How agile working made my life better at atom42
There are tons of articles on the internet about why working from home is good (or bad!) and how much more productive it can make people. Therefore, I won’t bore you with the clichés that you can find elsewhere, and I’ll just tell you about my personal experience with it here at atom42, and how it impacted my life.
So, my name is Pedro and I’m from Brazil. I came to the UK to do a Masters, met a very pretty girl and… well, as I’m writing this now, you can figure out the rest.
When I started at atom42 almost a year ago, I was quickly engaged with the team and happy in my new job, but there was one thing that worried me. If you came to me and asked:
– In a few words, why do you work, Pedro?
My reply would be instant: to travel!
My worry was that since I’m living so far away from home, I was going to have to spend all my vacation time going… home! Don’t get me wrong, I love to visit my grandma (and eat her marvellous pasta) and all my friends, but going home is not quite the same as vacation, right?
Luckily for me, a few months after I joined atom42, they implemented agile working and this has really made my life better. It started in the winter, when there were some really cold days and I could choose to work from home under the covers with a hot chocolate instead of commuting to work.
Then, it became really useful for silly daily things, such as when I needed to wait in for a furniture delivery at home. Imagine how annoying it would have been to spend one of my precious annual leave days on something like that?
However, the real benefit came when I decided to go and surprise my family in Brazil a few months ago. After a quick chat with my manager, we agreed that I’d spend a week working from Brazil and I’d take the week after off. This way I could stay at home for two weeks, but only use up one week of annual leave. How awesome is that?
It might not seem like a big deal for some people, but if you live far away from home (like a lot of people living in London), you will probably understand how I feel.
Well, as you can imagine, I’m not the only one who has used agile working here at atom42. Here’s some quotes from my colleagues about their experiences:
Elena, Web Designer, 1 year
The agile working dynamic brings me the chance to stay at my parent’s surrounded my family and homeland friends without using my days off; it’s a brilliant policy to conciliate work and personal life! Also, working from my garden in the sunny days is another great advantage!
Scott, Online Marketing Specialist, 10 months
It’s great to have the added flexibility but more than most I find a change of scenery can lead to inspiration. The extra rest time and not having to commute in the mornings can leave you recharged and sets you up for a productive day.
Now, if that wasn’t enough to convince to come work with us, it’s probably because you are crazy.
However, if you are now convinced that you would like to be part of the atom family, visit our careers page and check out the many opportunities that we have available.
Here’s a bit more information about atom42’s agile working policy
Atom42’s influx of new hires meant that we needed to rethink our working policy and it was decided to implement agile working. Each team has a ‘zone’, but we operate a clear desk policy and have the flexibility to sit where we want. If we want to work from home, we just let our team know in advance, book it into our HR system, and prepare for a day of productivity in the comfort of our own living room, or nestled into our favourite cafe.
With 25 annual leave days as standard, and an extra one for every year you work here as an added perk, every atom has plenty of time to spend exploring the world and resting after weeks of hard work. What we love about agile working is that we’ve got the opportunity to actually use our holiday days in the way they were intended.
