Courtney Seiter

Courtney Seiter

A collection of posts by Courtney Seiter

A collection of 188 posts

OpenJun 17, 2020
Buffer Is Moving to a 4-Day Workweek for the Rest of 2020

We’ve decided to conduct a long-term pilot of the 4-day workweek. See our results so far and what we're adding next.

OpenApr 13, 2020
Business as Abnormal: Every Message We’ve Shared With Our Team (So Far) During COVID-19

No one knows how to work during a pandemic, and we’re all grappling through it together. So in the spirit of sharing, here are all of the internal messages we’ve shared with our team and shareholders during this time.

OpenApr 10, 2020
Introducing the Public Buffer Revenue Dashboard: Our Paying Customers, Annual Run Rate, and More

Transparency is one of our defining values at Buffer. We are excited to debut a new revenue dashboard!

OpenApr 10, 2020
Retreat Postponed by COVID-19: Message #1

This team communication regarding COVID-19 is part of our COVID-19 Response Series. You can see all the messages in the series here . * Shared: March 4, 2020 * Posted by: Courtney Seiter, Director of People * Title: We are postponing our planned June retreat in Athens We are postponing our planned June retreat in Athens Hi team; I have some tough news to share: In light of the COVID-19 situation developing across the world and out of an abundance of cautio

OpenApr 10, 2020
COVID-19 Customer Assistance Program: Message #6

This team communication regarding COVID-19 is part of our COVID-19 Response Series. You can see all the messages in the series here . * Shared: April 3, 2020 * Posted by: Joel Gascoigne, Buffer Founder and CEO * Title: Launching the COVID-19 Customer Assistance Program Launching the COVID-19 Customer Assistance Program Hey team, I’m glad to be sharing an update with you on how we’re planning to continue and expand the ways we’re helping customers get throu

OpenApr 10, 2020
CEO Note on COVID-19: Message #4

This team communication regarding COVID-19 is part of our COVID-19 Response Series. You can see all the messages in the series here . * Shared: March 26, 2020 * Posted by: Joel Gascoigne, Founder and CEO * Title: An assortment of thoughts on our approach during COVID-19 An assortment of thoughts on our approach during COVID-19 Hi team, As we come towards the end of another week in this pandemic, and many more places implement stay at home orders, I want t

COVID-19 Economic Impact: Message #3

This team communication regarding COVID-19 is part of our COVID-19 Response Series. You can see all the messages in the series here . * Shared: March 18, 2020 * Posted by: Caryn Hubbard, Director of Finance * Title: How we’re positioned to handle this new economic climate How we’re positioned to handle this new economic climate Hi team, The last couple of weeks have been atypical and unprecedented, unfolding in ways none of us could have imagined. Public

Sick Leave Under COVID-19: Message #5

This team communication regarding COVID-19 is part of our COVID-19 Response Series. You can see all the messages in the series here . * Shared: March 30, 2020 * Posted by: Courtney Seiter, Director of People * Title: A note on COVID-19 sick time and time off A note on COVID-19 sick time and time off Hi team; the People and Finance teams wanted to share a special note with you about time off during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, Buffer’s Flexible Time Off P

Team Guidelines Under COVID-19: Message #2

This team communication regarding COVID-19 is part of our COVID-19 Response Series. You can see all the messages in the series here . * Shared: March 12, 2020 * Posted by: Courtney Seiter, Director of People * Title: Buffer Guidelines for 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19) * Note: We’re grateful to Human Made for sharing their guidelines openly via their handbook ! Some of this language was borrowed from their

OpenJan 13, 2020
5 Work Culture Trends We’re Looking Out For in 2020

We think a lot about work culture at Buffer. So at the end of the year, it’s always an interesting exercise to think on how the work world has evolved and the work culture trends we see on the horizon. Here are five of our predictions for 2020. They’re unscientific and pretty biased by our point of view, but that’s part of the fun! 1. The growth of ‘conscious companies’ Is the purpose of a business simply to make money? Up until recently, that question could be answered pretty simply: Yup! Bu

We Tried ‘Half-Day Fridays.’ Here’s How It Went.

Friday has become somewhat of an “experiment day” at Buffer. Different areas of Buffer have tried Fridays with no Slack , have reserved Friday afternoons for personal development , and have even taken Friday afternoons off . Using Fridays to try new ways of work has become such a part of our culture that we recently tried our first full-te

OpenOct 7, 2019
Scaling Your Team for Success: Key Lessons from 1Password, Skillshare, Vimeo and Us at Buffer

Growing a team is an exciting prospect. More people means more capacity, more skills and more progress, right? But scaling a team often comes with its own special challenges and pitfalls. It’s been said that every time a company triples in size, everything breaks . We’re now a team of 90 at Buffer and have learned quite a [https://medium.com/slite/how-slite-buffer-and-doist-manage-remote-first-teams-2b9

How We Think About Time Off As a Global Team

When we first started out building Buffer, time off seemed pretty simple. We offered unlimited vacation time to use as teammates saw fit. And since we were distributed across the world, teammates could simply decide which holidays they cared about and take them off. Easy, right? Turns out humans are a bit more complex than that. Over time, we learned that unlimited vacation policies statistically see employees take less [http://nymag.

OpenJun 10, 2019
50+ Resources For LGBTQIA Allies

Learning about the experiences and history of LGBTQ+ people shouldn’t stop after June, which is why we wanted to share an updated list of resources to help us all learn how to be the best allies we can be! First, a brief history of Pride Although Pride might seem like a month of parades and glitter these days, its origins are far from celebratory. The first Pride rally occurred a month after the Stonewall riots in 1969. A well-known gay bar, Stonewall was a safe space for drag queens, tr

OpenMay 20, 2019
The ‘Traffic Light’ Exercise, Tweeting About Therapy, and 5 More Ways To Support Mental Health at Work

There’s been a lot of crying in my career – tears of frustration, sadness, and also joy. As a newspaper editor, reporters would sometimes come into my office, close the door and break down in sobs. Doing social media for an open-office tech startup, I had to leave the building and walk around the block to cry. No job has normalized tears for me more than Buffer, and I’m so grateful for it. At Buffer, we try to bring ourselves authentically to work. We delight in the joys of life – new babi

The Power of the Pause: Introducing Sabbaticals at Buffer

Imagine no longer being able to enjoy time with friends and family, because work is constantly on your mind and your phone is constantly in your hand – and the more you stress, the worse you feel. Or imagine the job you once loved suddenly feeling hollow and pointless, leaving you depressed and constantly fatigued. For a lot of us who feel deeply connected to our work, this is almost unthinkable. But these are some classic signs of burnout, which can lead to serious physical, mental, and s

OpenMar 29, 2019
Our Latest Pay Analysis: Examining Buffer’s Gender Pay Gap in 2019

Thanks for reading our equal pay report. See our updated 2021 pay analysis here.  Progress seldom looks like the straight line we all wish it might. Real life is much messier, filled with false starts, mistakes, and backtracks. That’s an especially tough truth when it comes to issues like the gender pay gap that affect real people’s lives so deeply. But in advance of this year’s Equal Pay Day, Buffer has a progress story to tell – and it looks nothing like a straight upward line. What is E

ResourcesNov 22, 2018
24+ Sites to Find Free Images You Would Actually Use for Your Marketing

Here at Buffer, we think a lot about visual content. We’ve shared our own study on the importance of images in Twitter posts for more social sharing. We’ve explored tools that help anyone create visual content . Our social media management tool incorporates image posting because we kno

OpenSep 9, 2018
The 5 Whys Process We Use to Understand the Root of Any Problem

Sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Tools break, wires get crossed, the best-laid plans fall apart. And on those occasions, it helps to know exactly what happened—so it doesn’t happen again. Moments like these are when we at Buffer turn to a simple but remarkably effective process: The 5 Whys. It’s just as it sounds: A discussion of the unexpected event or challenge that follows one train of thought to its logical conclusion by asking “Why?” five times to get to the root of what

Self-ImprovementAug 11, 2018
27 Questions to Ask Instead of “What Do You Do?”

I love the little traditions that develop organically at Buffer. One of them is to welcome each new teammate with a long email chain of happiness that begins with that person’s introduction. More often than not, the introduction has a certain ratio: * 1 part what this person will do for Buffer and has done for work in the past * 2 parts who this person is in the world—a mom, a breakdancer, an ex-Marine I love this 1:2 ratio because it speaks to a simple truth we strive to recognize as a tea

OpenJun 26, 2018
Here’s Exactly How We Keep Buffer’s Values Strong (Plus a Whole Course on Creating Company Values!)

I was once asked, “How often do you talk about your company values at Buffer?” I think the person I was speaking with was pretty surprised when I responded: “At least once a day!” At Buffer, our values are a blueprint for everything we do. We use them in hiring , in product decision making, in marketing, in overcoming company challenges and in many other situations. We work hard to make sure that our values aren’t just a plaque on the wall –for one, we

OpenJun 6, 2018
An Incomplete Guide to Inclusive Language for Startups and Tech

Language is one of the most powerful tools we have as humans. It binds us. Instructs us. When used well, it creates a common understanding. And it’s essential for creating an environment where everyone feels welcome and included. Historically, language has left many out. Individuals and groups have been marginalized and discriminated against because of their culture, race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, socioeconomic status, appearance and more. We can do better. I

Self-ImprovementMay 9, 2018
How to Give and Receive Feedback at Work: The Psychology of Criticism

No matter what we do or how well we do it, some criticism is eventually going to come our way. And those moments are often some of the toughest we all face in work and life. Hearing potentially negative things about yourself is probably not your favorite activity, and most of us would rather avoid the awkwardness that comes with telling someone else how they could improve. But what do we lose out on when we avoid these tough conversations? One of the fundamental skills of life is being able to

Self-ImprovementApr 19, 2018
The Surprising Power of Reading Fiction: 9 Ways it Make Us Happier and More Creative

“There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.” ― Doris Lessing One of the most inspiring perks we’re lucky enough to have at Buffer is a free Kindle for each teammate (and her family!) and as many free Kindle books as you like, no questions asked. When we share what we’re reading at Buffer on our Pinterest page or in our Slack community, the selections often tend to skew more toward non-fiction—you can generally find teammates reading books that help us improve at our jobs, under