Interacting with a Hybrid Team on Gather

‍Marvin is revolutionizing B2B payment methods with a hybrid team based in São Paulo, Brazil. They have team members throughout the country, with some working fully remotely and others located near the office occasionally working in person. 

They learned about Gather from a LinkedIn post and thought, “This is cool. Let’s try it.” Now they’ve been working on Gather for almost a year with a team of about 60 people. 

We talked to Marcos, CTO and Co-Founder, and Ricardo, Managing Director of Partner Strategy, to learn more about how their team uses Gather to facilitate meaningful interactions for their hybrid team. 

How did Gather change the way you work? 

Marcos: Before Gather, I would share a Google Meet link to my team and spend my whole day there. Then if they had questions, they could join me. 

Gather brings a different experience and level of interaction. You have this character you can move around. It gives you a whole different depth with how you interact with people. 

Because you can see the rooms and meetings, it gives you a way to experience people even if you’re not directly interacting. You can see people diving into problems or holding 1:1s. 

It was a whole new experience for perception and interaction. Gather is a game-changing experience for remote work. 

You’re a hybrid team with an in-person office and a Gather office. How does that work? 

Marcos: We don’t have rules on what days of the week people come into the office. We identified key people that are leaders for the rest of the group, and asked them to find the right balance of being available in the office and being available on Gather. 

Even when people are at the office, they still use Gather for daily meetings and 1:1s. We’re a group of tech-savvy people with a young spirit, so it feels very natural for us to interact on Gather. Our Gather space helps us show that spirit. 

How does Gather help you as a manager / leader in the company? 

Marcos: It gives everyone my sense of presence. There are some people I only see in-person a couple times a year, but in Gather, they’re near me all the time. I’m able to interact with them personally – I can’t do that with Meets, but I can in Gather. 

The sense of presence with Gather is priceless.

Why is that sense of presence important to your team? 

Marcos: I like interacting with people, and I like feeling like a part of something. Through the pandemic, it was common that everyone would enter a meeting with their camera off. No feelings, no expressions – it was like you’re talking to a robot. And you lose a lot of personal connection from that. 

In Gather, even if my camera is off, my team can see me. They get that sense of presence. They know I exist, and that I care about my work. It makes our relationship and interactions more real and human. 

‍Ricardo: For me, Gather is way ahead of other services. There’s much more real life in it. You build culture doing things, and younger employees can see that. It’s an important part of this presence.  

What’s your favorite memory in Gather? 

Ricardo: There was one day where three members of our Ops team were together around a table in Gather, solving an issue. Once it was completed, a notification went out on Slack, and then everyone joined in Gather to celebrate together. The offline office and the real office were having the same experience. 

And whenever there are new game features, everyone gets really excited. Like the Go Karts, or even just pressing ‘F’ to throw confetti. 

Those small features are really fun, and they tend to make everyone loosen up a little. 

‍Marcos: We were using one of the templates with a beach and a firepit. We just talked with each other, listening to the ocean and the fire. 

It was comforting. 

What advice would you give to other remote teams? 

Ricardo: There’s no right formula. Every family organizes in its own way - do what feels right for yours. 

‍Marcos: For example, Gather is natural for our tech team, so we use it the most. Our Ops team interacts with us a lot, so they use it, too. The commercial team uses it less because they hold more in-person meetings. And that’s okay. 

As a hybrid team, we’re trying to find the right balance and help everyone interact with each other the best way possible. Gather is our main tool for remote work, interactions, and meetings. It’s the best of both worlds. 

It would be a bad experience if we didn’t have something like Gather.