We feel that the employer-employee relationship works best when it\u2019s approached as a partnership.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nWe know how important it is to ensure salaries remain competitive \u2013 so we partner with benchmarking experts to keep an eye on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We also gave our employees an extra five days of annual leave, as well as birthdays off, paid time to do voluntary work and paid time off for important life events like moving house, seeing kids off to their first day at school and getting a new pet settled in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flexible Fridays are especially useful as they allow our team members to finish early on Fridays if their work is completed, and it helps us see where we may need to support employees more with workloads and time management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For us, a flexible approach is, at its heart, about wellbeing. We give our teams access to an employee assistance programme, health plans and discounted gym memberships. We have an in-house Wellbeing Coordinator who\u2019s on hand to make appointments with and offer support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of our newer policies provides employees support with handling the menopause, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If one of our team members needs support with something, we do our best to provide it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Businesses benefit too<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nI\u2019ve found fantastic benefits to running a remote business. The Social Element has been able to access a much more diverse talent pool than we would have otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have amazingly talented and skilled people working from various countries, people with caring commitments and people with mobility issues and disabilities that find it easier to work from home – this is one of the reasons why Creative Equals has recognised that we have a higher proportion of people working with a disability than industry standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of our employees are neurodivergent and we work with them to find their prefered way of working. For example, some people may prefer to work from home, as they find it easier to control their environment and focus, while others prefer to receive information in certain ways (such as preferring written confirmation of tasks agreed to on a call).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You might look at all of the support we provide our virtual employees and think that it\u2019s an awful lot of flexibility. I call it hyper-flexibility. For us, flexibility isn\u2019t just about providing the standard flexible working options, it\u2019s about being truly agile in the way we work with individuals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By being hyper-flexible, we\u2019ve found that we have a more engaged workforce and a much lower staff turnover.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Love it or loathe it, virtual working is something that we\u2019ll see more employees expect. Businesses without remote working models who are inflexible about work from home requests may find themselves left behind as the best candidates and employees head for greener pastures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But allowing people to work from home is just the start, I believe that businesses will only see the full benefits of virtual working when they recreate their business to provide the hyper-flexibility that people want and need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whether businesses are operating a hybrid system after seeing the benefits of employees working from home during lockdown, or deciding to opt for a fully virtual workplace, the world of work is evolving. As you might expect from someone who founded a business that\u2019s been remote first for 20 years, I really appreciate the benefits…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":18280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[701],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Working from home: get ready for the future of work - The Social Element USA<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n