Flexible Working at Variohm

Over the past few years many of our employees have requested a change to their working hours.

This has been for a variety of reasons; family related, because of an awkward commute, or because they feel it would benefit the business.

As an organisation we want to work with our employees, we don’t necessarily say yes to all flexible working requests but if they are good for the business as well as being good for the individual we will allow our employees to change their hours where it is appropriate.

Here are some of the recent changes which have taken place at Variohm which incorporate flexible working.

Production change their hours.

Recently employees in our production department requested that their working hours change from our usual 9am to 5pm to an earlier 8am to 4pm. After discussing this with other departments who depend on production we decided this would be a good idea. It means that parts will be finished earlier in the day and more goods will be ready for despatch at 4pm, giving our stores department plenty of time to pack the parts and get them out to our customers.

Flexible working for individual employees

We have a number of working mums here at Variohm and many of them work part time with hours to suit their family needs.

Gillian our German Office Clerk also decreased her hours when she returned from maternity leave in May 2015. Since then she has increased her hours back up to 6 hours a day, just one hour less per day than her full time contract. She has chosen to work this way because it fits in well with her childminder.

Cathy is our Operations Director, she has two children who are both at school, it works well for Cathy to be in the office for the section of the day when her children are at school so two days a week she works from half nine until half 2 enabling her to drop off and pick up her children.

Alison, our Digital Marketing Co-ordinator and Emma, our Administration Manager have both recently returned to work after being on maternity leave for the beginning part of the year. They both put in flexible working requests before they left, they had to plan together to make their hours work; as they have both been working in Admin for a number of years, they know how our system works. We wanted them to be in the office on different days so that they could help where needed.

Emma returned to work in April for two days a week and has recently increased to four days a week.

She says; “I was very worried when I first found out I was pregnant as I was unsure how the company could accommodate me, my manager Cathy Donoghue talked me through different options and understood that it would take me time to settle back in. I have since been promoted to Admin Manager and I am looking forward to what challenges and opportunities my new role brings.”

Alison returned in May for three days a week – working slightly longer days.

Alison says “I’m enjoying working part-time as it means I get to spend two weekdays with my little girl. Variohm have been understanding in letting me cut down my hours. Working slightly longer days mean that I’m only losing 11hours a week instead of 14.”

Agi works in our sales department she has recently changed her hours so that she can pick up her son from school once a week, she now finishes work at 2pm on a Friday. We have supported her by granting her the request to change her hours.

Agi says; “It suits me much better to get in touch with the teacher, to give more time for my child's education. I'm glad that Variohm has been supportive with my request.”

Sales team working from home

 Some members of our sales team now work from home one day a week. This means that they don’t have to tackle the rush hour traffic to do a job which they can comfortable complete at home. They are in the office often enough to make sure that they don’t miss a thing and they are out visiting customers on a regular basis too. As our sales team all have remote access to our system and a company mobile, working from home for one day a week is just as effective as coming into the office.

We regularly receive flexible working requests, as an employer we like to make sure we are looking after our employees and listening to them so we do our best to negotiate a flexible working pattern which will suit everyone. With more of our staff becoming parents and recruiting members from further afield, we are open to the idea of giving our employees flexibility within their job roles.