Orientation for New Hires
Last updated by Jamiu Idowu 16 days agoAbout this course
In this course, you will learn about Grindery’s best practices and culture, get set up to receive payment at Grindery, and understand the Grindery compensation policy. Gaining this knowledge will help you towards having a seamless experience as a member of the Grindery team.
Duration: 1.5 hours
Prerequisites: None
What you will learn
At the end of this course, you will:
Understand Grindery culture, habits and best practices towards achieving optimal productivity and exciting experience at Grindery.
Module 1: A brief history of Grindery
Grindery was founded in 2018 originally to solve the global payout challenges faced by companies. For two years, the founders developed and deployed a software solution that helped companies manage distributed teams, contracts, timesheets, and payment in fiat. In fact, the Grindery Slack App was listed in the Slack App directory and it recorded thousands of installations.
In 2021, the Grindery team experimented with different DAO and multisig wallet integrations on different blockchains, including Harmony. This resulted in winning multiple Hackathons, grants and launch of a decentralized payment software . The team prototyped several parts of the technology required for the road ahead including metadata management, Web2 integration, and batch processing.
From late 2021 till date, Grindery has focused more on building Nexus, the no/low-code middleware for Web3. You will learn more about this in Module 2.
Grindery Funding History
Figure 1. Grindery Funding History
Module 2: Grindery Culture, Habits and Practices
The Grindery culture and best practices is the compass that guides all team members and everything we do at Grindery. As a new team member, your key to having a seamless and productive journey at Grindery is by abiding by these codes.
Say hello and goodbye. Ahead of time!
When you come online, say hello and when you leave, say goodbye. It’s a good way of connecting with people. Colleagues may need to talk to you; they can easily reach out if they know you are around. When you check out, ensure you do it ahead of time. For instance, you can give a heads-up 15 minutes before you leave.
Share your plans (and blockers!) in the right channels.
Research shows that spending 10 minutes to plan your day can save up to 2 hours of wasted time and diffused effort. At Grindery, we believe that sharing your plans for the day will increase your productivity, help you track daily progress, and give others an avenue to make valuable inputs as needed.
State your mind!
In a bad mood? Or not feeling well? By stating your mind, you will feel good about yourself, avoid regrets, and help others understand you. It will also improve your relationship with colleagues.
I’m here! Add emojis, comments and questions!
In a one-on-one conversation or video call, if you as a listener nod your head, it gives the speaker the vibe that you are interested in the discussion and paying attention. The same applies to a remote collaboration, where you don’t get to see the other parties. Ask questions and do not ignore questions from others. Use emojis where necessary, e.g., a thumbs up for a point you agree with. Be active in deliberations by making comments and contributing your opinions.
Respond, star, and review messages. Then review again.
Sometimes, you get too many messages that it may become difficult to keep track of everything. There is a way forward! It’s called DISCIPLINE! When you see a message on something you can handle immediately, address it asap. For messages that take you some time to address, you can give a check mark indicating that you have noted the message while you star the message and review when there is enough time to address it. You can do this twice a day.
Remind yourself.
We can’t remember everything. Therefore, you should set reminders to stay on track with time-sensitive tasks. Your most important priorities will remain top of mind even when you forget them. To increase your productivity while setting reminders, state a few specific actions you need to take. You may also tag someone that you need to consult.
Think.write.read.repeat.
This is a good strategy to keep communication seamless. Think before you write, read what you write; think about it again, write and read. Repeat until you are sure you have distilled your thoughts, then, press send. Also, rather than send a series of small sentences in a channel, it is better to put the message together and send it once.
Where and how do I post?
It is critical to post messages in the right place. If a message relates to a thread, respond to it in that thread. Also, don’t send a message for channel A to channel B. And when a message carries personal or confidential information, send a DM to the appropriate person. Finally, if you need to quote or mention someone in your post, do so but not too often.
What is the best tool?
Choose the right tool for the right task. Stay in Slack for conversations. Use Loom to make explainer videos. Leverage Google Docs to create a document, edit and collaborate in real-time. Jump on a call for a quick discussion. And schedule a Zoom conference when necessary. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure you use the best tool to address a problem.
Can I make a point?
Make it easy for people to understand your point by using formatting options. If your messages or document are well formatted, your audience will follow you easily.
What’s happening on other channels?
At least once a day, check what’s happening on the other side. From Slack to Telegram to Discord, ensure you are not missing anything.
Share by default
Share documents on time and with the right people. Since Grindery is an open-source project, you can make documents public but ensure they do not contain confidential information. When you are not sure, ask questions from the right authority!
Be smart about scheduling.
Having a conversation about scheduling a meeting may stretch over several days if you do not do it smartly. For this, you should work with relative times or time zones. For instance, you can say, “let’s meet 1 hour from now” or share your Calendly for the other party to grab a slot.
When you disconnect. Disconnect.
Sometimes, you do not have the time you think you have. If you are not sure about your availability, let people know.
Update your (Slack) profiles
This is super easy yet important. Aside from updating your avatar, name, and bio, you can also add your scheduling link, phone number, and social profiles.
Make synchronous time count
When you schedule a call, take full advantage of it. Set a goal and an agenda. Record your meeting so you can go back in case you forget something. Do a 2-minute summary at the end of the call highlighting the action items and decisions reached at the meeting. When you share the recording, people can start with the summary to get up to speed.
Cross Link information
If you are in Slack referring to a Google doc, link the doc! If you are in Asana talking about a task, link the task! If you update a Figma design, drop the link! It saves time and makes life easy for everyone.
Help me help you.
Let’s help ourselves and hold each other up to abide by these best practices toward creating a productive and prosperous partnership. Cheers!
Module 3: Grindery Payment Policy
The primary aim of Grindery Payment Policy is to attract, retain, and motivate talented individuals the company needs to achieve its strategic and operational objectives. This allows everyone to find a space where they can contribute best. The work is appreciated, measured accurately, and rewarded accordingly. In addition, we know it's easier to agree on what was useful than what will be useful. Therefore, when someone does useful work that’s not initially in the contract, they need to be compensated.
Objectives of Grindery Payment Policy
This payment policy seeks to achieve the following objectives:
The key policies
Request to get paid for a task assigned to you by a member of the Grindery leadership team, even if not in an existing contract. However, such request must be made based on an established hourly rate. If there is no agreed hourly rate in place, discuss that with the leadership team before proceeding with the task.
We encourage you to take on new ideas and initiatives. However, ensure you seek approval before working on such an initiative.
In a nutshell, do not add a payment request for a task that’s not in your contract agreement unless you are assigned such task spontaneously or you have gotten approval to work on it.
For MTR only: The maximum amount you can request for (1) above is $500. Any additional amount can only be requested based on (2) or (3).
Do not lump your payment request report. Break it down while keeping it simple and straight to the point.
For example:
I worked on Grindery Academy - Weak
I created Course 101 and crypto literacy tutorial for Grindery Academy - Good
Module 4: How to get paid at Grindery
The Grindery payment platform combines the strength of multiple technologies to produce a seamless, fully integrated and decentralized payments process for DAO to user, user to user, DAO to DAO or any combination where a contractual relationship exists that requires a payment. With this, members of a DAO can set up contracts, submit payment requests, review requests made by others, get contracts and requests approved, sign in Gnosis Safe, receive crypto payment and off-ramp to fiat.
Install MetaMask and create a wallet address
If you already have MetaMask installed on your browser and have created a wallet address. You can skip this part. Otherwise, watch the following two short videos (two minutes each) to learn about MetaMask, its installation, and how to create a wallet address. First, to learn about Metamask, watch this: Then, to learn how to install and create a wallet address, watch this: . Afterwards, download Metamask for Chrome or for Firefox .
gWork profile setup
To create a gWork user account, navigate to https://grindery-work.herokuapp.com/work . Then, click on Connect with MetaMask. Afterwards, click User at the top right-hand corner and select Edit Account. Add your full name and Slack username, Submit .
Contract creation and approval
Once your profile is set up, click on Contracts and the plus (+) sign. This opens a new page where you can create a contract. On this page, you can select your client i.e. the DAO you are establishing the contract with, and add other details like contract title, start and end dates, hourly rate, fixed monthly rate and others. Under the detail section, you can add more information about the contract. Thereafter, you can submit your contract and wait for your DAO to approve the contract.
Payment request creation
After contract approval, you can request payment at any time. To do this, click on Payment Requests and the plus (+) sign, add the details of the payment and submit. Again, you need to wait for your DAO to approve the payment request. You can check out some payment request templates .
Receive payment and off-ramp to fiat
Finally, you will receive the crypto amount approved and paid into your wallet address and can off-ramp it to fiat. You need an exchange account to change your crypto to fiat. Meanwhile, your choice of crypto exchange largely depends on your jurisdiction and what is available to you. A few options are listed below, visit the links to learn how to transfer crypto from MetaMask to the respective exchanges.
Binance : Transfer crypto from MetaMask to Binance
Coinbase : Transfer crypto from MetaMask to Coinbase
If you want to learn more about how to receive, swap, and send coins and gain a better understanding on how to off-ramp crypto to fiat, check out this guide .
