By William Foulds
Picture this: It’s 10:30am on Tuesday and I’m sitting in a café with my laptop finishing an important email before I head off to get my haircut, then I’ll head back home to finish the day of work.
In the post-covid, remote-working world, this sounds pretty ordinary – or does it? What was hailed the ‘new normal’ after the restrictions and lockdowns of the pandemic is becoming less common, with employers encouraging teams back into offices, and taking time out of the work day to tick off life admin tasks frowned upon.
With the new flexible working act recently coming in to force in the UK, flexible working and an employee’s right to request it is at the forefront of legislation. For us, flexible and remote working are far from new – they are simply normal, because we’ve done it for 30 years.
We’re not doing anything particularly groundbreaking; we purely trust our people, allowing them to work flexibly, have no set hours of work and no annual leave limits, and in return they will trust us to equip them with the skills to succeed.
“But how does that work?” is a question we get a lot, and it’s simple: the relationships we’ve forged with our clients and each other.
At the core of our organisation is people and their ability to do amazing things for our clients – which they demonstrate in delivery time and time again. We don’t focus on the attendance, rather the output of our people, their happiness and subsequently the happiness of our clients.
Instead of mandating office attendance, we use technology to work together both nationally and internationally – and being global means that we can manage our days around when we’re needed most, not to mention when we’re most productive.
While face-to-face is valuable, it’s not always possible logistically, but when we do come into the office it’s because we want to. And there’s rarely a quiet day in any of them.
The core values of honesty, trust and people-first are demonstrated from day one, backed up by our suite of benefits, meaning the people who choose to join us, also choose to stay with us – clients and employees alike.
“We knew from the outset that we would trust each other, everyone in the business and our customers until we were (very occasionally) proved wrong. We have held to that principle for the past 30 years. We should always be genuinely grateful to the people who choose to work with us.”
Sally Waterston, Co-founder and co-chair.
We’re proud to create a space for people to thrive without being bogged down in processes, rules and limitations. We’ve always been flexible, open and honest and we always will be.
To find out more about how we’ve made flexible working a fundamental part of our business, get in touch with William at William.foulds@waterstons.com
