Alphabetically, Tass Greenwood’s talents include amateur app design, ceramics, data analytics, and fatherhood, although we very much doubt he prioritizes them in that order. And as beautiful as his pottery and daughter are – it’s his skills in collecting, structuring and questioning the right data that has him leading the Data Analysis team here at WORK180.
Tass chose to leave a large company he’d spent the better part of 14 years working for, living the office life, to take the plunge with a start-up organization like ours – we are a completely remote workforce!
A role with purpose: “The right time to do something”
“Big organizations can have a culture where you’re there forever. I didn’t gel with that mindset. It was the right time to do something different. To do something…”
Tass leaves the sentence hanging, like the gravity of the final word ‘something’ is too heavy to define. But it’s clear from the way he lights up discussing his family where his passion for change comes from.
Not only does he hope to ensure his 3-year-old daughter grows up in a world with as many opportunities as possible, but that his young niece will too. His niece lives with disability, and Tass fervently hopes by the time she reaches the workforce, she will have more professional opportunities in her future than what there currently is.
“The WORK180 mission really drew me.” He says as he shared the frustration he’d felt in the past when he’d participated in diversity and inclusion working groups. How they often lost steam or fell by the wayside. “I wanted to do more than just think and talk about these issues.”
Working from home: “A perfect situation for me”
Tass actually already had a few friends in the team here at WORK180 and admits he’d long been quite envious not only of the work they were doing with us, but the way they were doing it.
“Working with a completely remote team means flexibility isn’t just a policy here like it is with other organizations. It’s just the way we work.”
He paints a picture of his experiences working in a large office: surrounded by various people in loud conversations, fluorescent lighting casting glare on his computer screen and constantly shifting air con temperatures. Then he reclines back in his chair, like a king upon a throne, and guilelessly lists off the benefits of working from home:
“I have full control of my environment, the temperature, the lighting, the volume of ambient noise, everything. There is no wasted energy. It’s a perfect situation for me.”
Tass doesn’t feel working remotely makes him any less connected to his new colleagues either. He admires how accessible, open and “genuinely nice” our CEO’s are, even remarking upon a recent compliment he’d received from Valeria herself via Slack.
“It’s really cool. There’s a whole channel dedicated to recognition and compliments.” He goes on to applaud how we match the compliments on this channel as donations to charities every month.
While admitting he’s not great at giving or receiving compliments, this initiative has made him more mindful of those who help make his job easier, even dishing out three compliments himself to his teammates last month.
Learning and development opportunities: “I’m seeking experiences.”
“Do I miss anything? Sure! There are some people that I liked working with and learning from.”
Fourteen years is a long time, and he knows he grew and learnt a lot in that time. Learning is a passion in and of itself for Tass. He takes machine learning courses and experiments with designing applications in his spare time. Ceramics too began as something he wanted to learn so he could create a handmade gift for the guests at his wedding. Now he has pieces on display in art galleries and boutique cafes.
He admits that since entering the workforce back in high school his career hasn’t involved many great changes. Working for a large organization instead allowed him to learn and grow through various roles all within the realm of data analytics.
Yet despite the amazing things he learnt at his previous role, he is eager at the learning potential within a smaller start-up organization.
“As a start-up WORK180 is just so dynamic, the growth and potential really drew me.”
He animatedly regales us with the opportunities he foresees for growing our data strategies, and the things he’s already learnt in his two short months with us.
Coping with challenges: “I want to be here.”
Tass admits, starting a new job over the holiday period after a year like 2020 wasn’t ideal, and getting up to speed with such a big change has been a bit of a challenge, but he’s taken it all in stride, and sees only opportunity and growth on the horizon from here. “Nothing has really stressed me yet. It was all to be expected, and I want to be here.”
And we want you here too Tass! We’re so glad you’ve decided to join the WORK180 team.
