One thing that made Google pretty famous and exciting back in the days, was there idea of a 20% time of your job that you could use freely to explore something that you were passionate about. Apparently, that’s how Google News or Google Translate started. (1)

What if we took this idea, but instead of using the time for something we’re passionate about, we would use that time to serve others (2).

In the coding community, there is a thing called Five for the Future. It’s a commitment that some website developers take to give back 5% of their time or resources for the development of Wordpress, one of the main tools they use.

Giving the time, during work hours, and even expecting it, to employees to do good outside of the organization is a nice to support sustainability programs, social causes, etc. Plus, it makes you a pretty interesting employer.

Action question

How can you give time to your team members during the year to do some good outside of the organization? What’s the minimum you expect?

Footnotes

(1) I thought Gmail was on that list, but according to Coby Skonord, Paul Buchheit’s one of the guys behind it started is within his regular role. I know I break some trivia myths here.

(2) That’s what the HR guys call a VTO policy or Volunteer Time Off

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.