MJ : What has it been like working at Tuki?
Tags: Company Culture, Work, Impact, Mission, Tuki

As I’m in my 3rd year of business school in France, it was required of us to do an internship at a startup. It’s at Tuki that I have now spent the past 2 months full of discoveries and new knowledge.

At Tuki, I was a key part of the market development side of the business, specifically within marketing and communications. For example, I had the opportunity to take care of relaunching the company’s social media platforms by helping design our new marketing strategy and creating new content. It’s been very rewarding to have such responsibilities. I’m proud to have the opportunity to launch our new social media initiative by including my own written piece on what it’s been like for me to be part of such an enriching mission.

Professionally, I am very interested in marketing, especially how companies use marketing as part of their product or services in offering to inform and improve the life of consumers. In Tuki’s case, the focus is on the community, i.e. people working in the service industry, especially those who have challenges associated with insecure employment or precarious work. For those of you who are not familiar with insecure employment, it means any employment that is insecure, unprotected, poorly paid and, for most people, cannot support a household. In addition, it includes work that is considered ‘non-standard’ (for example part-time employment, freelance work, temporary contracts and zero-hour work).

Just in case you’re interested here is the article about what is Insecure Employment and Precarious Work by Karl-Axel Lindgren on Tuki’s Medium

So, that’s a big reason why working at Tuki really appealed to me, and an added bonus has been creating content from the ground up, content that will inform the community Tuki is focussed on supporting. Our goal is to help people with employment problems and to help companies build the right teams. Tuki cares deeply about people and wants individuals to have full control over their lives in order to have financial security. I liked this very much because I always want to see personal development in people. I did all this work with the Market Development Team, working closely with Tiago from Brazil, who this week becomes Tuki’s Lead Customer Support! (Big congratulations to him!)

I was originally looking forward to travelling to Lisbon, because last year I spent a year as an exchange student in Brazil, and I wanted to have the opportunity to continue practicing the Portuguese language that I love so very much.

But we all had to adjust because of the Covid-19 crisis, so I was not able to travel to Portugal to do my internship nor have direct interaction with the Tuki team. Even if the circumstances were not ideal, as I had to work from home, Udai (CEO of Tuki) gave me all the resources I needed to carry out my goals, and play my part in the Tuki mission. He has been very present to support me and explain everything I needed to know, or what I didn’t understand. I had different goals to carry out during these past 2 months, with the room to take the initiatives I wanted because at Tuki everyone’s ideas are important, and core to the company’s culture is to encourage people to try their ideas and grow.

Tuki’s team is made up of multicultural people who live in different countries around the world: Udai says he belongs to the world but he talks about London and Seattle a lot more than other places. Sarah is from the UK., Rafael and Jorge are from Portugal, Jordan is from both Argentina and the US, Eric is from El Salvador, Karl-Axel is from Sweden, Tiago is from Brazil and I’m from France. Although, not being a native English speaker, it was sometimes a challenge for me. Everyone was very patient and understanding, and that’s something I really appreciated.

The whole team helps each other, all questions and misunderstandings are welcomed. Moreover, for each challenge/task, what I really liked is that everyone had a chance to get involved, propose their own ideas or give their opinion on the work. We all helped in gathering research f to help move projects forward, which will be used either in the short or long term. Everyone can take their own initiatives if they think it will be good for the company. It’s been an extremely rewarding experience, because it was the first time I had done an internship in this field these areas and I learnt a lot. I was able to put my knowledge into practice to develop Tuki’s communications as we enter a new important phase in Tuki’s journey. Tuki wants to help it’s community, as well as the maximum number of people who need it. and the team is very dedicated to the project, which I particularly appreciated.

Finally, Tuki is like a family, during the group calls it is not only a sharing of work, but it is also a sharing about each person’s life, each one tells news from his or her country, or shares anecdotes about themselves. This makes the work atmosphere much warmer and friendlier.It’s very nice to have a multicultural team, we can share our visions, and they can be different, which brings a different dimension to the startup.

Friday is my last day of my chapter at Tuki. It has been a great experience, one I will look back fondly at as I progress in my own career. I have grown a lot both professionally and as a person thanks to the opportunity. I am so happy to have been able to help with this beautiful project. This startup has a great future ahead of it! Thanks Tuki!

Marie-Juliette Louvet