A few weeks ago, my husband and I started a new exercise regime and began the keto diet. We knew one of the outcomes would be healthier bodies and more energy. What we didn’t consider at the time was how big an impact it’d have on our work lives.
Within a matter of weeks, my world turned around outside of work. We quickly dropped some weight and felt our motivation levels go through the roof. I was getting more done around the house we are restoring and my mood had dramatically improved and stayed consistent each day. I was back to being ever the optimist.
That’s where it got interesting. Sure, I was full of energy and woke up feeling well rested everyday. But even more noticeable to me, I was almost doubling my level of output at work yet the quality of it was the same if not better. My critical thinking skills were as sharp as they’d ever been and things that once appeared as big obstacles now seemed like small challenges.
It’s amazing how divvying up your attention between work and something else can positively impact both. That ‘something else’ could be focusing on exercise and health or a side hustle. At Kin, we believe our employees’ passions will never be 100% Kin. We are human beings. We have many interests and goals that don’t relate to our careers and we love to celebrate our team’s accomplishments outside of work.
In fact, we have several team members that are known for their talents that have nothing to do with our company. Just check out a Slack chat between our some of our team and our founder a few Monday mornings ago:
Maintaining constant focus on anything for too long will lead to burn out. If we had an employee that worked at Kin for five years and had no other interests outside of work, I guarantee they wouldn’t be a top performer. Employees gain different perspectives and creative solutions from other aspects of theirs lives that they then apply here. It has nothing to do with sitting at a computer staring at the same challenge day in and day out. It’s about connecting the dots from everything you’re exposed to to make the world better. That’s innovation.
We talk the talk and walk the walk here at Kin. Grant, our engineering director, is known for his home brews and paddle boarding. We are guaranteed to get a good picture of either each week in Slack.
A little over a year ago, Grant even shared a story about a home-brewing app he made in his spare time. It was a project that the company had no direct interest in, but we still shared it on our parent company’s blog. We thought it was cool and were proud of his work – whether it was for a client or not. Turns out, a lot of other people enjoyed it, too:
Sharing our whole selves means embracing it in every aspect. It’s not just asking our employees how their weekends were when they come in on Monday.
We want Kin to be known as a workplace where people can come to their job and love what they do during the day, then have the freedom to pursue their dreams after-hours. It benefits not only their work here, but their home life, too. We become the best version of ourselves when we don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.
What are your employees into outside of work?