean "use Craigslist to apply for a job
elsewhere". It's hard to believe anyone would bag on Craigslist itself as a
model of efficiency; If you were to chart number of uniques per day against
number of employees, I doubt anyone is within an order of magnitude (or two,
or three) of Craigslist.

~~~
ckluis
Wikipedia.

~~~
projectileboy
Oh, good call. Thanks.

------
grinich
_“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end (which you can
never afford to lose) with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of
your current reality, whatever they might be.”_

    
    
        - Jim Collins
    

That's a great quote.

~~~
MattRogish
Great, amazing quote. Wrong author:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale>

~~~
grinich
Ah, thanks.

------
chris123
That's not an employee handbook, it's a company: 1) giving itself a blowjob,
and 2) recruiting (a certain demographic).

------
DanBC
You're never going to employ blind people?

EDIT: Yes, this post is perhaps a bit grumpy. I leave it here because it's
been replied to. (And because HN has no strikethrough.)

~~~
pbiggar
I don't understand why you'd read their document, find the worst possible
interpretation imaginable - one which no reasonable person could assume was
valid - and then post about that on Hacker News.

~~~
DanBC
Clicky the little flag. Zoom the page. Some of the font drops off the bottom
of the page, and scrolling doesn't work. (Chrome, macbook pro, OSX).

On the main text. Zoom the page. Some of the text falls off the left hand
side, and there's no way to read it.

I mention the sight thing because it's clearly ignoring the fact that some
people cannot see; and other people cannot hear; and other people cannot talk;
and other people have neurological problems. It makes assumptions about
people's ability to understand visual cues.

But, if you really want to talk about the rest of the document: It assumes
people are reasonable, and thus we don't need rules. But we need rules because
some people are not reasonable, some people are arseholes. Clear rules give
those people hints about what is acceptable, and makes it easier for you to
get rid of those people if they don't become acceptable.

It feels like they've left themselves wide open to legal action. All that
ambiguity is what lawyers dream of.

~~~
pbiggar
Ah, I misunderstood your comment - my apologies. I thought you were making a
snide remark about the "sign language" part of the communication doc. I guess
if I shouldn't leap to accuse people of leaping to accuse people of things!
Sorry :(

------
ckluis
Extremely well done site. +1 for insistence on face-to-face and willingness to
pay for plane tickets to facilitate it.

------
MichaelGG
"Work happens anywhere"

I'm travelling in Central America, and going to Zaarly.com showed me a page in
Chinese. Telling Chrome to translate somehow fixed it into English. Except it
says "What you want, when you want it.", which is like those placeholder spam
sites.

So I turned on my proxy settings to appear in Denver, restart browser, and get
the same "global" page. "Coming soon to your area!" No links or override so I
can say "no, your approach using geo-IP is broken". So until the cookies
expire or are deleted, any user identified as "global" is blocked from using
the site.

I'm curious as to the benefit of using the IP to decide to block a user from
even browsing the site. Why wouldn't you want to show the actual system,
perhaps with a notification of "hey, there's nothing in your area yet"?

------
minhajuddin
>We do not have a vacation policy.

This works out fine till you get that _one_ employee who screws it up for
everyone else. It really works when you have people who love working a lot,
and those who don't have other "distractions" (marriage, kids etc,). A company
should definitely have a vacation policy, if it doesn't it is doing injustice
to employees who work hard.

Let's say Omar is a hard working guy doesn't take a lot of vacation, and Jack
is a guy who loves taking vacations ( and sometimes takes too many vacations
), If both these guys are equally capable and have the same efficiency, Omar
is the guy who contributes more to the company. Without a clear guideline from
the hand book, Omar doesn't know how much time he can spend on vacations and
so does Jack, but they both _assume_ that whatever they are doing is right,
and whatever the _other_ guy is doing is _going overboard_. Giving a little
thought to the vacation policy can help you a lot in these areas, Once you
_do_ have a vacation policy there is no _misunderstanding_ everyone knows what
they are doing.

The "vacation policy" ultimately gets changed when people take undue advantage
of it, or people get fired for taking too many vacations, but not
transparently. The management will say, oh, your results are below average,
blah blah blah....

------
YeeHaw
Do employees actually take vacations at companies without a predetermined
number of vacation days?

~~~
psykotic
For people who have issues with this, I'd suggest asking your manager or
whoever is in charge whether X days of vacation per year would be acceptable.
And then track your own vacation days and treat them like you would at any
other company.

~~~
genwin
Manager: "Take as much time as you want, but know that your absence would be
highly disruptive to the company."

------
dantiberian
They have a heap of employees for apparently not selling anything yet
<https://www.zaarly.com/about>. Is this common for startups to take on this
many people?

~~~
ktsmith
It's not that uncommon for a company with $15 million in investment money to
have that many or more employees.

------
hnriot
Wow, what a dumb document to publish. Anyone not hired or fired from this
place will have a field day with this.

"Also, it is a place where the guys frequently use the women’s bathroom."

Sounds like a really creepy place to work.

~~~
ahelwer
It's poorly phrased in this case, but gender-neutral facilities are coming of
age. They appear on universities, for example.

This ties into trans* acceptance as well. Basically, don't dismiss it as too
crazy of an idea.

------
interg12
My takeaway from this book: Zaarly is very unstructured. It's great that they
have an order of priorities for doing things but I didn't see a real framework
here that deviated from "how to be a basic employee 101." It reads like a
layer of abstraction one step away from even high level values. There's very
little to point to in the book that will adress/solve any actual workplace
situations/conflicts.

That being said, it looks very pretty.

------
CamperBob2
_We are very happy to pay for plane tickets -- if you’re not in the same room
as someone that you need to talk to, one of you needs to change that.
Disagreements that have not been addressed IRL will be promptly dismissed as
misunderstandings until an actual conversation has taken place._

Ridiculous.

------
rvijapurapu
Love the cool handbook. I would love to know what the hiring process is like.
How does Zaarly protect itself from employees who'll leach company & team of
valuable resources.

------
98c
Great job guys! I think it's awesome. As for all the haters and critics: I'll
give their opinions more weight after I see their work.

------
squaredeye
Outstanding job Marco. I'm impressed with what you've created here. This is a
great way of showing the world the culture of Zaarly.

------
evolve2k
I would love to know the process/steps they went through to come up with this
document to it's current state.

~~~
Evbn
1\. Make it up as we go.

2\. Expect to be bankrupt before any serious disputes appear.

------
aviflombaum
Really beautiful site.

~~~
johnx123-up
Didn't anyone check the weird scss compiler comments yet?
<http://handbook.zaarly.com/stylesheets/style.css>

~~~
csmattryder
I think that's standard for SCSS, it does it when I'm creating Rails web
applications, but i'm new to Rails and there's probably a setting to toggle
somewhere.

------
SimianLogic2
Every time I see a startup that starts with a Z, my first thought is: "Is that
the boob thing?" (Zivity)

------
olliesaunders
What does this company do?

~~~
general_failure
Whatever it is that they do, they love it. The handbook is saying so.

