When the founders of digital healthcare company Alan set up their business in 2019, there was one thing that’s de rigueur across most companies that they decided they definitely wouldn’t adopt — holding meetings. The French business, which is radical in many of its ways of working such as making salaries transparent, believed there were better ways to communicate.

“Meetings are a great way to lose time,” said Charles Gorintin, co-founder and chief technology officer at Alan, based in Paris. “Six people doing an hour-long meeting is the equivalent of six hours of work. The ratio [of] time versus productivity is usually not good.”

Instead of meetings, the team relies on a robust written culture, helped by hiring people who are strong written communicators.

“In our recruiting process, every candidate has to go through a written question stage,” said Gorintin. “We ask the candidate to answer questions related to their motivation, their fit with our culture and the work they will be doing. This enables us to select candidates who are intuitively able to communicate effectively.”