February 23, 2021
Balancing profession and private
Intro
In our job interviews with potential future employees we have a running gag: “At Factorial everyone works flexibly and remotely, not only when the heating meter stops by”. We as a company think that providing a healthy professional environment for our colleagues helps them to stay creative, focused and passionate about what they do rather than being forced to jump back and forth between things.
Bringing the team together
Our team at Factorial currently consists of 36 colleagues, 33 of whom are permanent employees and a small number of freelancers. We work from a total of 9 countries, including Spain, Belgium, Brazil, Serbia, Ukraine, the USA and Singapore. We combine 12 nationalities, speak a total of 30 languages and in our daily work we communicate in English. So we are used to working in different time zones and taking care not to schedule our meetings in such a way that some colleagues have to get up in the middle of the night. We took a close look and realized that 17 Factorial colleagues work remotely on a permanent basis. One of the longest since 2016 in a home office.
About handling family and work in one go
It is important to us that every employee is given the opportunity to integrate his/her family situation and leisure activities into the daily work routine. Some life situations require flexibility in work scheduling. We accommodate this and allow for individual arrangements. Our partners and our joint projects are a high priority for us. We have had many positive experiences talking openly with each other and finding a solution together for timings and appointments.
We have colleagues who take care of relatives in need of care, provide childcare in the afternoon, are on training courses or are involved in voluntary work. The basis for a good relationship between employees and the agency is to delegate responsibility and to be able to trust that everyone will do their job, act (manage) the projects and decide on their own responsibility at what time of day or when in the course of the project a task must be completed.
“The appointments with our partners have of course priority, just like our team meeting, which takes place with all employees every two weeks. Nevertheless, we allow flexibility in our daily work and always try our best to find a solution for all situations. For me personally, it’s more important, the team is motivated and make a conscious decision to stay with our company for a longer period of time.”
Some examples from our colleagues
For a more detailed look at how we handle Flex Work at Factorial, here are some selected examples from our colleagues*:
Alvaro has been working remotely from Spain as a backend developer since 2018. He is not available for us from 2pm-4pm, as he takes care of his children during this time. He picks them up from the kindergarten, then we have lunch together and in the afternoon he continues working on his projects for Factorial. Our colleague Yang from northern Germany does the same. He has two hours off over lunch and spends this time with his family. He could be in our office in Ottensen in 40 minutes — but he simply doesn’t have to. Katrin, Head of Project Management, works part-time at Factorial in a lead position. She is present at any important meeting and coordinates the team while simultaneously taking enough time for her family.
Kurt, Frontend Developer at Factorial, is taking care of a family member due to illness. The flexible work schedule allows him the time to attend all medical appointments and care. And I myself, Seda, responsible for People and Culture, spend several weeks a year with my family in Turkey, working 50% of my time there so I can spend the rest of the time with my loved ones. Due to the distance I can’t visit them very often so I am thankful for having the opportunity.
Dare to work with us?
We have a very good experience with our offer and can thus hope for higher chances of attracting someone suitable for our team in the highly competitive market around frontend developers or DevOps. The fact that some freelancers decide to take a permanent position with us after some time as freelancers makes us happy at the same time shows us that we are fit for the future as an employer with flexible working time models and a great team behind us.
We are always looking for new talents and team members! Check our job vacancies here
