We donated $59,000 for Boldare people’s well-being

The VUCA world and its huge unpredictability affects us all. We have not yet had time to recover from the pandemic, and already a war is occurring across our eastern border. We are currently burdened with a huge dose of complexity. Among everything else, we are facing a mass immigration of Ukrainians to Poland.

We truly want to be good people to our neighbors. From the very beginning of the war in Ukraine, many Boldare employees involved themselves in various aid activities, like hosting refugees in their homes or volunteering in NGOs helping people in other ways.

The war in Ukraine has sparked a natural desire to help Ukrainians. The company is involved, directly and indirectly, in various aid actions. So far, we’ve spent over PLN 300,000 and devoted many hours of our developers’ work to the Tech To The Rescue initiative. And since we know it’s not a sprint but a marathon, I think there will be a lot more of this support spread out over time. — comments by Piotr Majchrzak, co-CEO at Boldare.

Despite our great desire to help, we have noticed that recent events are having a big impact on Boldare people, who are feeling the effect of the events in Ukraine. We felt that we could not remain indifferent to this situation. The question came up: how can we take care of ourselves in these difficult times?

Our co-CEO, Piotr, proposed to release some funds to give them to all Boldare employees, so they could take care of themselves and their family in ways they will find the most effective. The goal was to give everyone the incentive and the means to take care of themselves. All to support and care for our community – especially right now.

Dose of self-care and self-organization

Piotr’s proposal was to distribute the amount of $59,000 (PLN 250,000) in cash aid to Boldare employees. After posting the idea, we waited a couple of days for votes for and against. Most voices were in favor (including our CFO, who checked how such a donation would influence the financial health of the company). Since nobody was against it, we released the money. Every single employee got the same amount of money ($270 including tax) in the form of a personal virtual card.

Guided by holacratic values, we chose a “self-organized” and trust-based approach. We assumed that the money would be used by employees in the best possible way and would bring them a large dose of self-care. Everyone was able to spend the amount received on what they feel would be most helpful and appropriate right now. It’s just enough to go for a short trip with family or buy something cool to cheer yourself up.

In traditional management, these types of initiatives focus on a predetermined way to help (such as psychological care or an extra day off). Thanks to the fact that Boldare culture has developed a very high level of trust, we can go a step further and leave the method of how to achieve the goal to the people themselves. This gives us a chance to make the best use of resources, and additionally activates people’s creativity – adds Piotr.

Multiple ways for effective well-being

There was a very important goal behind the release of this money to Boldare people. We wanted each person to be able to take the best care of themselves – without limiting or explaining what the money should be spent on. All we asked was how Boldare people allocated the money (and answering that question was optional). The aim was to get inspiration and show how many forms taking care of oneself can take.

Here are just a few examples of how our people used these funds:

• some of them transferred the money to Polish Humanitarian Action or other NGOs helping Ukraine;
• others decided to buy some fancy audio devices;
• one person chose to spend this money on his wedding;
• some spent this money on catering and enjoying not having to cook;
• one of our developers bought a new gas stove for his older neighbor;
• there were also those who chose to use this amount for vacation expenses.

We currently face a demanding daily life where we often focus on helping others rather than give attention to ourselves. There is no one universal benefit that will bring joy to everyone – so we didn’t want to decide for others how to spend such resources. Did holacracy help in processing the idea? Well, it’s not that holacracy by itself makes anything easier or more difficult. The system gives us the freedom and space to do things more easily. What honestly fascinated me about the whole process was how many people shared their non-trivial ideas for effective well-being – comments Joanna Kroczek, the salary architect at Boldare that oversaw the whole process.

Internal funds for our employees

Besides this cash for Boldare people, there are several other internal funds available to our employees at Boldare that can be used in more specific ways. These are, among others:

• funds for employees that host refugees in their homes
• funds for NGOs who are helping refugees
• funds for Boldare people who are involved in various aid actions

We are very involved in helping Ukraine. We thought that in this part of the world, armed conflicts were in the past and could not happen. Any initiative that will help at least a little in this situation and at least minimally relieve the tension is valuable – claims Piotr.