Recruiting the right people lies at the heart of Bede, and is synonymous with our acclaimed culture that remains even as we grow. We’re super proud of what we have so decided to shout a little louder about life at Bede and what is important to us. You may have heard whispers of what it’s like at Bede, but we thought why not straight from the horse’s mouth? This is the first of a series of blogs to provide insight into our approach – first stop: Flexible Working. There’s no such thing at Bede.
At Bede it’s important to us that our policies reflect our people, ensure best practices and encourage creativity and innovation.
We often get asked what our ‘Flexible Working Policy’ is, and our answer is always the same – we don’t have one! We don’t have flexi-time, we don’t have a choice of working hours and we don’t have increased flexibility based on length of service. This is because this isn’t being flexible. This “flexible working” is merely moving the structure to a different place. Being rigid with flexibility just ain’t our bag – being flexible with flexibility is.
Flexible: able to be easily modified to respond to altered circumstances.
Of course, we have core office hours to ensure we deliver the service we promise to our clients, and provide structure to our employees working week. But we are happy to be open and adaptable to meet the needs of our employees, so they can be the best they can be for themselves, and our business.
Now, we can already hear some of you wincing at the thought of this, how can you not have a policy? How do you measure this? How do you ensure it’s not taken advantage of? Well simply put, this is down to our culture. And it can be yours too!
We put a lot of hard work into ensuring our staff is engaged, aligned to our values and most importantly, feels respected and trusted. The result? 97% of employees feel their work is valued. If our employees feel engaged and empowered, this leads to greater outcomes for everyone.
Life has twists and turns for everyone, we can’t define it or predict it – so why create a policy to deal with it? We’re human and adults so we treat staff like human adults! From your first day, through to your last – we are flexible with all our employees, providing enough support to make it work for everyone.
So the next time we get asked what our ‘Flexible Working Policy’ is – our answer will remain the same – we are flexible with flexibility. And that should be your answer too.
