Fostering a Remote-First Culture and Understanding Flexibility, with James Varga and Laura Tejada

Not all tech companies may find it easy to transition to a fully remote work setup. Challenges regarding infrastructure, security, collaboration, and technology can stop some business leaders from adopting a remote-first culture.

On the other hand, many tech companies have successfully embraced remote work and reaped its benefits, such as access to a broader talent pool, reduced office costs, and improved employee satisfaction. DirectID, a  global fintech founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, is one outstanding example.   James Varga and Laura Tejada, Head of Employee Experience and People Strategy, share with us their journey of transitioning to a remote-first culture and what tangible positive impact they have gained since.

Episode Outline and Highlights

• [01:50] The remote working journey - James shared their transition to becoming remote-first as a company.
• [03:38] Laura explains her role as Head of Employee Experience.
• [04:30] Why settle to be remote-first after the pandemic?
• [06:47] Personalize the experience for each employee and what it looks like.
• [08:40] What are the 7 Truths of Flexibility?
• [10:08] Why incentives should also be inclusive.
• [12:30] Tech stacks for managing your team’s collaboration and structured communication.
• [15:45] Creating opportunities for your team members to engage with one another in a remote setup.
• [21:19] Make a clear development plan for your people.
• [24:53] Discussion on OKRs and embedding a mindset and culture of achievement.
• [30:02] How the truths of flexibility should impact your way of working.
• [33:55] Why Direct ID did not pursue adopting a 4-day work week.
• [37:17] Tangible benefits that DirectID realized upon going remote first.
• [42:33] What is next in employee experience for DirectID?

Rebecca Hastings, Founder and Director at The Lucent Group

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hastingsrebecca/  

Would you like to be a guest? Book a time to speak with Rebecca: https://calendly.com/rebeccahastings/discovery-call

The Lucent Group Ltd website - https://www.thelucentgroup.co.uk/

The Lucent Perspective website - https://thelucentperspective.com/ 

Rebecca has extensive talent and executive search experience supporting digital and technology businesses through complex changes and fast-paced scale-up periods. She works with businesses advising on C-level, technical, sales and commercial appointments, workforce planning, strategic talent management, recruitment processes and associated technology and employer brand development. 

Transcript

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Rebecca Turnbull: 0:05

Welcome to the Listen perspective. I'm your host, Rebecca Hastings. I've spent over a decade working with executives in the tech sector, and help successful companies build their leadership teams and scale. During my career, I've been lucky to have the privilege of learning from many exceptional leaders. In these conversations, you'll get perspectives from peers, be inspired, and learn what it takes to become one of the best. This is your chance to listen to experts talking about the challenges, solutions, and the vital insights they've gained in their careers to date.

Unknown: 0:41

And this is the reason why we've developed these truths of flexibilities, these rules of engagement, if you would flexibility, as long as it doesn't impact well, we call it three C's right that the customer, the company and the colleagues do what you need to do.

Rebecca Turnbull: 0:58

I'm joined by James, the CEO at direct ID, and Laura, who is their head of employee experience, the reason that we're going to be speaking to them today, and learning from them is one of the things that direct ad have done very well is developing their flexible work offering. I know that this is something that you have been finding quite challenging, some companies feel like they've nailed it, others are really struggling. And we're still kind of grappling with it, nobody's got it perfect. But it's flexible working is just become a lot more complex, I thought it'd be really valuable to have a conversation about how this has worked really well so far in a business. So I guess, James, it'd be great if you could jump in and tell us a little bit about the remote work journey and how you've ended up being fully remote.

Unknown: 1:49

Now, Thanks. And thanks for having us, we're excited to talk about it. It's something that's very close to our heart as a business, especially since those disruptive years during the pandemic, where we've as startups, we've had to learn to work in a different way, you know. So we embrace really, really strongly this idea of remote first culture, and I think companies today have to figure out whether your physical first and you're on one end of the scale, your remote first, and by remote first, I don't mean remote only, I mean remote First, in that, let's get together when we need to get get together and, and just do it with purpose, right. Or if you're a hybrid company, and you're following some three day in the office today, or, you know, four day a week work schedule or something like that. For us, it's all around being flexible, embracing that, in the truest sense. Laura can talk a lot more about that than me, but really, really embracing that and, and moving from a truancy based metric into value and output. So as long as people are doing what they're doing, and, and helping each other and delivering the results they need, doesn't matter if you work in the morning or the evening or all through the weekend, or whatever it shouldn't, right, people are still getting the job done. So yeah, we have we have what we call the seven truths of flexibility. Now,

Rebecca Turnbull: 3:17

I'll try and see base metrics versus value based metrics is definitely a new way of putting it. And Laura, you are head of employee experience, like, tell me how that has come about because there's like such a new job, and it's really focused, what are your priorities in that role?

Unknown: 3:36

My main goal and target is to make people happy within the company. And that's the reason why James created the title for the role rather than it being CPO or, you know, Chief head of people, something like that. It was purposefully put as head of employee experience, because it's all about the experience they have, from the moment they have their first contact through the recruitment process, up until they go on and their career ladder. So it's all about sort of how can we create a culture that people are going to be able to thrive within feel happy, feel feel they can trust others and feel really cared for? So So yeah, so so I'm here basically to, that's, that's gonna be my main mission going forward.

Rebecca Turnbull: 4:19

So it's great to have a real expert alongside the CEO rather than just to see you talking about this for a change. But, James, I'm interested you guys chose to stay fully remote post pandemic and I think you went hybrid temporarily within the business. Tell me a bit about that and why you settled on fully remote because actually, there's some people who still believe or don't work out what's right for them.

Unknown: 4:47

Yeah, there's, there's there's a number of reasons. And we did try having offices again after everyone started going back to work. The Office experience in itself was really interesting in that there is areas of the team that wanted to get together more and spend time in the office. And I think part of the challenge these days with that is, when you do go in the office, you end up on Zoom calls all day anyways, right? So you're not, you're running around trying to find small offices and places and cubby holes to have a meeting and not really sitting in the office. I think the other thing is, is the realisation along the way that it really depends on the person. And I think there's an opportunity to maybe support the individual more in these situations, in that some of those people that had been working in their bedroom or in their kitchen or never leaving the flat. I don't think it's what they I don't think having an office is really what they were wanting, they wanted to work with other people around them. Right? They wanted to be surrounded by a bit of noise and a bit of energy and have those sort of casual chats. But does that have to be within the company? I don't think so. Right? So now we have a policy of you want to work somewhere well do a pay as you go on a we work or spaces or go sit in a cafe is part of that flexibility that allows people to personalize the experience for themselves. That is really, really important these days. And that's, that's, I think, work much better.

Rebecca Turnbull: 6:12

And I think that word personalization, there is so interesting to apply it to employee experience, because we talk about it from the like customer perspective, all the time that we want to provide a personalized, experienced or personalized user journey. But we don't think about it with employees. And actually they are the most personal people in our businesses, basically. So Laura, how do you cope with that, because that everyone is unique in it? There's a lot of personalization there.

Unknown: 6:43

Yeah, definitely. And that's where the seven flex will truth really comes in with us is that we every single area of the business is tailored to work for that person. So when it comes to, you know, we really embrace diversity within the business and some people are better suited to they prefer to do their work early in the morning. Some people prefer to do it in the evening, some people prefer to work on a Saturday take the Tuesday off to go golfing. And and some people they they like to work, you know, all over the world, we've got people who are traveling, you know, one person traveled through 15 countries in the last 18 months or so, and they travel over the weekends, they work the weekdays from all these wonderful locations. But yeah, it's it's really sort of embracing how to help people to work in their most productive way. And, and in a way that's going to make them feel good. And that's done through the management style. All the managers do not stick to a fixed process, they actually tailor it per person. So some people will be set, you know, have a chat daily, other people prefer to be left to have a chat monthly. And then we go into very sort of flexible, open conversations, one of our main values is to be brief. And something I've definitely noticed upon joining the company is that in the big team meetings in the past, they've been, you know, past companies I've worked for, they've been very awkward, people haven't really spoken up. And something I found extremely refreshing here is that no matter the level, the person they feel they can speak up to everyone within the business. And and they will challenge the leadership team on things. And that's really, really refreshing because that it makes sure that everyone has a voice within the company. So that value of the brave really shines through there.

Rebecca Turnbull: 8:28

Interesting. So I want to just pick back up on something you said a few minutes ago. Can you tell us what are the seven flexible truths? I'm not familiar with that. So

Unknown: 8:39

it's flexible conversations, and flexible learning so that it's all to be done and tailored to that specific person. So flexible learning plans, flexible conversations, flexible technology, which are the platforms that we use, and we have a real mix of platforms, which we can talk about later, to really ensure that that people can be as productive and and work in the way that works for them. But making sure that it also doesn't hinder them, which is something we do quite a lot work on flexible paperwork. We have flexible locations, and then flexible relationships within the organizations a lot of cross collaboration. We have squats, for example. So different sort of innovation teams working on different projects together. And then we have flexible gatherings which an example of that is that you know people can get together wherever that they're based, you know they can they can arrange to meet up. We have plan plan get togethers, which are twice a year where they're four times a year to a digital. The other two can be anywhere so we're looking at all sorts different locations for them. The last one was Edinburgh. The next one might be in warmer warmer climates because it's going to be in October. Yeah, and it's just it's making it so it's soup. So we make all of these things very voluntary for people as well. And that includes well being series going forward. Sweet. We have all sorts of incense serves, but we've ensured their voluntary because I think where a lot of organizations sometimes can go wrong is that they make fun mandatory. And, and people don't always want to go. So for us, it's very much do you want to come and join us? We've got this or there's this event or there's this cross collaboration, you know, learning thing that we've got going on, do you want to come and join? And that's something I found definitely also shines through it direct ID.

Rebecca Turnbull: 10:25

Totally. And what is fun for one person is totally different for another quite often, we actually

Unknown: 10:33

asked for feedback every time we have a get together. And the last q&a, we actually had some feedback from that which we've taken on board, which was sort of how, how do we create plan days that are very inclusive? And that's something we want? And someone said, you know, please, can we have less focus on because there was whiskey tasting? Obviously, it's in Scotland, whiskey tasting, you know, and it was like, Can we do something that's not focused around that? Because it's not completely inclusive. And I think there's something a lot of companies that do that beer Fridays, stuff like that. And it's sort of evolving with people are becoming more health conscious, you've got to think about that the backgrounds, cultures. And so we've taken that on board and going forwards just on the kind of get togethers, we're now making sure that it's something everyone's going to enjoy. Yeah. So that said, so the next one actually is going to be sort of a foraging event that we're doing, which is going to be fun. So I think this is the point in a lot of ways, right? Is it's a new new thing for a lot of people as much as a new thing for businesses like us. And we have to keep iterating through it in order to find out what works for us in our team. And I think as is, that's where that personalization, that's where the on biased approach comes from is saying, What is the problem that we're trying to solve, you know, getting people to come in three days a week in the office, which a lot of companies are doing so that you, you find out more that you bump into people in the water cooler or having a coffee or whatever, for me? I struggle with a lot, right? Why should we rely on happenstance and randomness for communication? Let's solve the communication problem. First of all right? So how do we put in a structure to make sure that we've got the right level of communication, that we're all working together, we all have that one single vision, we're all driving together and communicating and sharing and this cross collaboration there in a way that doesn't swamp people and doesn't distract people, right? That's the problem that we need to solve not getting people in three days a week?

Rebecca Turnbull: 12:31

Totally. And how have you managed to like achieve that? Like, what tech stack Have you put in place? Lots of people are big advocates for different tools. But it sounds like you've experimenters and got things working? Well. So what have you got in your business? What would someone who's working for us? Tell us please? Yeah,

Unknown: 12:53

a lot of the basics, you know, Microsoft Office 365 as a as a suite, Slack, we use a lot. We use task management tools like asana and the Atlassian, suite Confluence and JIRA and stuff, we try to keep it as simple as possible, because it's easy, especially as a tech company to use all sorts of tools. I think what's what's been more important is that structured communication, right is what do we do on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis? And constantly adjusting those levers? Right? You know, even yesterday, we were having a conversation around, is the weekly catch up the right influence? What's the purpose of that let's take a step back every few months and reevaluate where we are, because the team and the dynamics and the stage of the business all have a real core impact on on what we're trying to do at that event, right. And we've always done a weekly catch up, I think a weekly catch up is great, because I want everybody to share brain dump, get things off their chest, whatever, so that we can go away, have a weekend and come back and do it all over next week, right, instead of trying to keep the stuff in your head for next week on a Monday when we talk. So I think it's more about that structured communication.

Rebecca Turnbull: 14:08

And that's a really important point. Because a lot of people think just because I've got slack, everyone can communicate. Whereas, you know, for one person that's just going to be far too many distractions versus another person who just they want to do everything through slack. They love it. Laura, from your perspective, that whole personalization of employee experience, how do you like create that community in places like Slack? Yeah.

Unknown: 14:35

So so just Just on that point, also, just where you mentioned about Slack and how it can really distract people is something I've definitely struggled with and I know a lot of people struggle with and we actually ran a session on this recently on flow with with the teams as to how to structure their weeks they're blocking out time, they're not having too many meetings. They're not being zoom, you know, zoomed out or to you know, Microsoft team day out. And and with Slack it sort of which channels do you want to be a part of, etc. But how we create that community with the tools that we're using slack, we have different chat groups for the different hobbies within the company, we've got people who are real foodies. We've got people that, you know, sort of in regards to social gatherings, people are sharing books of the week, you know, different things that they've watched, or that they've read that they found inspiring. And it's something like James has said that we're constantly reviewing tweaking, to be honest, we're probably going to go through our Slack channels, because we've suddenly noticed there's quite a few of them, and as to how to reduce them down and have the ones that are most useful for people. But creating those areas to connect. The other. The other thing that we use, obviously, we've got slack we have, Hi Bob, which we encourage people to do shout outs every week to sort of the shout outs are all based around our values. As we asked people to do shout outs each week aligned to our company values, someone who really lived and breathed them and and then they get either in the past, it's a five pound voucher, at the moment is five pound goes towards Ukraine. But it's just these little incentives to make sure people are shouting out to each other and cross collaboration within those groups. The other tool we use, which is fantastic is Office five. And in there, we generate different questions each week. But it means people can answer in an anomalous way. And they can give feedback. So each week on a Friday, we're going through feedback on a Monday we get together as a leadership team. And we're going through you know, okay, what's come up this week? What do we need to improve? You know, is it recognition? Is it leadership? Is it and and it's sort of going through taking on board those those notes? And and yeah, constantly making tweaks, but every day wanting to improve a little bit more?

Rebecca Turnbull: 16:50

And how many questions? Do you tend to ask your community each week? Because that's like, some companies would not use a tool like that on such a regular cadence? And others would maybe use it more, but I'm just interested in how do you decide what's important to know,

Unknown: 17:10

we keep it short? Generally, it's sort of two to three questions you'll get asked sometimes it will even just be one, it does actually generate around cultural questions, it does it for you. But you can go in there and you can choose choose a specific survey. So we did one recently on culture, and it will go a lot more in depth. But we don't do that weekly, we will do that sort of, you know, a couple of months or every quarter, something like that, because we're aware, we don't want to create more admin tasks for people. I think part of the benefit of something like Office five is is any employee engagement tool is, is being able to have that heartbeat of what's happening in the team, especially in a remote first context, you know, we don't get a chance to, to engage in Siege, people see each other as much so having that heartbeat asking those as five minutes, once a week or once every couple of weeks or whatever it is that two at a time. It's really, really low impact for people. But it does give us that force feedback, right. That's sort of where do we need to now focus as part of that exercise and then combining that with, as Laura said, the weekly meetings and the feedback cycles, even even myself I know that I need to do water cooler chats, right. So instead of having a physical watercooler to go, we just do watercooler chats. And we we try to I try to prompt as many non work related social 15 minute chats few times a week, just to engage with people, right? And, okay, it's not as fluid as being in a physical office or sitting in a cafe or enjoying the sunshine or whatever. But it's more flexible, just to get on a call and say, how was your weekend? You know, and what's, what holidays do you have planned this year, it doesn't being remote doesn't stop you doing it, you just have to put more effort into doing it.

Rebecca Turnbull: 18:55

I completely agree that one of the things that you touched on when you were talking about your seven truths was like that whole learning and development piece. And certainly, from my perspective, when I'm speaking with candidates at all levels, they really care about how they're going to learn, and especially people who are maybe earlier in their career, if they're going into remote environment, they think, Oh, how am I going to learn from my manager or the senior devs, for example, and even people who want to move up are thinking like, how am I going to become a better manager? And how does that work? So what kind of things have you put in place to make sure that you're continuing to develop people's skills in that environment?

Unknown: 19:42

So at the moment, we take quite a holistic approach with it so we don't just develop them in regards to their work skills. We're also looking to develop them for their their life skills. So one of the things that we're currently putting together and and some of that's been around previously as well being series And last time, it was called the eye in the eye, and it was at the eye and direct ID was allowed to go, it was called something like that. But anyway, it was a, it was all about sort of all sessions for that those people. So at the moment, we're looking at putting together sessions in regards to financial well being, which is something that's people are on people's minds, you know, mindset, confidence. Flow was one, for example, you know, sort of bringing in different speakers, and we have quite a good budget for that. That's, that's one element of the learning and development, just showing that we really care about our people. And then the other one is, obviously we've got mentoring within the business we have, we encourage peer to peer learning and cross collaboration within teams, that happens in the squads that we've set up. And then we have career development, obviously, from the manager to you know, peer to manager. And, and that's, that's very much done on a tailored basis. Some people they're very clear of what they want to do, and, you know, they'll explore with their manager, I want to do a certification. And then they look exploring that and other people are sort of, they prefer to go off and learn and and have, you know, a clear path of what what do they need to go off and do and bring back. Something that we're actually constantly tweaking and developing is a very clear development plan for people. And at that shows them makes makes it clear for them sort of how they can move up to that next level, how much mentoring do they need to be doing? Because we encourage mentoring across all people within the business? It's not just for the leaders. And and then it will be, you know, what sort of certifications do you need, and we help them to get there, basically. So that's something that we are constantly tweaking structuring.

Rebecca Turnbull: 21:42

Yeah, definitely, I love that you are taking a more holistic approach to like the kind of like more life skills side of things, because it's very hard to actually learn anything meaningful. If you've don't have the headspace to do it. And people are under a lot more pressure, there's a lot, there's a lot more noise in the world that can distract you. If if you have like big concerns then like to do with finances, for example, it's going to be harder to engage in your career, even if you think that it's not like it's probably one of the biggest causes of stress in people's lives. So that's really interesting to hear. James, how did you come up with that? Or is that something that Laura came up with?

Unknown: 22:29

I think, well, I mean, the the, the approach to that is really, based around that flexibility. And that personalization again, right and, and doing talks and sessions on something like flow states, I think is really exciting. Because we all work differently, we all work better at certain ways in certain times. I'm a huge fan of biohacking. You know, we just had a conversation there around probiotics and so forth, right, you have to understand how you are as as an individual and what works for you. And it's a win win, if I can be more effective in my job, because I block out two hours in the morning to get through emails, and I have a big long walk at lunchtime for four hours, and then I do stuff in the evening, instead of watching TV. As long as it doesn't affect other people, then why not? So the flexibility structure we have, which applies to learning and, and development is is all around that. And just sending people on courses in today's world doesn't really work. You know, we're at the edge of technology here, not, not two years behind it. So it's important to do that peer to peer learning to spend time spike testing something if you're a developer or going in conferences and talks and just reflecting or us, us finding the resources like around financial education or whatever to give people access to those things.

Rebecca Turnbull: 23:51

Well, I think it'd be really interesting to hear more about, if you could tell us a little bit more about that shift, because I imagine that it has taken a bit of work to get truly people thinking more about like AI based performance, rather than just doing things because it we all want to do it and you know, you've got your OKRs and I'm sure you can put them into things like asana and cascade all of those bits down and make sure people know what they're doing. But how do you how did you like really get that mindset embedded? Because even if you have it I know that there are people out there who would love to work somewhere like that, but they're so used to the other way of working that it's it is an adjustment, even if it's a positive adjustment is a change.

Unknown: 24:43

I don't think we're perfect yet. In any stretch of the imagination. You know, I love you mentioned OKRs I love the idea of OKRs I think they're really difficult to implement in a productive way. Because they have this concept of, of it's okay not to achieve which a lot of people I find uncomfortable, right? I'm gonna set a goal and there's a chance I won't achieve it. How does how does that work with me? So it's been, it's been a bit of a journey in that, I think we're still on that journey. But it's an it's not just around metrics is not just around having goals and development metrics is how you talk, is the culture that you have is the focus as a team that you have around? What is the next most important thing for us to do, that's all we can do is the next most important thing. But where are we going to drive value, right, and not just react to maybe a sales opportunity or whatever, but qualify that with, with our purpose, our mission, why we're here, what we're trying to do for customers. And, and I think if you have a balanced conversation, like that is much easy, much easier to develop that culture around driving value. And I think we still have a lot of work to do to execute that. Absolutely. You know, I'm, I'm a big metrics fan, I love metrics, we need more of those personal development plans. But if we keep working on it, I think we'll, we'll get there. Just Just to add on that, Rebecca, as well, sort of, it's something that we're actually finding, you almost have to retrain people, because it's so easy. Well, I mean, if you think about it from primary school, we get into a habit of you start at nine, you finish at three, or you start at nine, you finish at five. And people feel they need to have that green tick in Slack or on teams 9am, make sure the green dots there, and I've heard various people joking about, you know, even neighbors, or I need to make sure the green dots on they're having a chat or I need to leave my pencil on my, you know, I had a friend who used to balance a pencil on her keyboard, and I don't know how she did it, but she would put weight on there. So that it showed she was still on her laptop, when she was going off and making cup of tea, because she was so nervous about showing she was off screen. You know, because people get more anxious about being always on, if anything, they work more than they've ever worked before. And now that is with remote working. So that's something we're really, really aware of, and it's making sure that people are outcome based, very much drilling in, you know, working hours at work for you. And that's something that we actually ask the leaders to lead by example, with, so their teams know that they are safe, if they decide to, in the morning, go off on a boat ride or, you know, go for a swim, especially with the summer and work into the evening, you know, sort of really leading by example on that. And like James said, it's an ongoing work in progress.

Rebecca Turnbull: 27:28

Yeah, because that psychological safety does make it easier for people to be really honest about where they are with their OKR. If they're not going to hit it, like you need to know and it happens, it's fine. But yeah, it makes it much easier not to be surprised. I think

Unknown: 27:47

it is what it is at the end of the day, right? I mean, we can't, we can only do what we can do towards the goal that we have. As long as we're doing what we're doing towards that goal, then we've done everything we can do towards the golden. Let's accept that.

Rebecca Turnbull: 28:02

And do you feel that this approach has got rid of maybe some of the busy work? Did you see that? Or did you have too busy work to start with?

Unknown: 28:10

No, I think there's always that and there probably is, but you know, there's probably still people being busy on things and maybe not questioning or whatever. But I think that's par for the course, sometimes you're not in this state of mind, to be uber productive, sometimes you just need to be busy. And that's fine, too. You know, but as a as a, as a company, you know, if we view it as an engine, we just, we need to get as much of it working in the right direction as possible, right? I think it's the majority versus the minority, it's okay to have a bit of downtime. Sometimes we need it, I need it. Sometimes I love a love of flight sometimes because a or conference or meeting or chat or whatever, it gives me time to think and reflect and rechargeable. And something in regards to that. That busyness people are gonna go through these waves of being super busy. But when it comes to sustainable performance, we really want people then to be like, gosh, you know, I'm working a lot right now, you can't sustain that going forwards that way of working. You can do it on the short term, if he can make to event if there's, you know, something going on, but you can't stay at that level. So it's sort of, we really encourage people to be solution based and reflect on okay, what's working, what isn't working right now? And how do I tailor and tweak my week? So I've got the time to catch up with my admin. I'm doing it the smartest time for me. You know, I can be when people you know, getting people to reflect on when am I creative? Okay, I will block this time for creative time block this time for when I'm best at admin. Do I have a slump in the afternoon? I'll make sure I do this in the afternoon. It's sort of yeah, getting people to constantly tweak to ensure that they can sustain performance levels and really keep an eye out for things like burnout, which is really common and remote working. So something that we're constantly listening out for checking in on And across the whole company. And if we're all bought into the journey, and we're all focusing on the right thing, sometimes is, the better thing for me to do is not just to be busy for busy sake. But to put up my hand and go, I need a couple hours, I'm gonna go sit in the sauna, or I'm a bit burned out, I'll catch up this weekend. And as long as I don't adversely affect and this is the reason why we've developed these, these truce of flexibilities, these these rules of engagement, if you would flexibility as long as it doesn't impact well, we call the three C's, right, the the customer, the company and the colleagues, do what you need to do. Why should I micromanage you are all grownups, we're all adults. If we need to get this podcast out for Friday, and it's done, we've done what we need to do for Friday, we can move on and do it, maybe do some other things. But also, as Laura says, rebalance ourselves a little bit.

Rebecca Turnbull: 31:00

Totally. And I think that during the pandemic, when lots of people were furloughed, or like think things were shutting down, there were some people who suddenly realized that they did work better at different times, it was just like such a relief not to have that commute. I mean, for me, I didn't realize how much better I actually worked in the morning, if I went for a walk before I started work. Because I've never had time to do that. Before, I'd always be like jumping on a train or, you know, trying to get to my desk as early as possible. So it can continually thinking about how you block your time and what you do at different times of the day, is actually really important, something I found that I've benefited from, but it still evolves like just now, at this point, I find, you know, if I try and keep my mornings clear, that's working really well for me. And I can be really selective about what goes into that time. But I know that there are other times when the kids are working, it does revolve, although I'm not in your business with it with the three C's, it does revolve around those things that maybe it just means that Thursday is the day that I have no meetings, because it's not sustainable for us to have all of these online conversations all of the time, there is a degree of cognitive dissonance and looking at yourself. And it especially if you're not used to it as much as it does, it takes your brain a little bit of extra effort is more tiring.

Unknown: 32:37

And it's constantly finding that balance. Absolutely right. Part of that balance for for me right now as I think we should probably get together as a team or as teams or as individuals a little bit more than we have. But right we're at that stage right now where we're we're encouraging people, sales teams to get together once a month engineering teams is difficult, because the team is very dispersed, we recruit for the timezone these days versus Edinburgh, Scotland or even the UK. So it can be difficult. And we have, as Laura mentioned twice a year, we get everyone together. And that's becoming a bigger and bigger events and and we offset the cost of having an office to do the big events, right? And what's what's more impactful going into the office every day or having having three days in Barcelona or something as a company coming together really doing that bonding, spending some quality time and then we disperse. We go at it again and come together three months, six months later again. So you know, you have to constantly be aware and adjust for it right now. I think yeah, getting together more often is really important.

Rebecca Turnbull: 33:42

Listening to what you're saying. I think you are definitely one of the most flexible companies out there in terms of like their employee offering work style and everything. James, I would like to know from you, could you tell us, you looked into the four day week and didn't go ahead with it? Why did you choose not to adopt it? Because it's the one thing and I'm just intrigued to know how that came about? Because you're, you're doing so much. What was it about that? That just wasn't right.

Unknown: 34:15

Great question. And just as context. I'm a huge fan of efficiency, right? And there's a lot of efficiency gains you can get from something like four day work week. Why not work with intents and purpose and priorities, get your stuff done and then have a bigger break and years ago when I was younger, I worked in a manufacturing where where I worked four days on three days off, three days on four days off, it was the best job in my youth schedule wise that I ever had. It's so completely appreciate it. And we did some some research with Strathclyde University around four day workweek about two years ago when it was a big hot topic, right. And the the research was really, really interesting. findings were really interesting when they came back and that the the challenge were the four day work week is it requires structure Rodas in flexibility in order to work, right, you have to organize yourself around it because not the whole world doesn't work in a four day work week, right? So you still have to support customers on a Friday or Tuesday and so forth. And actually, the, the structure of flexibility that we have offered in their views, and I think it resonates with me, as much benefit as a four day workweek. But in a way that we can personalize it to the individual, right. Somebody that you know, and it's part of that moving from truancy based, you know, okay, I'm here. As Laurie said, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. We have people in different time zones, even that doesn't work anymore. And into an output base to say, well, I've got everything I need done. I'm happy with what I've done. I'm going to take a Friday afternoon off, and even that, you know, for a bit of balance around COVID. The last Friday, we give a half day back as a recharge day, you know, and Friday afternoons are typically pretty ineffective anyways, you know, by the end of the week, we're all a bit tired, we're waiting for the weekend and so forth. So it's just embracing some of those chain changes to give people the recharge time, some of what you would get from a four day work week. Okay? Yes, it's one Friday, not every Friday, but combined with the flexibility and other things. So I think we, we have a good structure that says, Well, you know, doesn't doesn't quite matter as much. Let's embrace that and move forward.

Rebecca Turnbull: 36:43

And James, you have obviously been through with direct ID through quite a journey over the years. At some points you've been like fully in the office as a company. There's still a bit of reluctance in some quarters to move into like a remote first environment and there's maybe a bit of fear around it, or a few misunderstandings. What benefits have you realized from this approach? Like what what what are the tangible things that you look at in your life that didn't happen, or that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been remote?

Unknown: 37:19

I think I think talent and attracting talent is a huge, huge thing. Right? And Edinburgh. Rebecca we've both been around long enough to, to have heard the endless conversations around attracting skills, talent, finding great people, engineers and so forth. That's that's not an Edinburgh thing. It's a Scottish thing. It's a UK thing. It's it's, it's it's becoming a world thing now, right? You know, a lot of countries really struggle and by by recruiting for the timezone, we moved from a market that's got 69 million people into one that's got 769 million people, plus, whatever we would get in Africa, I was just talking about Europe there. So attracting talent, great people is a huge part of it. I think a better work plus life balance. You know, I'm a I'm a live to work person. I have no bones about I'm bit of a startup startup junkie, right, as you know. So, you know, I'm a workaholic. But even I need a bit more balance and saving on the Community tab and the flexibility of working anywhere. Why nots within a team spend two months in Spain at your friend's apartment over the summer and just work from there. You know, why not? Why not be a digital nomad is you know, we've, we've got some of that in the team. Why not brace a long weekend once in a while and catching up another time. So we have lots of holidays with you know, so. So I think there's lots of benefits from that work plus life balance to attracting talent, the efficiencies of it, people spending time when they need to uncertain things to your own example there. The Rebecca understanding how you work, and even even the cost savings offices are expensive, and it's not for us is not a remote only environment is remote First, we should still get together. But let's do it with purpose. Let's do it with an agenda. Right? And if there's a purpose and agenda, I'll fly to Portugal for a meeting. It doesn't matter to me, right? Because we're doing it for a reason instead of just doing it to do it. And that's the problem I have with three day workweek in the office. Why three days went out to one out five. What's the purpose of if there is a purpose, right? If it's just because I struggle with it.

Rebecca Turnbull: 39:36

I agree.

Unknown: 39:37

I was just going to add like we're not anti hybrid working. Obviously, remote working works really well for us. And it means that for example, we're advertising at the moment we're recruiting. We're getting like 400 applicants per role and they are good applicants. It's so hard going through them and shortlisting. It's like the main challenge I have at the moment is that we've got some really good people getting in touch and that's From the bonuses of being remote when so many companies have gone back to hybrid, or they asked to, you know, come into the offices two days a week, one day, a month, whatever it is, it means people who've got used to traveling further afield, they can't. And yeah, it's been a massive selling point for us. But I appreciate there is a place for hybrid working. And some people they do like to go in and be face to face. And they like to be mentored and physically be with others. And they don't always get on working from home. But But for us, it's been absolutely fantastic when it comes to now looking at scaling up, and we are only there not that many companies offering for remote working like we are working from anywhere. And most companies it is you know, it within a couple of hours at the office, just in case you need to come in on an emergency or something. So yeah, it's really worked very well for us.

Rebecca Turnbull: 40:52

Totally, I'm interested to know what some of those emergencies could be in that scenario. I think if you're if you need to be where your customers are, that's like a really compelling reason to not have remote work or have some kind of like, hybrid situation, if there are some people who need to be in a physical space. You don't want to always have that feminist culture, like I see in E commerce businesses in particular, where they've got like logistics people, or you know, a warehouse, or, you know, hospital like businesses where there's a hospitality element, I totally think that there is a compelling reason to be there physical premises there. But for a lot of the tech companies, it just doesn't make as much sense as it used to. So it's definitely something that I hope people can, you know, take some nuggets from this. I mean, I love the the seven truths that you had earlier, I thought that, that, you know, like the flexibilities around your conversations, learning the tech platforms, vocations, the, the paperwork, because yeah, that not everyone is going to be totally different if you've got people work in the world and different requirements are met do have to be flexible as a business about that. If you're going to take advantage of the global talent pool, then like those relationships and gatherings as well. So there's, there's a lot that people can get from this conversation. I hope. So, Laura, before we go, tell us what is next for employee experience at direct ID,

Unknown: 42:27

there's so much so we're obviously growing the team. So we're growing going forward. But we're also aware that when a company goes through change, people don't always like change, so you get the sort of dip before you can back it up. And that's what we're sort of preparing for, how do we make sure that we keep the culture we have, and we constantly improve the culture, there will be you know, when there's change it, you're always gonna get that little dip, it's just making that dip super small. So there's a big focus around that. But obviously, onboarding, we want to make it smoother constant, every single element of HR, I guess it's the employee experience, improve it. So it's like the recruitment experience, the, you know, making sure that end to end everybody's on the same page, it's the onboarding experience, it's the communication within confluence, it's the wellbeing series that we're running, it's the making sure that it is completely relevant and, and useful to people. And, and then we're looking at growing the people team a little bit as well, just to, to make sure that there's time to focus on those things, because obviously, you have the day to day admin within within HR, but it's making sure that we have the time to really focus in and be proactive, rather than reactive as a business with our, with our teams, and read between the lines with people. So we want to encourage the sort of mental health and well being within all the teams have people listening in, we're looking at creating a bit of an internal well being team, who are people who have a passion for looking after others and supporting others. And they will act as a bit of a sounding board for myself, you know, so I then can feed that back to the leadership team of constant tweaks we can make to improve. And so yeah, it's there's an exciting year ahead of us, basically, it's a good times, and it's there's gonna be a lot of focus on how do we constantly improve that culture? How do we constantly look after the well being mental health, the experience, and you know, make sure that people are embracing that flexible working? Because it's harder than it sounds? It's a real sort of changing a mindset there. So it's a constant work in progress.

Rebecca Turnbull: 44:35

Yeah, there's always new challenges and bumps in the road that come up unexpectedly. And so it's good to see that you've got a plan for continually investing in it rather than just thinking, Oh, this is this is great. We're getting all these benefits. It sounds like you want to make sure that you're you're not just getting the benefits of business, but your employees are going to continue to get those benefits. Yeah, definite Hi. So, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been great hearing from you both

Unknown: 45:08

know, thanks for having us. It's been great to share some of the the experiences and yeah, always always interested in learning more from other companies as well. So I think sharing these things, learning from other people is really important as the world around the strangers. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Rebecca. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Rebecca Turnbull: 45:28

Thanks for listening to the Listen perspective. I'm Rebecca Hastings, founder and director at the Listen crib, the tech sector executive search and talent consultancy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. If you're a company looking to hire top technology leaders, or you'd like to discuss your next move, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me an email to Rebecca at the Listen group at dog co.uk. Thanks again for listening today.