With a scattered workforce largely employed on a part-time basis, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies faces some unusual challenges as it seeks to revolutionize mass transportation with a “crowd-powered” organization model.
One of the biggest challenges is making sure all of the company’s 800-plus team members can collaborate effectively on the design and launch of hyperloop technology.
“When we started out, we worked with different tools - some of the teams used Slack, others used Google Docs - and let everybody figure out what they liked the most,” said HyperloopTT’s founder and chairman, Dirk Ahlborn. “Now, for several years, we have consolidated everything and moved onto Workplace.”
The company, which was created in 2013, still uses Google Docs in conjunction with Workplace. But Slack is no longer a main tool for collaboration and communication.
A key reason for selecting Workplace is that it offers a combination of instant messaging, social and file-sharing capabilities. That combo has helped strengthened the sense of community among workers and enabled staffers to work together more effectively, said Ahlborn.
“When you have different tools and then move on to one [platform], they feel more part of one organization,” he said. “…It really made a huge difference in the way we collaborate. I'd say it is a more complete solution, whereas Slack was used mostly like a messaging tool.”
HyperloopTT’s ‘unique challenges’ for collaboration and productivity
HyperloopTT was founded after entrepreneur Elon Musk published a design document by SpaceX and Tesla engineers, entitled ‘Hyperloop Alpha.’ HyperloopTT, which is not affiliated with Musk, is one of three companies racing to build hyperloop systems across the world.
HyperloopTTAhlborn’s company took what it calls a “crowd-powered” approach to building its organization, with hundreds of people across a range of fields – from design to marketing - applying to participate in the creation of HyperloopTT’s technology. Workers from 38 countries have since helped generate over 40 patents, creating a business that has attracted more than $100 million in funding to date.
For their part, contributors commit to at least 10 hours a week on the project – often outside their own full-time employment – in exchange for stock options in many cases,. There are also around 50 full-time employees, with “hyperleaders” responsible for managing teams and around 50 “corporate partners.”
Although freelancers and remote workers are becoming more common in all types of organizations, Hyperloop’s approach remains unconventional due the fact that most staff are paid in stock options and work on a semi-regular basis.
“Most of the people have a minimum of 10 hours a week that they have to work with us. It is not a couple of guys in a chat room; people are organized in teams, they have the deliverables, and are heavily engaged, but they work from home,” he said.
This leads to “unique challenges” around how to motivate and communicate with staffers, who must balance work for HyperloopTT with other priorities, whether they be family and social life or hobbies.
“The people that are working with us mainly have a full-time job and then they are dedicating 10, 20 hours a week after work, or at weekends, to the project. So you need to keep them engaged,” said Ahlborn.
Workplace’s benefits
Workplace helped overcome some of these hurdles and is now used for everything from all-company announcements to scheduling meetings to exchanging files.
HyperloopTT, with offices in Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Barcelona, Toulouse, France and Dubai, now has 284 Workplace Groups established for cross-functional collaboration; users can post ideas, share milestones and solve problems – even with teams in different time zones and on different schedules.
“[Workplace] really allows them to get information to feel part of the bigger team, be connected, get different updates, communicate in real time,” he said.
“One of the big challenges we have is that people don't know each other…. On Workplace, we are able to message each other and connect the different teams and reach out if we need something, or have ideas on how to make things better. So it has really made a big change in the organization.
“Before, when we had these teams that are normally made of three to seven people, you maybe had a team that wasn't working and the people that were in there got frustrated with the others that weren't really pushing,” he said.
“Now they have the opportunity to be part of other efforts. We are also aware if teams are not performing, and we are able to push them up a little bit faster. So it is definitely an increase of productivity…,” he said.
“The moment that people have access to information, can reach out to people, you are removing any excuse for blockers that they might have. They are not able to say; ‘I didn't get this,’ or ‘Oh, I didn't have access to that.’ They are able to reach out to anybody on the platform, they have access to most of the groups, if they need anything they can post [a message]. So it definitely had a big impact.”
As with any big change, the move away from Slack and other communication apps caused consternation for some.
Although the engineering teams and younger staff members often preferred Slack, most workers were happy to adopt Workplace. “At the beginning, the more engineering-heavy folks were a bit skeptical especially, but it didn't become a big problem,” Ahlborn said. “Once they started using it and they got used to it they were very happy with it.”
‘More people will work the way that we do’
Ahlborn believes that while HyperloopTT’s structure is innovative, many aspects of its operations, such as the predominately remote workforce and a removal of hierarchal structures, are becoming common.
“I really believe that in the future more people will work the way that we do,” he said. “We see more and more people work in distributed teams and working from home.”
Raúl Castañón-Martínez, a senior analyst at 451 Research, agrees. “Looking at HyperloopTT's organizational structure is like peering through a window into the future of work,” said Castañón-Martínez.
“As a high-tech, leading-edge company, HyperloopTT is rather unique but it is also a good example of what the future of work will increasingly look like for everyone else.”
He said that these are workplace trends that collaboration and communication vendors such as Slack and Facebook’s Workplace aim to address. For business, this often means supporting multiple real-time synchronous and asynchronous communications modes across different channels, such as one to one, one to many, and handling company-wide communications.
Although HyperloopTT chose to consolidate some of the various applications used for collaboration and communication, it is not uncommon for organizations to use both Slack and Workplace, for separate purposes.
“Slack and Workplace by Facebook originated and evolved in different ways, and despite the overlap in functionalities each has distinctive capabilities,” said Castañón-Martínez.
“HyperloopTT’s decision to select Workplace makes sense because, in addition to providing instant messaging, social and file-sharing, a key strength is its capabilities to address the requirements of a distributed workforce that in this case is made up largely of workers that are not employed full-time by the company.
“While Slack has begun to address the requirements of this type of workers, this is something that Workplace has sought to address since launch," he said.