My Summer at Xero
My first day at Xero broke every expectation I had about life after University.
I was lucky enough to step into an internship last Summer at leading accounting software company Xero. This was my first time in any kind of office environment, so I really didn’t know what to expect.
Growing up, we’ve all been presented with images of Bill Lumbergh and Michael Scott bumbling around a soulless office space segmented by cubicles and coffee stations; not the prettiest picture of the corporate workforce. Recently, a new trend has emerged as the antithesis of this cliche: The start-up environment. The culture in these Silicon Valley-esque spaces is about slides instead of stairs, graffiti on the walls, and disrupting the world. With Xero, I wasn’t sure which extreme to be expecting. Would I be working with Jim Halpert or Richard Hendricks?
Needless to say, neither characters made an appearance. The people at Xero blew all notions out of the water.
The Space:
The first impression any company makes in person is through their environment. Like it or not, the office you work in plays a big part in your life.
It’s probably a good thing, then, that one of the first things you notice upon stepping into any Xero office is the smell of fresh coffee. As a student having just finished end of year exams, the smell was familiar and all too welcome.
Without going into too much detail about logistics, the office I worked in had its desks laid out in ‘pods’; if you can decode the diagram to the left, they pretty much worked like that. It’s a standard layout designed to better allow for collaboration within teams, and it did just that.
However, it goes without saying that the best part about the pods was the pantries. always stocked with cookies and other carbs — they supplied a healthy balance to the lunchtime runs everyone went on.
Honourable mentions:
- Floor to ceiling windows allowing for a tonne of natural light (even when said light was grey and decidedly moist)
- Espresso Machine that was reasonably idiot proof
- triple display setup; so much room for activities!
The Work:
Considering I was an intern, I came in with pretty low expectations as to the quality of work I’d be performing. Whatever the cloud version of scanning and binding documents — that’s what I Thought I’d be in for.
Once again I was proven wrong just about straight away. Before even finding my desk, I was toured around the office and introduced to my team one by one. Then I was left to my devices. It took about a day to figure out, but the implicit situation was that basically everyone was my boss. Not in the sense that I was below everyone — but in the sense that I had the freedom to go to anyone and ask ‘what needs to be done?’
This was by far and large the most valuable thing Xero did for me over the summer; They gave me the freedom to find what I do best, and simply do it.
This sort of evolved over the course of the summer to become a generalist role that involved relieving pressure off of people by taking over the base-level tasks, allowing them to focus on the higher-order details that required their attention. This served as a win-win; I got an incredibly broad and diverse view of the department I worked in, and people in the department were free to do a better job as a result.
I’ll be writing a full-length article on the nature of this ‘generalist’ position at a later date, as I think it’s something that needs to be implemented in more organisations. Stay tuned.
Honourable Mentions:
- My role added value to the purpose. Xero’s purpose statement is ‘Make our impact on the world by growing small businesses’, and I felt like I was contributing directly to that. The work I was given wasn’t to keep me busy, and it wasn’t repetitive or meaningless. It added value to the company, and as a result, I worked harder to accomplish it.
- Freedom of time; even as an intern I was allowed to take time off if I had a pressing matter to attend to. This allowed me to help Prepair NZ and Inspiring Stories, both local charities that are doing great stuff. This is because the emphasis is doing what you need to do, rather than clocking monster hours.
- The work was self-structured — as someone who is horrible at time management, this was daunting. But it gave me the framework to develop that skill in a unique environment.
The Culture:
Company culture is always a tricky subject to broach. There are always two sub-cultures one can be talking about, and it’s often tricky to determine which is the focus. Let’s call these two cultures ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’. ‘Explicit’ culture being the culture that is consciously promoted — think posters in the break area, codes of conduct, onboarding processes and so on so forth. ‘Implicit’ culture is the culture that simply exists; it is an amalgamation of all the employee’s behaviours, and cannot be changed consciously, regardless of any effort to do so.
These two culture-forms rarely line up exactly — there’s always some mismatch between the two, usually along the lines of how PC one is versus the other. This is also the case at Xero, but the key difference is that both cultures are still at the top of their game. They both serve their own purposes really well — consciously, they promote things like: ‘Do beautiful work’ (#beautiful), and ‘people come first’ (#human). All of the Xero Values are deeply ingrained into the organisation, whether it’s #human, #beautiful, #challenge, #champion, or #ownership. They are all enacted by everyone daily.
What’s big about these statements is the follow through that is enacted upon them. They aren’t just words on a poster, they’re attitudes — and they permeate every aspect of the business.
Xero is also a company that promotes Glassdoor; the service that allows potential employees to ‘get the inside scoop’ on jobs they’re interested in. It’s exactly this kind of active transparency that makes Xero thrive in today’s market.
Implicitly, the culture is a bit more… fun. The drive is still there, as is the perfectionism and hustle. In every employee, these traits are abundant. But there’s also a near limitless supply of banter, and for every ounce of hustle, there is an equal or greater amount of tustle. The phrase ‘work hard, play hard’ is a solid descriptor of the way of life.
Honourable Mentions:
- The ‘push the limits’ mentality in every aspect of life. Most notably when one employee decided to ‘push the limits’ and apply half a tub of Brylcreem to my hair and formed what essentially amounted to a greasy unicorn horn.
- The dedication to a job well done; it wasn’t uncommon to slip in on the weekend only to find two others typing away, polishing something off before a deadline.
- The egalitarianism. When any employee can talk to members of C-team and be heard, you know you’ve got something good going.
The People:
If I’m asked what my favourite part about my time with Xero was, I will always say the people.
The amount of talent and skill that is seen in everyone working there is impressive, but what truly makes these people stand out is the sense of family.
Even over the three months that I worked with everyone, I was brought into the fold and treated as one of the team. This didn’t just mean I had access to the highly coveted pantry and espresso machine — it meant being invited out on Fridays, playing Tennis with everyone (even if I hadn’t ever played before), and even being able to go to them for help.
The support and friendship my team offered from the get go was the most generous thing they could have done, and they did it without hesitation.
Honourable Mentions:
- The awesome people who supplied baking to the team. There wasn’t a single day that the pantry was empty and for that my stomach thanks you.
- Kirsty, for appointing me Christmas Elf. That is a title I will wear with pride for the rest of my days.
- ABRZY, for proving that you can work in finance and still drop bars.
To conclude, I’ll take it back to day one. Someone asked me how I was finding my first day, and I told them my expectations were being pummeled. All they had to say was this:
“There’s no other place quite like Xero”
Rod Drury, thank you for creating an excellent place to work and learn. Can’t wait to jump back into it next summer and help get Xero to the next level.
//FS//
