Inzpire’s Ways of Working
28 Dec 22
InzpireBlogInzpire Culture
In the second of our blogs looking at Inzpire’s culture, People Director Rich Havercroft considers our approach to the ways we work, and how we encourage our staff to decide where, and when, and how they conduct their work to be most productive.
Working at Inzpire is about trust, flexibility and recognising that we are all human. With nearly 300 staff spread across the UK, the profile of where we conduct our work has shifted significantly over the last few years – from being predominantly office and customer site based pre-pandemic - we now have nearly 1/3 of our workforce designated as home workers. This has been driven partly by colleagues asking to adopt modern practices; and partly because we recognise that a greater use of roles not tied to a fixed location, allows us to recruit the very best individuals to serve our customers, even when they do not live near our traditional centres of gravity.
Inzpire collect the Wellbeing Special Award for Large Companies at the Best Companies award ceremony 2022.
So how have we been able to achieve that shift? Largely through evolving our people culture which already took a sympathetic approach to balancing workload and professional commitments (based on output rather than convention or time spent at a desk); and adding a range of initiatives based on trusting our people to work within a broad framework that allows them to be most effective.
We work hard to remain open-minded about how we design jobs and how best to deliver our products and services. In addition to our home workers, a large percentage of our people are able to work through a hybrid model. They have the freedom to work from an office when it is most appropriate (such as hands-on projects, meetings, collaborative workshops or when they will benefit from team interactions), while being trusted to work from home where there is no need to commute to a specific location or when output will be increased with focussed ‘thinking time’.
‘Empowered informality’ plays a large part in building a trusting workplace culture, and a great day-to-day working experience. The ability to easily adjust the working day to accommodate whatever personal or professional commitments life throws up, without the need for constant permission seeking, is enabled at a local level. This is through trusting our people to do what is right, through informal discussions within teams, and through a desire to avoid ‘micro-management’ of staff – which is neither empowering or a productive use of anyone’s time. For example, many of our colleagues flex the hours they work to accommodate commitments such as school drop-offs, exercising at lunchtime or just enjoying an afternoon walk on a sunny day, and then complete their work outside of traditional 0800-1700 hours.
Part of our productive culture comes from how we support our people, from providing modern, attractive workspaces that encourage informal personal and social interactions, to championing equally good work environments for those who operate at customer sites, and supporting our homeworkers with their productivity needs.
Do we get it right all of the time? Of course not - for instance communicating and sharing information with each other in a timely, effective and clear manner gets harder as businesses grow, especially when individuals and teams are dispersed from each other. Yet the great companies are the ones that acknowledge their shortcomings, and work hard with their people to find new ways to make their professional lives better.
Christmas party, Inzpire style.
Inzpire has long been proud to be different and to proclaim that we want our people to be happy and live well. We want our people to deliver ‘excellence’ to our customers yet also balance their personal circumstances, take holidays, eat well, move more, live mindfully and think positively. We invest a lot of time and effort into trying to support each other as best we can, and we were thrilled to have been awarded the 2022 Best Companies overall Wellbeing Special Award for Large Companies at their recent annual awards.
In summary, working at Inzpire is about treating our people uncommonly well; delivering for our customers and achieving our business targets; while having fun and striking a great balance between our home and professional responsibilities.
If, after reading this, you feel inspired to join our team, head to our careers page to view our current opportunities.
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