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The last year and half has been an incredible journey for all of us at Bitpanda. We've grown from 150 team members to over 500, including 44 nationalities. We’ve also significantly increased our customer base and successfully completed our Series B funding round - and we’ve done all of this while navigating a global pandemic.
While hypergrowth is exciting, we often see that companies tend to focus on the latest and greatest technical innovations, product releases and positive financial trends when experiencing rocketing successes.
However, we can’t forget that this level of scale is powered by people - teams working tirelessly, running at 200 miles an hour and never slowing down. Add COVID-19 to this mix and these team members are working even longer hours under this “new normal” context, never truly stepping away from their laptops in a home office that’s now blended into their personal space.
As a modern tech company, we want to set the right example. The health and well-being of our people is paramount. Their dedication, hard work and resilience are the driving force behind the success of our company, and we need to take care of them. We’re all feeling it - that “Zoom- (or Slack-) fatigue”, that inability to “shut down” and that feeling that the balance between our personal and professional lives is blurred. So, as we gear up for the second half of 2021, we’re giving ourselves collective permission to take a break and recharge - something we all too often forget to do.
What’s happening:
We’re taking a “breather” and giving our team members - full-time, part-time and interns alike - a week off (paid in full, of course). We want our employees to feel empowered to completely step away and log off. We want them to focus on themselves and their loved ones and to schedule some time to exercise, read, try out a new recipe or even travel (safely!).
Why are we doing this company-wide?
Because it’s the right thing to do - for our people and our teams which means it’s the right thing to do for Bitpanda as a company. After almost 18 months of incredible scaling and on- and off-lockdowns, Europe is starting to open up again and the vaccine programmes are moving forward.
Now is the time to recharge for our colleagues who need a break and doing this as a company means we’re holding ourselves collectively accountable for making this happen. With everyone being “off”, this means there’s no stress caused by emails piling up or that innate pressure we can all put on ourselves to “always be on” and respond to messages. Doing this together enables everyone to truly relax, reset and enjoy the summer weather.
Does this mean that Bitpanda’s platform or support will be offline?
Absolutely not! We’ve rallied a cover team of incredible talent to keep things up and running so our users will still have 24/7 access and customer support. Our customers will not notice any difference. The people in our cover team will only delay their well-deserved break slightly, to another time that suits them best.
Cultivating a culture of care is the key to success for any business - and it’s often overlooked. The bottom line is, of course, that you need to take care of your people - especially in the hypergrowth context when the pace is fast.
To our Bitpanda team - thank you for being awesome and let’s recharge!
Best from Austria,
Eric & Paul
