Wasabi Technologies Work-Life Balance & Wellbeing

What’s your quotable principle for keeping a sustainable work pace — and what signal shows it works?

My quotable principle for keeping a sustainable work pace is simple: Make the plan, then work the plan. 

Without a plan, you can’t understand the impact of change or clearly communicate its ripple effects. For me, sustainability is about intentionality. When a team has a clear plan in place, it creates alignment and shared expectations. Everyone understands what we’re working toward, what success looks like and how their piece fits into the bigger picture. That clarity is what allows you to move forward as a team. 

The real test of whether a plan is working shows up when change inevitably happens (it always does!) With a solid plan, the team can evaluate what’s shifting, why it matters and how it affects current priorities. Adjustments to the original plan are made thoughtfully. Timelines are recalibrated transparently. Trade-offs are discussed openly. This helps with ensuring a sense of ownership, meeting goals and feeling motivated: elements that curate a sustainable work experience. A solid plan means fewer fire drills, fewer surprise escalations and a team that adapts calmly with ownership and focus rather than stress.

Which policy makes flexible work succeed — and how do you measure impact?

Our remote work environment allows team members to balance their life and work. The Wasabi culture is anchored in Humility, Ownership and Togetherness (our HOT values) while our success is measured by meeting corporate goals and objectives together as cascaded to each individual. Our leaders believe every Wasabian brings the motivation, focus and sense of ownership needed to deliver. Team members are empowered with the ownership, autonomy and support they need to do their best work from anywhere. When each person takes responsibility for their projects and contributions, the entire team thrives. 

To measure this in real time, we also recently introduced Kudos, an employee recognition platform that enables team members to recognize and celebrate each other’s accomplishments in real time, from major project milestones to everyday collaboration.

Which wellbeing-related resource do people actually use — and what improvement have you seen on your team?

When one of our senior technical program managers suggested incorporating a “feelings wheel” into our monthly team retrospectives, we looked into the idea. 

During retros, team members place a dot on the wheel to identify how they’re feeling. At the center are core emotions, with more nuanced expressions branching outward. From there, the team observes the inputs on the wheel and conversations naturally open up: what’s driving those feelings, what could be handled differently and where support might be helpful. 

We piloted its use in one development team and saw immediate value. In a remote environment, it helped recreate the kind of informal, honest conversations that might naturally happen in a lunchroom. People felt more comfortable expressing themselves and teammates were better equipped to support one another. Since then, we’ve added the feelings wheel to our standard retrospective template and encouraged all teams to give it a try. Adoption has been strong and it’s yielded deeper connections across teams, healthier conversations and better overall stress management. It’s been a simple addition with a powerful return.