Employees at GoCardless, a leading fintech for bank-to-bank payments, now have the flexibility to work away from their normal place of work for up to 90 days in any 12-month period. Those who qualify for the ‘Work Away’ scheme can request to work from any location that meets GoCardless standards for safety, security and privacy.

The Work Away policy forms part of ‘Adaptive Working’, the working model GoCardless is implementing after the pandemic and beyond. Under Adaptive Working, employees will have the autonomy to decide the number of days they work from the office, aligning with their teams to maximise collaboration and socialisation. The remaining days will be spent outside of the office, enabling employees to retain the benefits of remote working.

Adaptive Working incorporates feedback from a company-wide survey which asked employees about their experience working during the pandemic, and their hopes for the future. Employees felt that work/life balance was the area which most benefited from working remote first (chosen by 66 per cent of respondents). This was followed by cost of living (51 per cent) and productivity (39 per cent).

In contrast, four in ten (39 per cent) believed collaboration suffered the most, second only to fun/enjoyment (45 per cent). Looking ahead to post-pandemic work patterns, nearly two-thirds of employees indicated they prefer to go to the office one to three days per week. About half (51 per cent) said they would use remote working to ‘work anywhere in the world’.

GoCardless has created a senior role, Head of Workplace, to lead the rollout of Adaptive Working and manage the workplace going forward. Lloyd Lasade, an industry veteran with previous experience at WeWork and CBRE, started in-role last month. In the near-term, Lasade will be responsible for reopening all six GoCardless offices around the world. His long-term mission is to create and evolve a workplace, wherever that may be, that enables GoCardless employees to perform at their best.

Eva Ducruezet, Chief People Officer at GoCardless, said: “The pandemic dramatically changed everyone’s idea of ‘the workplace’. But while lots of businesses are solving for their post-pandemic working model, most see it as a one-off exercise, namely ‘how do we reopen the office?’

“The approach we’re taking moves beyond that. It’s treating the workplace as a product or a service that we provide employees. How do we constantly evolve it so that we ensure our employees are set up for success, wherever they work? By taking that mentality, the workplace becomes a strategic asset and a source of competitive advantage.”

Lasade said: “The pandemic has forced everyone to try remote working. The paradigm shift that followed means the old model of being in the office Monday through Friday, nine to five, is gone. That genie is not going back in the bottle. What we need to look at now is, how do we ensure employees - no matter where they are - can do their best work? And, for a fast-growing company like GoCardless which onboarded over 270 people since the pandemic began, how do we design an office that reflects our culture? These are the challenges I’m excited to work on as we create an office that meets our needs for today and tomorrow.”