Heard of POMs?

Guidelines on how you prefer working with team members

Mariam Mushtaq
September 16, 2024

In partnership with

Mariam Mushtaq here from HR Brain Pickings. 👋

In today’s edition

1. Agenda for AI X HR Playbook 2024 | September Edition 🎤
2. Case Study | Slack’s Culture of Experimentation: Lessons for HR Leaders 💡
3. 🔓 Unlock Resource: Tools List | The AI-backed productivity tools list for leaders
4. Today’s HR Reads for You 📚️

Agenda for AI X HR Playbook 2024 | September Edition 🎤

Mark your calendars for September 18th from 1 PM to 3 PM EST because we’ve got an exciting lineup in store for you! 🚀

🔹 Session 1: Using AI to Enhance the Employee Journey
We are kicking off the event with a high-energy, high-value session with Margarita Giannitelli! Learn how AI can be leveraged to improve the employee experience from onboarding to retention, ensuring a seamless and impactful experience. 🎉

The rest of the agenda will be revealed in tomorrow’s edition - stay tuned

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Case Study | Slack’s Culture of Experimentation: Lessons for HR Leaders 💡

I’ve always been fascinated by how Slack has turned workplace culture on its head—specifically through their creation of the Workforce Lab where the goal is to study how to make work better. But what really caught my attention was how they have baked experimentation into their everyday processes. 💡

At Slack, the way they view experimentation is by starting small—pinpointing common work challenges (like endless meetings or lack of focus time) and piloting solutions with their employees.

If something works, it’s shared across the company and even scaled to their parent company, Salesforce. It’s this relentless pursuit of improvement that sets Slack apart and sets an example for other workplaces.

Let’s take a look at some of these experiments and how it's ingrained into their culture DNA. 👇

1. The Break-Taking Experiment [March 2024]

The Challenge: We all know the importance of taking breaks, yet research from Slack’s Workforce Index reveals that 50% of desk workers worldwide aren’t taking them. Slack took this data and ran a two-week break-taking experiment to see if they could change that.

The Solution: Slack invited over 200 employees to participate, where each received daily prompts to take breaks. Employees tracked the types of breaks they took—whether “true breaks” (resting), “errand breaks,” or “working breaks.”

In addition, Slack leadership posted messages reassuring staff that break-taking was welcomed and encouraged - a simple but an important step!

And to add some fun, they joined a Slack channel to share photos, ideas, and support for each other. 📸

The lesson? Breaks should be seen as a productivity multiplier. By encouraging small changes like break-taking, you can create a significant impact on both employee satisfaction and performance. 🧘‍♀️

2. Personal Operating Manuals (POMs) 📝

Have you ever wished there was a guide to understanding how your coworkers work best? Enter the Personal Operating Manual (POM)—a tool that fast-tracks trust and connection among teams, especially those working remotely and depend on asynchronous communication.

Why it works:

Slack’s research showed that while workers want to connect with their teammates, they often hesitate to share their own working styles. POMs make that process simple and structured, creating stronger, more efficient teams faster.

With POMs, it’s about building trust. And as research shows, trust is the key to productivity. What better way to empower teams than by helping them understand each other’s strengths and preferences from day one?

I was unable to find slack’s POM template, but here's another one.

3. Taming the Meeting Madness with Focus Fridays and Maker Weeks

Raise your hand if you’ve been stuck in endless meetings. 🙋 Slack’s solution? Experimenting with Focus Fridays and Maker Weeks to give employees the time they need to dive deep into meaningful work.

Focus Fridays: Every Friday, Slack employees cancel internal meetings and turn off notifications to enjoy uninterrupted focus time. The result? Over 84% of Slack employees found Focus Fridays to be incredibly beneficial, especially managers who often struggle with focus time.

Maker Weeks: Twice per quarter, Slack cancels all recurring internal meetings for an entire week. Employees use this time to work on big projects, reset, or focus entirely on customer-facing tasks. It’s not just about fewer meetings—it’s about more time for meaningful work.

Slack’s experiments remind us that change doesn’t have to be a massive, sweeping overhaul. Small, thoughtful experiments can drive significant shifts in productivity, collaboration, and wellbeing. So, what experiment did you find interesting and something you could possibly experiment with your team? 👩‍🔬

Which of these Slack-inspired experiments would you most like to try at your organization?

Cast your vote and let’s experiment together! 💬

Should we do more real life case studies?

What should we cover next?

🤔 We want to hear from you! What workplace myths or topics should we tackle in our next newsletter?

🔓 Unlock Resource: Tools List | The AI-backed productivity tools list for leaders

In this document: We have split the tools list into 2 categories: tools for leaders’ individual productivity, and tools they can bring into their company for larger team productivity.

Today’s HR Reads for You 📚️

1. 😇 Some good news: CHRO turnover on the decline, data shows.

2. 🤔 Yay or nay? Encouraging a four-day working week could make inequality worse.

3. ❌ Meeting Fatigue is still a thing: Meeting fatigue is bad for business.