As we are providing a service with the explicit goal of helping the self employed. We are founding our business based on principles that we believe are fair and more than that, ensure that the WORKOCRAT benefits from our growth.
Yes we want to be profitable and an enduring business, but we do not want to do this by taking advantage of our customers or our employees. Not just that, our goal is to create a way of operating our business that meets the needs of our customers and employees as we seek to redress the balance between the buyer of labor and the supplier of it (us!).
What this means for our company:
- We do not hire “temporary” workers, even those who are typically seen as not “worthy” of full time employment. Our cleaning staff are on our books and have the same benefits (vacation, healthcare, options, TBD) as everyone else. We are a team and we will outsource only for tasks that are ad hoc in nature (example: taxi service).
- We believe in a fully open and mixed workplace. This means that not only do we not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, age or anything else but we also explicitly recruit to ensure that our team reflects the population of where we have offices. Note, as we are a small company where one individual may skew the %, this is not an actuality from day 1 but is an explicit albeit medium term goal for our business.
- Yes we are a subscription business, but we are one that respects our users. We automatically place our paying members in a lower rate subscription bracket if we see that they have not used our service for three months or more. We also make it easy to cancel the subscription if a member wants to leave.
- Our customers are also our owners. In the same way that all our staff have options, so do our members. At our founding we set up an ownership pool, a cooperative that allows WORKOCRAT members to qualify for a stake in the business after 12 months of paid membership. This is similar to employees when they qualify for stock options.