Our Values
DOTROTTER AB core values include “champion the mission, be a host, simplify, every frame matters.” They form the fundamental elements that drive the operations of the firm and ensure everyone remains in the right direction. The following characteristics relate to these values:
1. Champion the Mission
2. Be a Host
3. Simplify
4. Every Frame Matters
Champion the mission; We're united with our community to create a world where anyone can belong everywhere. Be a host; We're caring, open, and encouraging to everyone we work with. Embrace the adventure; We're driven by curiosity, optimism, and the belief that every person can grow.
DOTROTTER commitment to its ambition has been strengthened by its founders who demonstrated the need for a workforce that believes in the mission of the company ever since the first days if the company.
This value leads to the second that calls for everyone who comes in contact with the company to be part of it by offering what they can to advance its mission and vision. By doing this, they should be led by simplicity which demonstrates how important even a show of friendliness is to the business strategies.
The value of cereal entrepreneur is highly recognized for the impact it has had on the company growth, and therefore, DOTROTTER considers it a sense of identity for the company. In relation to this, DOTROTTER values adventure as the best source of creativity and sustained growth in any business as it not only gives birth to new ventures but also promotes joy and work optimism.
Our mission,
We’re on a mission and we want to do things extraordinary!
Building a sharing community of global travellers and talents who genuinely want to see the world whilst contributing and giving back to the places they visit. Alongside our welcoming hosts, and companies ready to receive visitors who are able to help out.
First of all, a continued big thank you to everyone who has made the success of DOTROTTER possible. As well as our current team, our shareholders, we also want to thank the hundreds of members who have used DOTROTTER to connect and spread the message on a global scale.
DOTROTTER has grown via word of mouth which only inspires us to keep going, knowing that we are providing a service that is making waves across the global travel community. And embracing collaborating with every OTA (online travel agency).
Like a compass, our vision of a better tomorrow leads us to constantly find new, better solutions. It does not matter if it concerns challenges for customers, for employees or for our common society in Sweden and the rest of the world, to our employees, and the ones that participate through our platform. Using our technical know-how and our passion to achieve our vision – that is the driving force for us who work and participate with DOTROTTER AB.
Respect Above All
Discrimination has no place on our platform
From an air mattress in our founders’ apartment to a global community of hundreds, DOTROTTER is constantly growing, and so is our responsibility to ensure that hosts and guests can use our platform without encountering prejudice or discrimination. We’re always working to do better, and we’re thankful for the opportunity to listen to and learn from our community.
We've announced a number of updates. Our new Community Commitment, stronger Nondiscrimination Policy and the development of a permanent team dedicated to fighting bias while encouraging diversity are just a few of the steps we’re taking to fight bias. The input of our global community was crucial to this report and to the development of these initiatives. This work is just the start of our ongoing commitment to addressing these challenges, and we’re looking forward to sharing more news, partnerships and resources here.
Our hosts and guests, company participants, and every user are leading the way
We’re always working to build a better platform, and it’s the collective efforts of our hosts, guests and global community that make each DOTROTTER experience possible. We believe in celebrating these stories and sharing the ways they inspire us to rethink what it means to belong as we work harder toward ending discrimination.
Every host should have access to tools for success
From managing calendars and communication to welcoming guests into their homes, our hosts work hard to facilitate amazing travel experiences and human connections. We’re here to support that hard work with resources to help our hosts.
Understanding bias and belonging
One of the ways we’re fighting discrimination is through unconscious bias training. To help our members understand discrimination and the biases that cause it, we’ve created a toolkit list (explained later below this page
Taking action together
Being a DOTROTTER user advocates for progress by working together with our global community. This is where we share tools for learning and advocating, ideas from leading thinkers, news on the status of home sharing and ways to take action.
Helping our hosts create belonging
Shared understanding is essential to building more welcoming and inclusive DOTROTTER experiences. Our community standard PDF (community standard) has answers to many real-world questions about our nondiscrimination policy.
We want to hear from you
We’re inspired by the vibrancy of our community centre, where our hosts share stories and ideas with each other, that delight us and motivate us to build a better platform. Share your experiences of human connection and spark a discussion.
Our workplace is an integral part of the DOTROTTER community
DOTROTTER is truly powered by people – both our hosts and guests around the world and the internal community of employees and business partners shape the ways we work and grow. We believe that diversity is essential to building a world where everyone can feel they belong, and we’re taking action to end discrimination and build a more inclusive company. We’re committed to transparency as we work to make DOTROTTER a workplace where everyone feels welcome and all voices are heard.
Standards and Expectations
To help keep our community safe and trusted, we’ve described our standars and expecation here to all hosts and travelers.
Community standard: Creating a world where anyone can truly belong requires a foundation of trust grounded in consistent expectations of host and guest behavior. We’ve established these Community Standards to help guide behavior and codify the values that underpin our global community.
We developed these standards based on our extensive experience interacting with members of the DOTROTTER community. These standards are intended to gather together our existing policies into a single framework that will help members of the DOTROTTER community better understand what to expect from us and what we expect of them.
How will the standards be enforced?
Each enforcement decision is the result of careful and detailed work by a team of experts devoted to ensuring we make the right call. Our responses to violations of these policies have been and will continue to be based on the seriousness of the issue.
We will strive to take the circumstances of each situation into account when reaching our enforcement decision, but we have limited discretion in our response to serious violations of the policies.
What can I do if I disagree with a decision?
Our enforcement teams are made up of dedicated professionals, but they’re still human. So, in rare cases, enforcement decisions may be incorrect. If you disagree with a decision we’ve made, you can contact us legal@dotrotter.com or fill the form on our web. and we’ll re-review the decision carefully. The definitions of the standards and expectations themselves aren’t subject to review.
Will the standards change over time?
We’re always learning and growing and the standards and expectations will evolve over time. Make sure to review the standards if you have any questions about a particular situation.
Understanding Bias and Belonging
“We believe, that no matter who you are, where you're from, or where you travel. You should be able to belong in the DOTROTTER community. By joining this community, you commit to treat all fellow members regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, national origin, gender identity, or age with respect and without judgement or Bias.
The world is a much more beautiful place when you accept!"
- Creating a world of belonging
- The basic of Bias
- The changing face of racial and ethnic Bias
- LGBTQ and gender-based Bias
- Why we stereotype
- The consequences of stereotyping
- How you can take action
Creating a world of belonging
We envision a world where anyone can belong anywhere.
Being a member of the DOTROTTER community means connecting with people across continents, cultures, and lifestyles. Discrimination prevents these meaningful connections and goes against the values at DOTROTTER's core. In order to build a truly global community, we have a policy that prohibits discrimination.
Together, we’ve created this toolkit exploring bias and other factors that influence people’s decisions, even without their knowledge. There are several sections, and each one takes only a few minutes to complete. We hope you'll come away with a better understanding of biases and how you can take action against them as a DOTROTTER host and participant company.
DOTROTTER belongs everywhere!
There’s an important difference between bias and discrimination. “Bias” refers to feelings or assumptions about a person based on their group. “Discrimination” is behaving differently toward someone based on their group.
In other words, bias happens in the mind; discrimination happens through actions. Bias doesn’t always lead to discrimination, but it’s usually where discrimination starts. The good news is that discrimination is more controllable and avoidable than bias.
For much of our history, bias and discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities looked very different than it does today—think about the segregation laws that have been overturned and condemned in the last century. Because it’s usually less overt today, many people may assume that racial and ethnic bias no longer exists, when in fact, it has merely changed form.
Today’s bias exists largely at a subconscious level and is often called “implicit bias.” The problem is that implicit bias sometimes creeps out and influences how we treat people, causing us to discriminate. This is most likely to happen when we’re confronted with mixed, vague, or ambiguous information. In these cases, the colour of a person’s skin may subconsciously impact our behaviour towards them, while we consciously tell ourselves that our behaviour was based on factors totally unrelated to race or ethnicity.
Gender roles are deeply rooted in our society and—whether we’re conscious of it or not—most of us use them to make determinations about how we think people should act. Consider these examples: Girls should play with dolls; boys should play with trucks. Women should be nurturing; men should be strong. When we let these ideas influence how we treat people or what we expect of them, we engage in gender discrimination, commonly known as sexism.
Gender stereotypes also have significant implications for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer) people. Because their identities challenge societal norms, like heterosexuality or conventional gender roles, they often experience bias—ranging from mild discomfort to extreme hostility.
Sometimes these biases are based on religious traditions, and while these traditions may hold an important role in people’s lives, extending hospitality towards others does not require the adoption of their views or lifestyle. Respecting and welcoming differences in background, identity, and culture are essential to Airbnb’s mission of belonging.
Dr. Peter Glick—a prominent expert on gender bias and professor at Lawrence University—discusses some of the many reasons LGBTQ bias exists and its effect on those who experience it.
One of the ways bias displays itself in our society is through stereotyping. A stereotype is a widely held but oversimplified or exaggerated image or idea of a particular type of person. While it’s possible to find some individuals who confirm the stereotype, it almost never applies to an entire group or even the majority. Everyone uses stereotypes to a certain extent—sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. But if they're exaggerated and potentially inaccurate, why do we let them influence our behaviour, and how do our brains even arrive at them? There are multiple origins of stereotypes but we will elaborate on two, which we refer to as “shortcuts" and “standouts”.
Shortcuts
We can only process a small percentage of the millions of bits of information we take in every second. So the human brain has evolved to quickly scan people (or objects) for traits that make them similar to others. We then assume the traits of all the people in a given group are the same, and this results in stereotyping.
Standouts
When someone is different from the majority of a group, you’re much more likely to remember them. You’re also more likely to associate these distinctive people with the circumstances in which you encounter them.
For example, imagine that you see a group of people being rowdy in a restaurant. If one of the group members happens to be a different race than the others, it's likely you'll associate the person who looks different with that rowdy behaviour in the future—even though in reality, all of the people in the group were being rowdy.
As we’ve seen, stereotyping groups of people can often lead to discriminatory behaviour, from unintentional insults to extreme cases of injustice. No act of discrimination—or any act, for that matter—exists in a vacuum. Each time a person experiences discrimination, it takes place within a complex web of life experiences that, when put together, can have a serious impact on a person’s well-being. In fact, discrimination can have negative effects on mental and even physical health.
Every DOTROTTER community member has the power to help create a better, more inclusive platform. Here again, are the tips you have read throughout this “toolkit". They represent some steps everyone can take to reduce discrimination, even the kind that happens unconsciously.
Use the same standards for everyone
Create a set of objective criteria that you use to evaluate potential guests and talents. It could be the number of reviews they have, how many people are in their party, or whether they have Verified ID. Then, stick to these criteria for every guest, every time. If your criteria are inconsistent from situation to situation, bias may creep into your decision-making. Also, be sure to set your reservation preferences and keep your availability calendar up to date so you’re more likely to be able to accept the booking requests you receive.
Practice empathy
It may sound obvious, but empathy goes a long way. Imagine that you’re in someone else’s shoes and try to understand how they might be feeling. Think about the hurt, inconvenience, and indignity that someone may face when being denied the opportunity to book a place solely because they are different.
Unlearn stereotypes
One of the few proven ways to actually reverse implicit bias is to seek out experiences and information that goes against stereotypes. Get out of your comfort zone and meet diverse people––accept DOTROTTER guests/volunteer from different walks of life. Positive contact and social interaction can reduce biases.
Use mindful decision making
Before accepting or rejecting a guest, determine why you’ve made the decision and challenge yourself to give a rigorous explanation. Ask yourself if you’d be comfortable having to tell the guest face-to-face the reason why they were declined.
Speak out
Add a message to your profile stating that you welcome guests from all walks of life. This not only signals to guests that they’re welcome, but it can also inspire other hosts to embrace the values of diversity and inclusion too.
What we are and we aren't
What we are: We are an online community that match local needs with available talents. We seek for professional improvement, and not free services.
What we are not: We are not a work and holidays, we are help and travel.
How we help and what, we help with accommodation and local experiences. We are not able to arrange visas. We just post the listings. Please remember it is your responsibility to obtain the correct visa for any country you intend visiting.
What is expected from a volunteer? Generally, the volunteer will be expected to help around 5 hours per day in exchange for food, local experiences and accommodation. Some hosts may give a paid allowance to ensure they are offering at least the minimum wage in their country, and this it arranges outside our platform. Conditions and agreements may vary depending on the skills you can offer and the requirements of each host. It is important you communicate as much as possible beforehand with your hosts so that you both know each other's expectations. And follow every country rules.
Can DOTROTTER team, or host independently search for a talent/volunteer?
Yes, hosts and our team can search for and contact DOTROTTER volunteers by skills and last minute availability as well as destinations and location if you have allowed this. This is why it essential you provide accurate information about your skills as well as the dates and places you are travelling to. Destinations can be added or edited through our concierge team when you are logged in to your account.
Will DOTROTTER sponsor my trip? Nice try, but no! 😉 However, if you have an idea on how to promote DOTROTTER we will always listen. So get your imagination going and make us a proposal. Also, there are certain companies that offers you a local experience and some of them are travel ticket includes, also there are some companies such as airlines that need DOTROTTER volunteer and them also. But not DOTROTTER. We remind we are a platform that connects needs with the one able to help.
How does DOTROTTER works? When you sign up as a DOTROTTER volunteer you can access the host list and contact host families, apply to companies proposal, assist and help events and concerts, CSR activities, NGOs or projects directly to offer your help.
DOTROTTER is a cultural exchange, you offer a few hours of help in exchange for food, local experiences, the opportunity for future work and accommodation. Take a look at the info on the site again and if you have any more questions drop us a line.
Hosts, and Volunteers, are validated, verified, and filter by a dedicated team. We count with a team for family hosts, for travellers, for companies, for events and concerts. And then you are on. We ensure quality, that's why we verified first.
Can I use DOTROTTER to find a paying work? DOTROTTER is primarily for cultural exchange or learning new skills, see future jobs opportunities, assist to events and a way of making new friends.
If a host is looking for help with a business or business activity, they may offer payment to ensure that they are meeting the minimum wage requirements of their country. Separately our platform.
Where a host is offering payment this will be clearly marked on their profile. And the volunteer traveller should have all legal requirements and the same by the hosts.