Global revenue acceleration firm Durhamlane has introduced an international working benefit to allow its employees to work outside of the UK for up to two months per year.
While headquartered in Newcastle, 25% of the firm’s clients are located in Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific region. As a result of this, 21% of its 97 employees located across the UK are multilingual and cover 12 different languages between them.
The firm created the policy, using the slogan ‘The World Is Your Workplace’, after identifying that a significant percentage of its younger employees wanted to travel alongside working, particularly those who have families in different countries.
The aim of the benefit is to complement employees’ lifestyles, allowing them to visit family abroad and celebrate religious holidays, while also having an in-office presence with clients internationally.
During a trial period, it was met with unanimous approval from an internal focus group led by Sam Vardon, Durhamlane’s junior people advisor. Received feedback stated that employees had seen an improvement to their social life and happiness outside of work, and that there were multiple mental health benefits to the policy.
Sinead Hall, chief people officer at Durhamlane, who developed the policy, said: “When we considered the diversity of our workforce, which is made up of at least 18% ethnic groups, and the fact that we sponsor migrant workers via the skilled worker route, we started to think about where some of our employees call home. This led us to looking at the ability to work internationally.
“Together with the fact that a lot of our clients have head offices all over the globe, this brought us to the conclusion that it was important to give our employees more freedom to choose their location of work, whether remotely in the UK or abroad. We believe the international working benefit does this, meeting our objectives of attracting and growing our people, not only through nurturing and empowering existing employees, but also making the business an attractive prospect to join.”
