Under parental leave;<p>> You may also choose to take an additional 8 weeks leave unpaid. Note that this does not guarantee your employment. We're simply keeping your job open for an additional 8 weeks, unless your position becomes redundant.<p>Is it just me, or does that sound a little harsh? (Maybe I'm used to UK workers rights) Isn't this exactly the reason why many parents don't take the parental leave they probably should? ie that they fear they will become obsolete simply from not being in the office...
<i>Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Allowance<p>Fresh, organic, local fruits and vegetables are great to have on-hand, so we'd also like to offer a CSA membership to you. Finding a local provider will be up to you, but you can expense the cost of a seasonal or annual CSA share as an employee benefit, up to $1,000/year.</i><p>Count that as a perk I've never heard of before.<p>Cool peek into how a company that works remotely can function successfully. This handbook could be a blueprint for that model - are there any other examples of remote companies publishing their internal handbooks?
> Sabbatical - Every three years, employees are eligible to take a one-month-long sabbatical. Just give a heads-up preferably three months in advance, so we can coordinate the work-load accordingly.<p>I wish this was more common in the tech industry. I know for other industries this is basically a standard thing, but it seems like many tech companies don't do this.
I'm pretty immersed in the field of parental leave benefits in the US and UK, having setup Pledge Parental Leave www.pledgepl.org. Important to get the full perspective on the market in the US. You're taking a crap on a company with extremely progressive benefits across the board, furthermore so, one offering them at a 'meager' size of 50, where the relative cost is much greater than compared to a 'large' company.<p>It is very easy to make simple comparisons between UK and European standards vs US standards. The fact is that there is almost zero government funding/support for parental leave in the US. The US is the only developed country in the world without any government mandated parental leave standards.<p>What Basecamp offer in terms of paid leave to either parent is top tier in the US. If you take a look at Facebook, Google and others they offer close to similar benefits - <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ibj79Eh8Cvk4Wy_dPZNc19894N8zcQNgYem0K4EWrAg/edit?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ibj79Eh8Cvk4Wy_dPZNc...</a><p>In the US, any company stepping up in this area is doing so of its own volition and cost - again the government gives a company zero funding. In the UK, German, Sweden etc they pick up most of the tab of extended leave. In the US, the only form of support is for mothers through expensive health insurance for the 'disability' of having a child. So before you engage in moral relativism, it's healthy to get the context and the facts. Check out <a href="http://www.pledgepl.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.pledgepl.org</a> if you want to clue up or help fix this situation.
Wow - they advise employees to remove all company data from devices, leave the company 1password account, disable touch ID, and put their attorney on speed dial every time they go through customs.
This company publishes a handbook that puts most corporations to shame in every benefit category. So we are picking them apart for their 401k and their parental leave? Seriously!?! I don't understand HN any more...
There's a lot of good stuff here. I'm surprised about their take on speaking engagements (they're OK as long as they don't involve multi-day travel obligations). I get that you don't want team members touring talks or becoming conference tourists. But a lot of companies <i>want</i> their employees doing speaking engagements; Matasano/NCC, my old employer, pays a pretty substantial cash bonus for every time you do that.
For anyone interested in handbooks and culture codes, my startup, Tettra, curated all the ones we could find on CultureCodes.co. Will add Basecamp to the list soon too.
I find this discussion of "benefits" fascinating.<p>In Europe, <i>standard</i> in IT companies (Central Europe, mind you), is:<p>* 25 fullt paid days (or more) of vacation every year (no need to call it a sabatical and limit it to once a three years), not including national holidays etc.<p>* one year of (or more) paid maternity leave (or more), while second parent gets few weeks (two at my country)<p>* free gym membership (so I can yoga/climb/whatever for free)<p>* private health coverage (in addition to the public one, if your country (most EU has)<p>* sickness time at least 80% paid (in most IT it's 100%)<p>* fresh fruits daily (I don't even mention drinks etc)<p>* education budget per employee (conferences etc)<p>Thats a STANDARD if you want to recruit software engineer here you must have.
> Basecamp will pay up to $100/month for your gym membership, yoga studio membership, or whatever activity you do to stay in shape.<p>Is this sort of thing common? I wish my current employer did something like this. While I'm still skimming some of the documents - Basecamp sounds like a cool place to work.
It's a well thought and nicely written document though I'm not sure I'd like something like the 5x12s ( <a href="https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/our-rituals.md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/our-rituals...</a> )
> TL;DR: Don't Travel With Work Data<p>> If you don't need your work laptop (or tablet/phone), don't bring it with you!<p>> Wipe company data from your phone before crossing the border. Restore it afterward.<p>I've heard this advice quite a few times in recent times. Wonder how useful advice like this (and the implications of this) actually is.
Is it just me or are their "real" benefits pretty poor?<p>Health Care: no vision, I assume no dental. 25% copay on the PPO is on the higher end too, no?<p>401K: Not matching up to max. Certainly not all companies do, but still. I guess it's rare for startups.<p>Equity pool: (1) What happens on year 6? You don't vest any more equity? (2) This feels to me like it would not reward tenured employees as much. If you joined the company at 10 people and it IPOs at 300, you would be diluted significantly more than if you started with 1-2% of the company and diluted at investment rounds (I know they don't like to take on investor money, but just for comparison)<p>Seems like if you decide to work at Basecamp, you are trading some "real" benefits for the unique company culture.
I didn't know Basecamp was behind WeWorkRemotely.com. That's cool to learn.<p>Evidently, they also sold it off recently: <a href="https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/product-histories.md#weworkremotelycom" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/product-his...</a>
There's a few comments here pointing out their rules for wiping company data from devices when traveling through customs.<p>As a frequent international traveler, I feel naive here... can anyone point out any resources as to why this is best practice? What's on the line here, and what's going on that we need to be aware of?
Is there a similar publicly available product to Shipshape? <a href="https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/our-internal-systems.md#shipshape" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/our-interna...</a>
Anybody else surprised that their billing and identity system[1] is publically accessible (login required of course). Shouldn't this only be accessible within a trusted zone (office/VPN)?<p>[1] <a href="https://billing.37signals.com" rel="nofollow">https://billing.37signals.com</a>
Campfire seems missing from the Product Histories.<p>edit: filed <a href="https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/issues/11" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/issues/11</a><p>edit2: and it's fixed already
Everyone's going on about parental leave.<p>To me the big thing is 37 Signals spent years railing against companies with their handbooks and written down procedures. Calling them rituals doesn't change the fact that they have processes
There has been little mention of the most amazing perk at Basecamp which are the four day work weeks for four months of the year. This doesn't mean working four days of ten hours each day. You work four normal, eight hour days and get one day off.