Kharkiv-based Daxx office and the company’s work during lockdown
Daxx is a Dutch IT company founded in 1999. It creates and develops dedicated teams of engineers and other professionals for clients from Western Europe, the United States, and Australia. At the end of 2020, the company became part of the Grid Dynamics Group.
Daxx entered the Ukrainian market in December 2007. The company representative says that this decision was logical because Ukraine is one of the most powerful IT hubs in Europe with great growth potential. Today, Daxx has offices in four cities – Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Lviv. AIN.UA learned what the Daxx Kharkiv office looks like and what the company was doing to support and motivate its specialists during the lockdown.
Kharkiv-based Daxx office opened in August 2011. In spring 2019, the office was relocated to 11/13, Teatralnyi Lane. It occupies 2.5 floors, and after the Kyiv office, it is the company’s largest representative office in Ukraine. The company’s specialists are involved in about 35 projects in various fields, including FinTech, AI, education, telecom, medicine, insurance, and software for marketing and business analysis purposes. There are also dedicated teams that work at delivery centers of Daxx.
The office walls are painted in corporate yellow and gray colors. The design was inspired by the California office of Airbnb, excluding open spaces – each one of the company’s specialists works in a separate room.
For relaxation purposes, the office has common areas with armchairs and sofas where one can have a coffee or read a book from a small library. Also, the teams can take a short break to play billiards, table tennis, or PlayStation. There is a sports area equipped with a Swedish wall with dumbbells.
“The intent was to combine a comfortable office atmosphere and a cozy or even homely design to encourage the office employees both to work and to relax during coffee breaks and to spend time together with their coworkers after office hours,” a Daxx representative says.
Daxx operations during lockdown
According to the company’s spokesperson, under the quarantine restrictions, almost all Daxx employees were encouraged to work from home. Only a small number of the company’s staff (up to 10%) still come to the office should due to technical needs or if they wish so. For this purpose, lists of visitors are compiled in advance, and special effort is made to monitor compliance with all recommended safety measures.
Moreover, HR and Account managers are constantly in touch with their teams to assess the impact of remote working on their productivity, mutual cooperation, and overall motivation level and to see where improvements are needed and what kind of support is lacking.
After the lockdown was imposed, Daxx organized the delivery of boxes with fruit, masks, and sanitizers for each team member. The company also held ‘Health Weeks,’ a series of online lectures aimed at improving physical and mental health. Those weeks also included training on myofascial release, workshops on how to provide first aid, and lectures by psychologists on how to deal with anxiety and poor sleep.
Also, a series of workshops on financial literacy, self-management, cooking classes, and CS: GO competitions were conducted. Daxx organizes periodical lectures on mental health issues. The company also has a small community of runners who take part in online races. Anyone who wants can join the morning online yoga class.
How changes affected Daxx teams after the merger with Grid Dynamics
According to Daxx, physical changes affected only Lviv-based teams of Grid Dynamics and Daxx. From now on they will work in the same office. As to the project work, the specialists continue working on their projects, and in addition to Daxx training activities, they can now participate in Grid Dynamics open workshops and webinars.