At Clarasys, we’ve recently introduced the new concept of flexible holiday policy! What does that mean?
The interesting thing about the new flexible holiday scheme at Clarasys is that our employees still have a minimum amount of holidays to take, to ensure they take the time away from work, and to get that important work-life balance right. It’s only the maximum entitlement that has been removed. This gives every member of the Clarasys team the freedom to schedule their own holiday without restrictions. The result of all this is an increase in employee happiness, reduction in employee turnover, reduction in sick days and an increase in productivity. How great is that!
Similar holiday schemes made its first appearance in the mid-90s in the US, particularly in Silicon Valley amongst tech/innovative companies; only recently flexible holiday schemes have become ‘a thing’ in the UK.
The announcement that Clarasys moved to a flexible holiday policy has initially left me, and many others, speechless. When the news was made official, I was working in a fast-paced project environment and I’d never thought about being able to take advantage of this new holiday policy. A switch in mentality took me quite a while!
I wasn’t sure, initially, how it would work or what the surrounding rules and guidelines were, but it soon became clear that for those people assigned to a project, the only caveat is that they must liaise with their account teams and client to ensure their work is covered. So, whether or not I was on a fast-paced project, I would still be able to take holiday. Not only that, but it could offer benefits too. Coming back onto a project after a break has massive benefits. I’ve seen colleagues with increased creativity and productivity, making a difference in their way of working, and enabling them to bring forward new ideas that also improved team efficiency.
So after a very intense project, I recently decided to use some leave days to regenerate myself, spending a few weeks with my family and friends in Italy and deciding to extend this period by a few extra days to be close to my 20 months old son who had just started his adventure in a new nursery.
Again, this is another significant example of how wellbeing and work/life balance initiatives are taken seriously at Clarasys. That’s what it means to be part of an award-winning consultancy. It’s not only in the work that we do for and with clients that matters and makes us award-winning, but also our internal environment and ways of working.
#culture #loveourwork #people #wellbeing #worklifebalance