It’s been 10 years since SWOOP Analytics started as a fully remote-working company. Over the past decade we’ve expanded across the world, with employees in all regions of the globe, and we continue to work 100% remotely. CEO Cai Kjaer says remote working in is our DNA and we have no plans for that to change. As we celebrate our 10th birthday, we wanted to share why we became a remote working company, and how it works for us.

When SWOOP Analytics was established back in 2014, the initial focus was on getting a customer, not getting an office.

Then, when the conversation turned to finding an office to work from, where was it going to be? Two of the co-founders lived on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, the third in Newcastle, about two hours’ drive north of Sydney, and the software developer lived in Sydney’s north-west.

Not to mention the cost of an office. Initial scouting found a small office space on Sydney’s northern beaches for $60,000 a year. Then came the cost of computers, phones, utilities, maybe a receptionist, and on it goes.

“We were all so far removed from each other that we were never going to find a place that was convenient for all three of us to work in an office, and therefore, it was pretty obvious that we had to do it remotely,” said SWOOP Analytics CEO Cai Kjaer.

“We couldn’t see what on earth an office could do for us, and still can’t.”

So, the decision was made to start SWOOP Analytics as a remote working company.

10 years on and Cai says it will never be any other way!

"Remote working has worked well for us from the start,” Cai said.

“We were born like this, and we will die like this. This is a part of our DNA that this is how we want to work.

“If we were to move into offices now, we could lose half the team.”

Finding the best talent

It’s the ability to attract the best talent from anywhere in the world that Cai and fellow co-founders Dr Laurence Lock Lee and Marianne Kjaer believe is perhaps the biggest advantage of a fully remote working company.

SWOOP Analytics has expanded into a global company since its beginnings in Sydney and Newcastle, so some roles must be defined by time zones, but never by geography.

“If we were restricted by an office location, most of our employees probably wouldn’t have worked for us,” said Laurence, SWOOP Analytics’ Chief Scientist.

“These are people that really wouldn’t want to drive to an office every day. For them, it was like nirvana to work from home.”

Over the years, SWOOP Analytics employees have lived and worked in places including Mongolia, Moldova, on a remote farm in the Australian Snowy Mountains, in the New South Wales Blue Mountains, the Canadian snow resort of Whistler, the Yorkshire Dales in England, and on a yacht off Copenhagen in Denmark.

“As long as people are in the time zone with sufficient overlapping hours with the rest of the team and our customers, and have a good workstation set up, it doesn’t matter where they’re working from, I don’t care,” Cai said.

“But they have to be able to collaborate with colleagues, so you’ve got to be in a similar time zone as your team.”

WFH, hybrid work, or office work?

Of course, remote working doesn’t suit everyone, all of the time.

In 2023, a group of young SWOOP Analytics software developers living around Melbourne decided they would be more productive working together in an office environment. An office space was secured for them in Melbourne’s CBD. They worked together in the office for a few weeks, but it soon became apparent that hybrid working was a better fit for them. Due to unforeseen circumstances relating to building and public transport issues, after a few months, the group returned to 100% remote working.

“We effectively did regular hybrid working, a few days a week in the office with some flexibility,” said Riley Bell.

“It gave us the sort of water cooler chats that are missing in remote work. I’d definitely prefer neither one or the other, but rather a combination of both, with flexibility.”

One highly valued SWOOP Analytics employee, aged in her 20s, struggled in the fully remote working environment, so much so, she eventually decided to leave SWOOP Analytics purely because she needed to be an environment with colleagues working physically around her.

However, in 10 years of a fully remote working company, she is the only employee to have left because she did not thrive in a work from home environment.

For the majority of SWOOP Analytics employees, fully remote work is one of the biggest attractions.

Senior Developer Ella Chernobrova, a mother of two from Sydney, Australia, simply says; “I would not be able to work fulltime if I was not working remotely”.

“If I was driving to work and back, it would be three hours a day just to get to the city and back and you’re just sitting on transport and it’s stressful, and it’s not cheap,” Ella said.

“It’s three hours a day off your life, you’re not getting paid, and you realise how much you can do in that time.”

Ella is able to continue working even when she has kids home from school with illness, saving the company lost productivity.

“If my son is home from school with a cold, I can check on him anytime,” she said.

“It’s not like someone is watching you as you work every minute.”

Ella says from a personal productivity point of view, remote working is incredibly beneficial. As a software developer, she makes the point that you may not always be thinking creatively between 9am-5pm and sometimes the solution to a problem might come to you at night, when you’re free from the regular routines of the day. Remote working allows for flexible work hours, so when that idea comes to you, you can jump into work when you’re most productive, and restructure your hours for the rest of the week.

“Especially as a developer, it’s not like you can get your brain starting at 9am and finishing at 5pm,” Ella said.

“Sometimes you can spend the whole day working on a solution to a problem but it’s come up at night because at night time your brain is free from everything else, from the routines of the day, and you’re concentrating and you find a clear solution at night time.”

SWOOP Analytics’ Technology Support Engineer Maaz Mahmood, based out of Melbourne, Australia, starts his work days at 3pm to allow him to spend time with his young family, help with the school drop off and pick up, and enjoy time outside in daylight hours.

His work hours also allow him to cross over time zones with colleagues in Australia and Europe.

Ella says it’s not just the parents in the family that benefit from working from home, but their kids as well. She said in past roles working in offices, her children were unable to attend after school activities because when she finished work at 5pm, then travelled home, it was too late to get her children to after-school activities. Her children were effectively “stranded” until parents arrived home from work.

“Kids benefit a lot from parents working from home because I can take them straight to activities from school now I’m working from home,” Ella said.

Making time to be social

Ella says making time to exercise and socialise when working from home is key to her mental health. Even down to dressing appropriately, so when lunch time comes around, she’s dressed and ready to head to the gym to meet with friends and exercise.

“When I was working in the office in winter, you come out of the office and it’s night and you don’t want to do anything because it’s dark and you can’t go for a walk,” she said.

“I’m using my lunch time for training and I do exercise.

“It’s much less stress and you don’t have to worry about getting to work on time or finding the time to go to a school event. If I was working from an office, it would be so stressful trying to juggle it, or I would miss all those events.

“In the office you prioritise work above family but when you’re working at home it’s equal prioritisation between family and work and you don’t need to be stressed trying to make a priority.”

Ella said the only downside for her about remote working is the lack of face-to-face social interaction with colleagues, so she values the way SWOOP Analytics organises physical get-togethers.

Cai, Marianne and Laurence are mindful of the importance of getting teams together face-to-face, purely for social interactions. Throughout the year, teams are brought together for lunches and fun events like a day visiting an interactive museum or for a game of mini putt golf, followed by a team lunch.

“It does feel like you know people through the screen, and you feel connection,” Ella said.

“I never miss any lunches because I think it’s very important to meet with the people you work with. You’re not talking about work when you meet them face-to-face so you’re learning personalities, it’s more like meeting with friends, not just people from work.”

Living the digital workplace dream and building a digital culture

It’s not just the physical face-to-face interactions that are important, Cai says, but the digital interactions as well.

Everyone at SWOOP Analytics is encouraged to work out loud on Viva Engage and Microsoft Teams, meaning everything is recorded in teams and communities for everyone to see.

“Our customers are truly global so we need to find a way of collaborating across locations and be really responsive and we can only be that when we intensely share what we’re doing, who we’re talking to, what we’re learning,” Cai said.

He said if SWOOP Analytics was office-based, there would be a risk of not working so transparently and failing to share everything on Microsoft Teams, Viva Engage or other platforms.

“There’s a lot of risk of working in silos and things not being communicated,” Cai said.

“We’ve been able to support customers globally, by working in different time zones, very cost effectively.”

It’s not just work that employees are encouraged to share online, but personal aspects too. Viva Engage really does become the digital water cooler for everyone to share their thoughts.

“We want people to interact because if you were in an office environment we wouldn’t allow anyone to sit behind a closed door for five days a week, so I think it’s really important to share on Viva Engage,” said Marianne, SWOOP Analytics’ Chief Operating Officer.

“But it’s also easier for some than others and I also know people’s personality can come out whether you work remotely or you don’t.”

Cai says despite not having an office, SWOOP Analytics definitely has a company culture.

“We’re very friendly and respectful, and I hope people will agree that it feels like a very friendly accommodating, nice place to work,” he said.

“If you go into Viva Engage, I think you get a sense straight away of our culture.”

WFH doesn’t mean longer hours

Marianne says the flexible working hours of remote work allow people to manage their time around personal commitments, and emphasises the importance of taking time off during the day if there are night meetings to attend.

“We’re not checking up on anyone and it doesn’t mean long hours just because you’re working from home,” she said.

Cai agrees that flexibility of work hours is a huge attraction for SWOOP Analytics’ employees, but that may not work for everyone.

“We’ve attracted and hired people that were looking for flexibility,” he said.

“If we had started in an office and hired people who had started in office and then went remote, it probably wouldn’t work.

“For us it works. It’s been a differentiator. From the moment we start in our job interviews we ask people about their home environment.”

From time to time, people may need to work outside of their home for personal reasons (think young kids, renovations etc) and SWOOP Analytics caters for that with shared office spaces.

No worries about more office space as the company grows

Cai can understand the turmoil large organisations are going through as they adjust to more hybrid work practices since the COVID-19 pandemic. With a fully remote working company though, if you can afford to hire 100 new employees, you can do so without having to find new office space and sign a new lease.

“As a start up, you’ve got to prioritise what you spend your money on,” Laurence said.

“The first bit of advice we got was; ‘go and get a customer’. There’s nothing more important than getting your first customer, not getting an office.

“10 years on and it still works for us!”