Some of our Indonesian team with the Great Place to Work Indonesia award

Luminary joins Best Workplaces in Asia list

With over one million employees being surveyed across Asia, Luminary has ranked at No.20 for the Best Workplaces in Asia (following placing No.10 on Best Workplaces Indonesia!). Someone pinch us!

Claire Dunton

29 August 2023

5 minute read

Luminary has been recognised as a Great Place to Work™ for 8 years running, awarded the honour for our unwavering commitment to the unique needs of each team member. Now, in our 24th year of operation, Luminary has been added to the Best Workplaces™ list for Asia in the small and medium workplace category coming in at No.20! Great Places to Work launched its Best Workplaces™ list in Asia in 2015, and since then it has represented a pinnacle for many brands with small, medium and large workplaces in Asia. The year Best Workplaces launched in Asia, Google was at the top of the list, and since then, more leaders in technology have risen the ranks with CISCO, Salesforce, Accenture, Canva and Cadence just some of the names in the 2022 top 10.

Needless to say, we’re pretty chuffed to be recognised alongside so many heavy hitters.

How are the Best Workplaces decided? 

The Luminary Bali office was surveyed with an in-depth Trust Index© employee survey which is research-backed and designed to identify the culture and identity of a workplace. From there, Great Place to Work™ took a look at Luminary's company programs and practices through a comprehensive Culture Brief which explores the opportunities and environment that our team members are offered. From there, we were certified and ranked as the 10th Best Workplace in Indonesia, and now the 20th Best Workplace in Asia. 

Here's what Hesty Noviana, Luminary's Lead Talent Partner, based in Bali had to say about joining the Best Workplaces list for Indonesia and Asia.

Luminary listed 10th in the Great Places to Work Indonesia!

How we got here

When Luminary started in 1999, opening an office 4438 km away was not part of the plan. In fact, Bali was nowhere on the map for Luminary’s Founder and CEO, Marty Drill… until he met an impressive Bali-based candidate in 2016. Marty proposed a trial in Asia and if he was as great as Marty suspected, they could discuss what a remote team member would look like. 

Fast forward to 2023, and we have 22 Luminary professionals working across Asia in Bali, Jakarta, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, and Bandung working in Front End, Back End, Digital Delivery, Design, Client Services and People and Culture. Our journey in establishing an international office has been punctuated by learnings, cultural adoption and designing SOPs for an environment that at times is so different from Australia. In 2023, Luminary joined the Best Places to Work list for Indonesia and now has the even greater privilege of being recognised in the Best Places to Work List for Asia at No.20.

Here's how the Bali office came to be

Giving back to the community

When opening an office in Asia, it was important that we embody the geographic and cultural identity of the region, rather than just opening an office that services our Australian arm. This means honouring cultural holidays and customs, and adopting the Balinese time zones as we do the Australian standard times to ensure inclusion was genuine and communication expectations were fair. 

We also introduced a policy that allowed each Luminary employee to travel to Bali each year to work with the Bali team in person to enhance collaboration, with the same opportunity offered to the Bali team who want to travel to and work from our Australian offices. 

Luminary became carbon neutral in 2019, and soon after was B Corp certified. Planting trees and mangroves in Bali has become an annual initiative for our Luminary team and in 2022, we decided to offset our entire carbon footprint through the planting of mangroves in Bali. The team partnered with Redux Foundation to plant 350 mangrove trees on the coastline at Benoa in front of the Bali Heliport. Mangroves serve as a major ‘carbon sink’ along the coastlines around the world. They are excellent at absorbing and storing carbon from the atmosphere. Like all trees, they sequester carbon as they grow and turn it into their leaves, roots and branches. 

Mangroves planted on the Bali coastline

Meetups in Bali

Luminary has been hosting Meetups in Bali for five years, offering an opportunity for professionals in the development, tech and agency space to meet, network and hear about a range of topics from Luminary leaders across the Bali and Australian offices.

The digital community in Bali is strong with a range of agencies calling Bali home. Bali is attractive for digital professionals as it’s a great place to live, there are like-minded people and the traffic is a lot less than most other major centres in Indonesia. There is a sizeable community and very few Meetups in Bali, and we are seeing new faces at every gathering. 

People being able to share their work, knowledge and ideas is what they learned is a huge motivation for providing these events. Developers are often regarded as shy people who do not want to present. We believe that simply they have not been afforded the opportunity and audience, and the Bali Dev Meetups provide both. The events are catered and people have the opportunity to socialise, which helps create links between the community.

Bali Meetups

What’s next?

Luminary has recently launched an internship program in Bali, Future Luminaries, with the pilot commencing in September. The program offers a hands-on role mentored by Luminary’s leaders and delivered over 12 knowledge-packed weeks. Interns will start their career with the guidance of MVPs and award-winning developers and designers at Luminary, and get a tangible experience that you can use on your resume and in future work in Bali or beyond. The program will be supported by both the Australian and Indonesian teams so that each intern can learn from and contribute to real projects, deadlines and teamwork.

Luminary ranked No.20 at Best Workplaces Asia

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