The world of work has experienced a huge shift over the last few years, from centralised teams working in offices to distributed teams working remotely from across the globe. Technology has enabled collaboration, and workers and companies alike are embracing new ways of working like never before.

For employers to remain competitive in a talent-led market, they need to explore new opportunities that may have been previously out of reach. One of these new opportunities is hiring a global workforce. The benefits for organisations include: 

• Improving diversity of talent and thought 
• Uncovering a vast talent pool 
• Building an international employer brand 
• Expanding into a new market with new customers 
• Enhancing employee engagement by increasing flexibility with Work from Anywhere policies

“In the new world of work, employers need to look beyond borders and hire a globally distributed workforce. That’s why we’ve partnered with Omnipresent, so employers have the ability to access a wider talent pool, while also remaining competitive in a talent-led market.” Tim Grimes, Co-Founder of WorkYourWay.

But international employment is complex. That’s where Omnipresent comes in. The Employer of Record (EOR) model isn’t new; it’s been around for decades. However, as more and more businesses open up to global hiring, Omnipresent are stepping in as a simple solution to international employment. Omnipresent have already helped hundreds of organisations hiring internationally, including Halfbrick, Daltrey, Cube, Layer.ai, and more. ” 

Omnipresent makes it quick, simple, and easy to hire remote teams anywhere in the world. From onboarding to payroll and legal compliance, they take care of all your employment needs. 

• Employ Anywhere: Never lose out on another world-class candidate. Hire any talent, anywhere with Omnipresent. They help employ talent compliantly in over 160 countries and regions. 
• Onboard Anytime: Onboard remote employees or teams seamlessly and efficiently. Omnipresent manage all the complicated administration behind the scenes. 
• One Invoice for Everything: Omnipresent handle all of the complexity of local taxes and cross-border payments. Pay your team’s salary, taxes, and benefits in a single monthly invoice. 
• Benefits for Everyone: Provide competitive, locally relevant benefits packages for everyone in your team, regardless of where they are based.

“Flexibility is key to the way people work, and the future of hiring depends on it. Together with WorkYourWay, we champion working flexibility on a global scale, and enable employees and businesses to make dream jobs a reality.” Beth Skelton, Partnerships Manager at Omnipresent

To explore Omnipresent for your business, sign up here and get a discount as a WorkYourWay subscriber.

Employee benefits are an essential component of any competitive compensation package. They are the additional perks, programs, and incentives that companies offer to attract and retain the best talent. Benefits can come in various forms, such as healthcare, retirement savings, paid time off, and other types of insurance.

Offering strong benefits can have a positive impact on employee morale, job satisfaction, and overall productivity. Employees who are satisfied with their benefits are more likely to feel valued by their employer, which can increase their loyalty and reduce turnover rates. Additionally, offering benefits can help companies attract top talent, especially in highly competitive job markets.

Moreover, benefits can have a positive effect on employee well-being. Access to healthcare, wellness programs, and mental health services can support employees’ physical and emotional health, making them feel more engaged and motivated at work. Benefits such as flexible work schedules and paid time off can also help employees maintain a healthy work-life balance, which can improve their overall quality of life.

In 2023, beyond key components of salary, flexibility and location, candidates are now utilising benefit packages to choose between employers. Still, organisations are still failing to offer candidates unique benefits they actually want. Here’s a list of benefits organisations need to offer:

🏠 Home Office Budget – employers should offer a specific budget each year to employees to improve their quality of life while working from home.

🕒 Pre-start PTO – individuals rarely take time off between jobs due to financial needs. Organisations should offer employees paid time off before starting their new role.

🗺 Work Anywhere – allow employees to work remotely overseas for short-periods of time each year. Employees can then extend holidays, or differentiate their place of work.

👼 Workplace Nursery Benefit – enables parents who have chosen nursery care for their child whilst they are at work to save tax and NI on all of their nursery fees.

🧑‍🏫 L&D Budget – employees value continuous learning, and employers should offer individuals a specific budget to spend on training every year, including development programs and mentorship opportunities.

🏝️ Unlimited PTO – if your culture embraces annual leave (and it should), giving people the option to have unlimited days off can be a game changer.

🛐 Flexi Bank Holidays – not everyone aligns with the same calendar; offer employees flexibility to take their local country’s bank holiday allowance for other religious or cultural days.

🏖️ Career Breaks / Sabbaticals – allowing employees to take extended periods of time off gives them the ability to fully recharge (and paid ideally).

👨‍👩‍👦 Enhanced Parental Leave – offering individuals extended paid leave when they become a parent (birth or adoption), regardless of their gender, country of residence or family circumstance.

🧠 Mental Health & Wellbeing – could include providing employees with frequent workshops, 1-1 sessions, wellbeing subsidy or mindfulness app subscriptions.

👶 Fertility Treatment – either financial support or extended time off for medical appointments and treatments.

🏥 Private Health Insurance – offering employees a private health policy can deliver significant long-term benefits to both your business and your employees.

💸 Pension – employees plan for the future; don’t underestimate the importance of a decent pension, and going beyond the minimum pension contribution goes a long way.

In summary, company benefits are crucial for attracting and retaining talent, improving employee morale, and supporting employee well-being. Companies that invest in their employees’ well-being through benefits can create a more engaged, productive, and loyal workforce. Benefits also should be tailored; not everyone will become a parent; not everyone will want Unlimited PTO. It’s not all about money or budget, it’s about personalisation and meeting the diverse needs of your employees.

Increasingly in recent years, as flexible working has become the norm in many industries and labour market competition has increased due to the impact of ‘The Great Resignation’, many companies are turning to the shorter working week as a vehicle to give them a competitive edge when it comes to talent attraction and retention.

The momentum building behind the shorter working week movement has been growing exponentially all over the world in recent years, with more and more organisations from a diverse range of industries introducing reduced-hour schedules, and more and more evidence building of the range of positive benefits that this new way of working brings.

“The 5 day, 40 hour week is a human invention that’s out-dated for today’s world of work. It’s time we reinvent how we work, and shorter working weeks put emphasis on working smarter and outcome based, rather than focusing on just hours worked.” Tim Grimes, Co-Founder, WorkYourWay

That’s why we’ve decided to partner with The Work Time Reduction Center of Excellence, to help forward-thinking businesses make the change to working shorter and smarter through their industry-leading supports and services.

“Since the pandemic, offering flexible, hybrid and remote working is no longer a competitive advantage in many industries – it is a standard expectation. Offering a shorter working week is a surefire way to differentiate yourself in a crowded recruitment market.” Joe O’Connor, Director and Co-founder Work Time Reduction CoE

Together, the Work Time Reduction Center of Excellence and WorkYourWay can deliver a solution which maximizes the capacity of businesses for talent attraction and retention, and increases the availability and accessibility of jobs offering reduced-hour schedules for employees.

“Moving to a shorter working week will have a greater impact on gender equality in the workplace than any other policy. It presents an opportunity for businesses taking a values-based, DEI-driven approach to recruitment.” Grace Tallon, Head of Operations Work Time Reduction CoE

By working with companies leveraging new shorter working weeks, WorkYourWay will be able to connect job-seekers with opportunities, where the emphasis is on working smarter and outcome based, rather than focusing on just hours worked. If you want to know more about our partnership, please contact us.

We’re excited to announce that in 2022, we’re joining forces with Anna Whitehouse (Mother Pukka) from Flex Appeal, the UK’s leading driver of flexible working research and legislative change, to make flexible working a reality for all candidates and organisations. Our partnership together will create the UK’s most influential and powerful flexible movement.

87% of people want to work flexibly, but only 11% of jobs are advertised as flexible. That’s why both WorkYourWay and Flex Appeal exist, to close this gap. We’re at the start of our journey, but change is already underway with 1000’s of candidates signed up to WorkYourWay, and global brands driving forward change. 

Our Co-Founder, Tim Grimes, comments, “Anna has been leading the flexible working revolution for years, and bringing both our organisations together helps us achieve our collective mission: make flexible working a reality for all. Regardless of age, seniority or gender, we both have the collective view that everyone should have the opportunity and right to work flexibly.”   

Unemployment has peaked at 3.5% this August, and yet simultaneously there are 1.3 million jobs that are vacant. Millions of people who could contribute their skills to the recovery are facing barriers from outdated work contexts and cultures. We are tackling this head on, removing the awkward first-date interview question and revealing all to both parties from the get go. 

Anna Whitehouse, Founder of Flex Appeal, comments, “For decades, we have all kept our lives and struggles secret, desperately trying to work around an archaic 9-5 pm work day that dials right back to the Industrial Revolution. Now it’s time for change; enough is enough. WorkYourWay is our grassroots movement to bring all companies into the 21st century with a truly flexible job search for candidates. This is for everyone who has been denied flexible working and those desperately seeking – the power is shifting – and we’re making flexible working the norm, not the special request for job hunters today.”

Anna continues, “Flexible working isn’t just for mums or dads. It’s for everyone. And Tim and I have come together to launch a job-matching solution that will truly change how we work. If companies are serious about inclusivity and diversity in the workplace and want to play their role in closing the gender pay gap, they will join our fight for change, one job at a time. We’re bringing jobs to the market with a side of Flex Appeal.” 

We have big ambitions for our partnership, which is backed by some of the industry’s leading investors and D&I organisations. Our goal is to help 100,000’s of individuals find flexible jobs every year, not just in the UK, but globally. 

Watch this space. WorkYourWay + Flex Appeal = flexible working for all.  

As a job seeker, it’s incredibly difficult to find an organisation’s approach to flexible working. 68% of companies in the UK don’t outwardly publicise their flexibility, yet 98% of individuals are in favour of employers publishing their policies. That’s why we’ve launched our very own tool, to change the lack of transparency between organisations and candidates.

Welcome to Flexibase, the UK’s first database that allows candidates to find an organisation’s approach to flexible working, developed in partnership with Flex Appeal (Anna Whitehouse) and leading D&I consultancy, Included.

Flexibase gives candidates the ability to find an organisation that fits their flexible working needs, while allowing organisations to outwardly publicise their approach. The platform utilises our bespoke flexible working methodology of four key components: working patterns, workload, workplace and life events, which features 20+ different types of flexible working options.  

Our ambition and goal is to provide a flexible working database of all businesses in the UK that have 250+ employees across all sectors, including finance, technology, construction, retail, IT, health, education & more. At present, there are over 8,000 businesses in the UK with 250+ employees. While our platform is initially focused on larger organisations, it’s available to all businesses regardless of size. Please contact us, if you’d like to be featured or involved with Flexibase. 

“Candidates for too long have struggled to understand whether an organisation fits their needs and flexible working requirements. Flexibase changes this, giving organisations the ability to be transparent in one uniformed structure. Flexibase will change how candidates find an organisation in the future, helping to eleviate problems in the recruitment process.” Stephen Frost, CEO of Included.

Flexibase not only provides transparency between candidates and organisations, it sets an industry standard framework for business to implement when developing their own approach to flexible working. This is about changing transparency and setting an industry standard for the future of flexible work.

“For so long we’ve been lobbying government to change the current flexible working policy to ‘flex from day one for everyone’. To be able to work with a platform like Flexibase that creates cultural change is huge. WorkYourWay could bypass the sluggish shift we are seeing in shifting the way we work. It’s not simply about where people work but who you include at the table. Here’s to a more flexible future where everyone can truly work in their own way.” Anna Whitehouse, Mother Pukka & Founder of Flex Appeal

Navigating the world of careers hub to find an organisation’s approach to flexible working is finally over. To discover an organisations that fits your flexible needs and requirements, visit Flexibase. 

British retail consortium, Marks & Spencer, have just released an updated flexible working policy, which provides more choices and options for its store staff. 

Marks and Spencer has identified the need to attract the best talent, and have designed a new way of working, titled Worklife, which focuses on an employees work-life balance.

Launching in January 2023, M&S will allow its 3,000 retail staff additional flexible working options, such as working a four-day compressed week, spreading their hours over five days, or a nine-day compressed fortnight. To drive additional inclusivity, part-time managers will also be able to access their own pro-rated version of the compressed ways of working on offer. 

The retail giant initially tested this across 100 stores, with 75% of retail managers stating that compressed hours had a positive impact on their family life. Alongside their new approach, M&S have also implemented a new internal tool to help retail and support centre staff with job sharing. Their new platform, Job Share Finder, enabled staff to upload a biography and connect with potential matches. 

According to the employer, the ‘Job Share Finder’ emerged from its International Women’s Day ‘Ideathon’ in March, and was inspired by those returning mothers who wanted more flexibility. 

Sarah Findlater, group HR director at Marks and Spencer, said: “We want M&S to be a great place to work and shop and that means having engaged colleagues with a good work-life balance. We’ve listened to colleagues and are determined to create a cultural shift to flexible working across our stores. Those retail managers taking part in our compressed hours trial agree it has been a game changer by giving them more choice and autonomy. “We’re also always keen to put colleague ideas into action like our new Job Share Finder and are determined to keep exploring ideas that transform the way we work at M&S.” 

Simply put, flexible work isn’t one size fits-all. When an individual searches for a flexible job, they need to be able to combine multiple ways of working into one search. That’s why we developed WorkYourWay, to allow candidates to find a role that fits your needs and requirements. 

Built for today’s job market, WorkYourWay utilises a unique flexible working framework of four key components: working patterns, workload, workplace and life events. Our four different sub-groups refer to different aspects of your working life – these generally differ for every individual: 

1. Working Patterns: these refer to how your contractual hours are split across the days of your working week. For example, patterns include part-time, term-time, annualised hours, flexi-time & more.
2. Workload: the amount of work assigned to you or expected in a specified time period. For example an organisation may offer you job sharing, reduced hours or commissioned outcomes.
3. Workplace: the location where you work for your employer. There are four core workplace options: hybrid working (office / home), remote or mobile working, work from home (WFH) and office-working.
4. Life Event: this usually refers to a significant event in your life, which can include events such as shared parental leave and career breaks / sabbaticals.

So, how do you find your perfect job on WorkYourWay using these groups? Candidates have the option to combine up to 23 different ways of working, across these four key groups; for a full list of these, head to our definitions.

Here’s how to search using WorkYourWay: 

To ensure we match you with the correct roles, insert your preferred title / keyword, location, job function, along with your desired flexibility across working patterns, workload, workplace and life-events. We’ve analysed 1,000’s of job searches and discovered candidates combine on average 3-5 different ways of working to find their ideal job. Here’s some examples of what you can search for: 

• Full-time + Flexi-time + Compressed Hours + Remote Working
• Part-time + Flexi-time + Office Working
• Full-time + Hybrid Working + Career Breaks & Sabbaticals
• Part-time + Phased Retirement + Work From Home
• Full-time + Remote Working + Shared Parental Leave

Once you’ve added all your options, start filtering through our job listings; keep an eye out for our ‘match rate’, which indicates how relevant each job is to your search criteria. We also include additional information on each job to help you with your search. These include: 

• Core Hours: some roles may specify core hours that you are required to work. That doesn’t mean they can’t offer flexible hours, but it’s worth keeping an eye out. 
• Hybrid Working: all our roles list out the number of days you get to work at home vs. the office if the job is listed as hybrid. Some may offer 1-2 days, others 3-4 days every week. 
• Key Skills: at the top of every job description, we have several key skills listed out. Do you match with them? If so, make sure they’re also on your profile to help with additional matching. 
• Flexibility: towards the bottom of every job description, you’ll find the flexible working options across working patterns, workload, workplace and life-events. 

Once you’ve found your ideal role, you can either ‘Add to wish list’, or simply go ahead and apply. If you have any additional questions, or need some more information on our flexible working options, please contact us.