Flexible Working @ BGL Tech
We’re not a traditional 9am — 5pm office. In fact, BGL offers a culture that enables everyone to work in a way that suits their lifestyle. Here, it’s all about being productive and delivering to a high standard regardless of whether you’re in the office or not.
Remote working, or working from home, forms a large part of that culture, but of course this suits some teams better than others. So we put it to the test. One of the teams I manage worked from home solidly for three weeks and this is what we found…
I’m going to be honest, I was not optimistic about the trial and thought it would be a struggle to succeed in our sprint without a single member of the team being present.
However, I was proven wrong. The experience was a lot more positive than expected. It started off a bit shaky, with a quest to find the right technology that worked for us to ensure we could all touch base. Once we found that Slack and video conferencing were key mobilisers to this experiment, we were good to go.
There are a number of people in that team that travel 40 miles or more to be in the office, so for them it meant they were more energised to get on with work without having to travel five days a week. Most importantly, we succeeded in our sprint and delivered what we needed to, despite not physically being together. The team has confidence to work from home more often and freely as a result of the experiment, and we’ve since seen an uptake in the number of people who have chosen to do so.
While some people thrived from working from home, it soon become clear that it wasn’t for everyone. Some of the team found that being at home led to poor diet (can’t resist the snack cupboard!) and some felt feelings of loneliness. But that’s what’s great about working in BGL Tech… You’ve got the autonomy and freedom to balance your life with work in a way that works for you.
