Parenting at MOIA

by Finn Lorbeer, Paul Seiferth, Ike Delgado, Eike Bethmann, Cristina Heredia Gomez, Claudia Dupke, Bendix Sältz, Freerk Miener, Felix Duus, Carina Siebelt, Antje Kreyenborg, Louise Brook and Margaret Torkura

Edited by Klara Becker

A lot of keywords, we know! — All gathered from our employees when thinking about balancing their jobs at MOIA with their full-time lives as parents. Let’s commence a little journey to the family side of MOIA to discover the different personal stories within our organisation.

“My team sometimes sees me and the baby in our dailies 😄” — Freerk

There are many ways in which employees demonstrate and appreciate their individual flexibility at MOIA. Director of Engineering, Finn, especially appreciates the spontaneity he can bring to his job. His working week, he says, allows him to do a 50:50 mix of working from home and the office, occasionally reducing the amount of office-time for his family’s sake. “I can easily shift around things, miss out on certain meetings and take care of the kids. That gives me flexibility in the day-to-day adventures of our family.” Louise, Sustainability Manager at MOIA, agrees with Finn on his experience. “As long as you deliver your job, it doesn’t matter if you work in the evening or from home.” By splitting working hours, our employees can organise their working days in a way that allows them to interrupt the business day as they wish to. “I can start early and have a bigger break to spend time with my children in the afternoon and to return to work when the kids are sleeping” characterises Eike T., a single-dad Agilist his typical workday.

“Since I joined MOIA, our working mode has always been impact-based and self-empowered.” — Felix

Likewise, Scala Software Engineer & Technical Designer Bendix as well as Eike B., Head of Strategy, (yes, we have a lot of Eike’s around here 😉) tell us to appreciate their work adaptability. Both share the child-rearing duties with their partners and are happy about the option to alternate with both parents by being adjustable at work. Although Eike B. additionally points out that “flexibility” naturally requires a lot of focus in the private sphere as well. “If I did not manage to get the job done or took a long break to meet my girls at the playground for an hour, I sometimes work a bit more when my daughter is asleep“, comments Felix on his childcare planning. The ability to combine career and family by their part-time jobs is also valued by Data Scientist Claudia and Frontend Developer Carina. Both manage their hours in accordance with their availability, so that they may spend long as well as short days with us. ‘With us’ of course not necessarily implies spending time at the office. “The main challenge for me as a parent is the commute to the office, typically my day is easier when I work remotely.” adds Margaret, Active Sourcing Specialist, about facilitating her everyday by working from home. Claudia works from Hanover, so that the freedom to occasionally select a working location outside the office, is not only a delight for her, but also for Product Owner Freerk, who feels a big relief for his newly grown family, thanks to MOIA’s open-minded remote policy.

“I really enjoy the possibility to code and nurse my 4-month-old baby at the same time. This combination is only possible due to the home office. I am so happy I can be doing the two things I love at the same time.” — Cristina

Thanks to our hybrid business environment and enabling flexible scheduling for every employee, seemingly private matters get cleverly incorporated into daily routines. Programmer Cristina makes use of this freedom. She balances her infant and her professional activities concurrently. Besides, working from home also serves to reduce stress and to build personal moments of well-being into everyday life, such as doing sports. Event & Cooperation Manager Antje treasures this liberty likewise: “After my son went to school, I try to get a clear mind with meditation and a short yoga session before I start working.” In this setup, her day begins rested.

“There’s little room for Plan B when Kita is closed for a week due to a COVID infection. It basically means strict shift work for parents.” — Eike B.

However, parenting requires a lot of personal organisation, planning and time. The pandemic has not made things easier for working parents. Even though we always try to make our parents’ working days as adaptable as possible, there are still virus-related uncertainties that can throw everyone’s working day out of kilter. Not just Eike B. but also Finn probably speaks from the soul of most parents. “Many people had to reduce working hours and reduced on the person that earns less”. Certainly, it makes us reflect when we hear that some of our employees must put so much work into balancing their work and private lives. Nevertheless, we continue to trust in the individuality with which we approach problems to enable us to make the best out of certain situations together. We try to find unique solutions for all our employees’ circumstances.

“I do not have to feel bad if I must suddenly change plans or jump out of a meeting.” — Eike T.

Here at MOIA, we have a vast number of parents and pretty much every team is attuned to the fact that children’s behaviour is anything but predictable. Unexpected interruptions and drop-outs are part of everyday life and are widely accepted given the large parent community MOIA has. Cristina additionally reports to us that: “We totally understand when a teammate has a sick child, needs to go to the doctor or just wants holidays to spend time with their children. We never oppose!” To further expand the flexibility of our parents, as of 01 June we additionally introduced a new benefit for our parenting employees. Up to 5 child sick days can now be taken per calendar year for each child without needing to hand in a doctor’s note.

The company-wide parent community also provides space for networking among each other. We live an open company culture which makes us want to talk about our positive experiences but also our challenges to be able to seek help if needed. That’s why a long series of different Slack channels was created, including a dedicated one named #parents, currently utilised by 42 members. It is frequently run for the internal exchange between our growing parent community.

“There are workgroups, meetings or surveys which aim for improvement of how we work together. I can share my opinion and explain my perspective.” — Carina

In our firm, feedback and experience-based suggestions are welcomed, listened to, and accepted. Company-wide meetings at MOIA are scheduled in a public calendar at best a few weeks in advance. But hey 🤷‍, no one is perfect, and structures are constantly adjusted to be improved. We are more than happy about feedback like Carina’s when she expresses: “I have the feeling that part timers are sometimes forgotten when it comes to company-wide meetings. But there are many formats which allow everybody to raise their voice.” We know that large meetings for over 200 people unfortunately never fit into everybody’s calendar. However, at MOIA we try to hold many meetings in the mornings so that most of the part-timers can attend. Paul specifies that some of the important company-wide announcements are held twice: “Once in the morning for the early birds and once in the late afternoon. This gives me the possibility to pick either of them, no matter how my current day looks like.” And when the parenting early birds get tired “we do have good napping rooms in the office which are quite comfortable“, reveals Felix about getting a good rest in between meetings 😴. To set up such special adjustments and to make everyone’s day more comfortable, meeting formats for employee suggestions were implemented. One of these is the Pacemaker. It takes place every other Monday and all MOIA employees are invited to attend and to discuss ideas for improvements. “An advancement initiated by our Pacemaker round was about general guidelines to pick time slots for meetings.” enthuses Paul about the progress of the bi-weekly gatherings. That way, MOIA is intending the facilitation of parents’ work schedules.

„We have different personal stories, but in the end, we all thrive for the same vision and mission with MOIA.” — Louise

All of us here at MOIA have a shared goal: to sustainably reduce urban individual transport. “For sure we want to change mobility for the better the earlier the better but in the end, if our kids can benefit from what we are doing today we did a great job”, concludes Felix. Roughly 250 employees in Hamburg and Berlin are currently working towards this target in the areas of technology, design, and product. And MOIA is constantly growing. As you can see, we attract all kinds of different people and accept their individual circumstances. Our parent community, at least that’s what we hear, feels right at home with us 👪.

Would you like to feel the same way? Then check out our career page and find the right job for yourself.