AAVALABS behind the scenes - How do we work?

As some of you may already know, AAVALABS team works remotely - it means we don't have a fixed office location. In this blog post we want to give you some insights into the everyday life here at AAVALABS.

The AAVALABS team works 100% remotely.

AAVALABS was founded in 2011 in Finland. However, a lot has changed since the early days. What once started as a small family business - born from an idea of our founder Otso Kääriäinen and his mother - is now an international company with team members around the world.

We are firmly convinced that location-independent working models are the future. For our team, this way of working has a lot of benefits.

5 reasons why we work remotely

1.Freedom

AAVALABS team can choose their location freely. The only requirement is a decent wifi connection during office hours. Our team has already worked in a snow-covered log cabin in Lapland as well as in Cape Town and the mountains of La Paz, Bolivia. That said we are all used to making our mobile office work regardless of the place. For us, freedom does not only mean being location independent, but also freedom in other areas of life. Our team consists of freethinkers who don't like to be put in boxes. We see a traditional office more as a limitation.

2. Flexibility

Remote work offers more flexibility in everyday life. When long commutes to work are eliminated and the "office" is always within reach, there is more time for the family or hobbies. Remote work also makes it possible to integrate sports and hobbies and into your workday easily. In a normal office, Bulletproof coffee, workouts during lunch break or a swim in the pool are rarely possible. At Team AAVA they are nothing unusual 😉  

3. Work-life balance

In our opinion, remote work is the key to better health. And health is very important to us - after all,  it's the reason why AAVALABS was founded. Those who can choose their location freely and have more freedom in a working day can do more for their health. This results in a better work-life balance. We don't wait until the week is finally over - we integrate weekend activities into our everyday lives.

 4.Wanderlust

The AAVALABS team consists of very different personalities. What unites us all is the desire to travel, an active lifestyle and the pursuit of health. Our motto is: The world is our home.

  5. Happiness

One of the most important values of AAVALABS is happiness. By working remotely, we can pay more attention to our individual needs, which - according to our experience - gives us more joy and satisfaction. 

Importance of structures and communication  

Team AAVA is distributed around the world. We have colleagues in Asia, Australia, Europe and South America - and many of us are constantly on the move. But to make sure that operations are running smoothly, we need processes and systems in place. 

For example, we use a variety of tools which organise our work as a location-independent team. These include:

- Google G Suite

- Asana

- Slack

- Loom

- Calendly

But the most important tool is communication. We have calls every week at fixed times, during which we discuss everything from marketing to logistics. To keep the friendly, collegial aspect, we also have a group call every week where we chat about our weekend plans and keep each other updated on our private lives. 

 AAVALABS workations - the highlight of the year

The highlight of the year are our famous workations. The whole team comes together in one place - during summer in the beautiful nature of Finland and in winter usually somewhere where the sun shines. In 2019 we went to Finland and Cape Town. In 2022 we met in Madrid. 

The workations usually include some intense working and planning, but there is also plenty of time for excursions, outdoor activities, food and get-togethers. The focus is entirely on team building. Since we don't see each other live on a regular basis, it is of course also a great opportunity to get to know each other without a computer screen. During our last workation in Madrid we were offline for one week to just enjoy the city and time with colleagues. As much as we love our laptops: digital detox does the trick!