The Soul Publishing, an online video content creator known for its life hack material, is ruthless about meetings. Employees must ensure they have tried every possible avenue to solve their problem before calling a meeting. Only once they are absolutely sure they are at an impasse can they can request a meeting, 24 hours in advance. Then they must publish the agenda, and limit both the number of guests (brainstorming is considered a waste of time) and the length (30 minutes maximum). After the meeting has taken place, the notes will be published in the cloud, accessible to anyone who wants to look.
The Soul’s remote-first workforce learn about these meeting protocols on its online wiki, Confluence, which is a corporate handbook on policies and a guide to its working practices.
On the topic of internal communication, Confluence warns: “It is completely forbidden to use email for internal communication within the company. Completely. Totally. There are no exceptions.” Instead, employees are advised to use Slack, the workplace chat app.