For Nick Hershey, co-founder and CEO of independent supply story platform provider Rundoo, the key to sustainable work is simple: Find people who love what they do for a living.
“If you are enthralled by the problem you’re working on, long hours feel like momentum, not drudgery,” he said.
Hershey knows firsthand that scaling a startup isn’t easy, and he’s learned how important it is to empower employees to work at their own pace. He believes that, in order to help team members maintain flexibility, it’s essential to outline a clear goal while giving them the autonomy to reach it in the way that works best for them.
Planning ahead can play an important role in making work more sustainable. At content creator platform provider Teachable, Software Engineer Emily Truong and her peers maintain an achievable pace of work by accounting for the time and effort required to properly spike, investigate and plan their work before getting started and including buffers for technical debt, production issues and professional development.
“This is intentional space for the work that makes software development sustainable,” she said.
Meanwhile, at delivery management platform provider Bringg, global long weekends enable Director of HR Operations Hila Ben-Itzhak and the rest of the team to take time to recharge regularly, which in turn leads to more sustainable working habits. And so far, the results speak for themselves.
“Managers report smoother collaboration and fewer burnout indicators in the weeks that follow, demonstrating that coordinated rest has a measurable impact on our pace of work,” Ben-Itzhak said.
Below, Hershey, Truong and Ben-Itzhak share more about how their employers encourage employees to work at a sustainable pace and the positive impact these efforts have on employee wellbeing and happiness.
Rundoo’s platform is designed to help independent home improvement stores acquire customers, streamline operations and grow their businesses.
What practice keeps the pace of your work sustainable — and what signal shows it’s working?
The practice that keeps Rundoo’s pace of work sustainable is ensuring people love what they do. Scaling a startup requires working both smarter and harder; I don’t think there’s any way around that. However, I’ve found that burnout primarily happens if you are doing things you don’t like. If you are enthralled by the problem you’re working on, long hours feel like momentum, not drudgery.
How do we ensure people love what they do? By regularly asking! The key question is: “Are you operating at the intersection of what you love and what the business needs?” If the answer is no, we should shift things around. In the worst case, someone should leave: Life is too short, and most people who can get a job here are too privileged to be doing things they don’t love. More often than not, it involves shifting the work around or chasing a new problem.
Our culture values spell out RUNDOO, and the “D” stands for delight. We look for people who truly take delight in their craft. They are a salesperson because they love showing a prospect how they can improve their lives, or they love software engineering because of the beauty of well-composed layers of abstraction.
“We look for people who truly take delight in their craft.”
Which policy or norm makes flexible schedules successful — and how do you measure impact?
In my opinion, the key to letting people live flexibly is clearly setting an objective, numeric goal with a timeline. If you can outline exactly what someone should achieve and a timeline that they feel good about, then just let ‘em rip. Outlining this goal is hard! It can require hours or days of massaging it into exactly the right wording. Ideally, you want to come up with a statement such that if it is true, then things necessarily look how you want them to be.
Don’t get me wrong, inputs have a strong correlation with outputs. But if you don’t have a clear goal, you can fall into a world where people are worried about time spent in the office or making their manager happy. It’s so, so, so much better to outline a clear goal and then give people the autonomy to get there.
Which resource do people actually use — and what data shows effectiveness?
We have a number of perks that have become commonplace at tech companies: a beautiful office, company-provided lunch, fully-covered medical premiums, gym memberships and so on. These are all great and really do help. For example, having an office that people enjoy coming to brings electricity to every day.
However, in the spirit of uniqueness, I’ll highlight something I haven’t seen at many other companies: We offer free audiobooks through Libro. People have loved it! We have a little book club where people can share what they are reading and recommend books. And people listen to all kinds of things like fantasy fiction, parenting help, business strategy and academic books. It’s been really fun.
Teachable’s no-code platform enables creators to offer online courses, coaching sessions and digital downloads.
What practice keeps the pace of your work sustainable — and what signal shows it’s working?
We maintain a sustainable pace through capacity planning that accounts for the realities of engineering work. We account for time and effort to properly spike, investigate and plan our work before diving in. We include buffers for technical debt, production issues and professional development. This is intentional space for the work that makes software development sustainable.
“We maintain a sustainable pace through capacity planning that accounts for the realities of engineering work.”
We also watch sprint predictability. When we regularly hit our commitments, it signals that our planning is realistic. When we miss, it opens conversation about scope, dependencies or whether unplanned work is eating up our buffer, which usually signals bigger systemic issues worth addressing.
Which policy or norm makes flexible schedules successful — and how do you measure impact?
Our core collaboration hours enable flexibility without sacrificing team cohesion. We have autonomy over our schedules and working styles as long as we deliver on commitments and are available for critical meetings during core hours. We also protect Wednesdays as no-meeting days, giving everyone a guaranteed block of uninterrupted time each week for deep work.
This works because we’ve normalized asynchronous communication as the default. Our automated pull request process requires comprehensive descriptions and context before code can be reviewed. Architecture decisions are documented, and stakeholders review on their own time before synchronous discussion. The impact shows in our ability to ship consistently and hit sprint commitments more reliably with less context switching.
Which resource do people actually use — and what data shows effectiveness?
Our Nectar recognition platform sees active daily usage. Nectar lets us give reward points to colleagues to recognize their work, whether that’s shipping a complex feature, mentoring or going above and beyond for a certain project or task. Points convert to gifts, but the real value is the public recognition and the visibility into who’s doing what across teams.
The effectiveness shows in the high level of engagement and the conversations. It’s a valuable tool not only to acknowledge good work but to leverage for career and growth opportunities.
Bringg’s delivery management platform is designed to automate manual processes, optimize order delivery and create new customer experiences across complex last-mile operations.
What practice keeps the pace of your work sustainable — and what signal shows it’s working?
At Bringg, we maintain a sustainable operational rhythm by scheduling global long weekends throughout the year. These coordinated breaks provide teams with space to recharge, alleviating concerns about missing work or delays due to cross-functional dependencies. We complement this with floating days and an extra paid birthday vacation day, empowering individuals to rest when they need it most.
The proof it works is simple: Engagement surveys show noticeable upticks in energy, focus and overall well-being immediately following those long weekends. Managers report smoother collaboration and fewer burnout indicators in the weeks that follow, demonstrating that coordinated rest has a measurable impact on our pace of work.
“The proof it works is simple: Engagement surveys show noticeable upticks in energy, focus and overall well-being immediately following those long weekends.”
Which policy or norm makes flexible schedules successful — and how do you measure impact?
Flexible schedules at Bringg are successful because we define core working hours that ensure team alignment while giving employees freedom to organize the rest of their day around personal priorities, wellness and focused work. Being a global company allows this flexibility to work to our advantage; hours that suit one employee accommodate others in different time zones. Employees can take their personal days and vacation whenever it fits their workload without needing to conform to rigid company schedules, and we see that they actively utilize this flexibility. Cross-company meetings have strong attendance, and engagement metrics show that employees feel connected to their teams and managers.
We measure impact by tracking project delivery and milestone completion, monitoring employee engagement and satisfaction through surveys and check-ins, and observing trends in absenteeism or turnover. High participation in optional well-being initiatives also signals that employees are using their flexibility effectively.
Which resource do people actually use — and what data shows effectiveness?
One of the most actively used resources at Bringg is our Wellness Reimbursement Program, which provides up to $1,200 annually for fitness, mental health support, sports equipment, cultural activities and complementary medicine. Employees appreciate the freedom to choose what genuinely supports their well-being, whether that’s therapy, training sessions, a gym membership or creative experiences. Additionally, the $500 home equipment reimbursement has become a popular favorite. People regularly use it to upgrade their chairs, monitors and other ergonomic tools, helping them build a workspace that supports comfort, focus and long-term health.
The effectiveness shows up in the data: Both reimbursements have some of the highest redemption rates among all benefits; usage continues to grow year over year; and employee surveys consistently highlight well-being and workspace support as top contributors to satisfaction and productivity. Together, these programs show that when you offer flexible, personalized resources, people use them, and the impact is visible.
