One of the things that really excited me about coming to TechCrunch is that I have the freedom to explore companies in a deeper, more meaningful, way. I’ve worked for quite a few startups and the people who make things tend to interest me more than what they actually make, sometimes.
Along that line of thinking, I visited the Square folks today and had a great conversation about their stance on keeping a cool, calm, collected and connected culture in the office. As you know, the company is moving to a bigger space in San Francisco, one that dons an actual “square.” Also, Square has expanded to Canada (eh?), which is always the first stop for full-on internationalization.
As I’m learning more about how Square operates as a company, or family if you will, the team showed me a neat internal app that they use to communicate with one another and maintain a “closeness”, even when people are out of the office.
It doesn’t have a name, but here’s a look:
While I got to see a little more than I can show you here, what I can say is that it’s really neat. You can check out the entire floorplan of the office, and check the directory of employees. This is helpful since Square seems to be on a massive hiring spree.
Employees can even manage the guests that they have coming to the office and get pinged when they arrive. Awesome.
Canadian themed lunch? Yes please:
I’m not sure if other companies do this, but I’ve never experienced it at my previous places of work. Sure, maybe there’s a third-party app that keeps people connected and chatting, or there’s email, but never a custom-built app made internally.
I dig it.
Do you like hearing more about company culture and meeting people who actually work there? Let me know in the comments, because it’s something that I love to do.
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