What's the Work-Life Balance Like at MVF?

What does flexibility in the workplace look like for you? What practices/policies are in place that support it?

Flexibility in the workplace is a non-negotiable for modern business operations. We are well aware that people have life outside of work, such as dependents, life administration and hobbies and passions to enjoy, so flexibility is a requirement. From a business standpoint, we see this flexibility lead to greater productivity. We have lofty goals and targets as a business, and each individual has a clear contribution to the overall success that we are driving toward. We have trust in the people we work with to have the attitude to drive their own portfolio performance and understand what is needed to be successful in doing so!

We do employ a three-days-per-week policy at our centrally located Austin office, but how that is accrued is in the hands of each individual. In practice, this is not a policy that we have to police. Working in a successful company within the industry we operate in means working quickly and being agile, and oftentimes, popping your head over a monitor for a quick chat is the most effective way of getting things done. Our office is also full of a great bunch of humans, so the combination sees so many people actively wanting to come in more than the three days that are required.

Why is flexibility an important element of MVF’s culture? 

We have an award-winning culture that starts from the moment of hiring. Reed Hastings, the CEO at Netflix, coined the phrase, “We don’t hire brilliant jerks” — a quote that has been drummed into all MVF leaders’ consciousness through rigorous management training. We hire great people; we should be trying to get the best version of them, and flexible working is a tool that supports that. 

For example, according to the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, the average Austinite lost two days a year while commuting in 2024, which has increased year over year since 2021. Two days of your life per year gone but not forgotten to the I-35 or MoPac is enough to turn the best of people into jerks. As a result, most of the people in our office choose to work from 8-4 P.M. to avoid the peak travel time, which also comes with the added benefits of longer sunny evenings as well as increased overlap with our U.K. office. It is a no brainer. We don’t hire jerks, and we should do all we can to avoid creating them!

What tools or meeting structures ensure that a flexible work setup works for everyone? Is there certain software you swear by, or informal happy hours that you love?

Slack is the obvious tool which, when used well, creates all sorts of flexibility, and MVF’s usage is a chef’s kiss. Firstly, we run a narrow set of clear focused channels to post any content that requires any element of audit trail and/or eyes from stakeholders not engaged actively in the discussion. These posts have a hashtag followed by a three-letter acronym to denote what product or products the content is in relation to for easy recall. If there are call-to-actions on any of the content or just a need to show that a message has been received, there are dedicated emojis for each team to add to the posts to show that they have seen it. 

There is also a level of — jovial — self-policing on Slack usage with certain emojis: “mega-thread-alert” to denote too much back and forth, signaling that a meeting might be more efficient; “slack-police” if the post is not in the right place or in a useful format; and the dreaded “pickle” emoji if you have had to delete the post content. Whether this is posted at 2 p.m. off the back of an in-office chat or at 9:30 A.M. during isolated deep work at home, it supports both. Celebrating successes of individuals and teams is also supported through Slack, with every achievement made more visible.