Last week's topic on the Coopers blog was workation. A trend within the field of new work.
Simply put, workation describes remote working from anywhere in the world -–as long as there is a stable, secure internet connection. Thus, the concept works particularly well for digital jobs, where you can literally bring your work along. Laptop in your bag and off you go.
But how much of a vacation mood actually comes up on a workation trip? And what about those who do not want (or can) travel, but prefer to work remotely from their homes?
These are questions that we are asking ourselves at Coopers, lately. As of late, all our employees can take four weeks of workation. Our colleague Dilan was the first to try it and spent some time in Stockholm – she loved it!
Stephan Mahler is Managing Director of the IT company ProCloud AG. There, he introduced the workation concept five years ago. On the one hand, to attract talented employees and, on the other, to maintain their satisfaction. Over the phone we talked about his experience with workation.
Stephan, most of us have just heard about workation recently. You and your team have implemented it years ago. What's your take on it?
We introduced the workation opportunity at our company in 2016. Pre-Covid we allowed to work remotely from anywhere for one month per year. Then, when 100% working from home was the new normal, we started thinking about how we want to work in the future and what fits our culture. The solution was easy, we increased our workation to three months for all employees.
What does your workation model look like?
The model is simple. Our employees can work from wherever they want within the workation quota. Whether it's from home in Küngoldingen, the Airbnb with an ocean view in Brazil, lively Bangkok, the national park in South Africa or the chalet in the mountains.
The important thing is that the employee is in charge and ensures that he or she plans well, communicates well and makes sure that he or she can work flawlessly.
What are your experiences with workation so far?
Our experience so far has been nothing but positive. If you have good employees, they will always put the company that enables them to do something like this first. They understand their responsibility, the performance is right. Quite often we experience even more effort than in the office. On the one hand, because they want to repay the trust placed in them, on the other hand, there is often more time than at home where they still have other obligations. It is not uncommon for the company to benefit somewhat from this additional time. Although we don't expect that.
What's especially nice is that employees often come back from workation rested and refreshed. Even though they have been working.
So, the employee feedback is positive?
Interestingly, workation is used quite differently by our employees. Some don't use it at all or only to work from home. While others already have a whole series of international workation badges in their palmarès. Around the world, so to speak.
The feedback is correspondingly positive. People particularly like to combine workation with vacations. For example, you take two weeks of workation in Bangkok followed by two weeks of vacation in Koh Samui. That allows you to experience one whole month in another world, but you only had to invest two weeks of vacation. That's already great to recharge and to experience something new.
Sounds so good that I want to start packing right away. But we have one more question: Isn't it quite challenging to work across different time zones?
The time zones can be a challenge at times. Yet, it's not really a problem. Usually, there is a decent overlap and in IT it can come in handy even when you get to do something for a client at 04:00am while it's 09:00pm at your local time.
Thank you very much for the interview and your time, Stephan.
At Coopers, we are very excited about the adventures workation keeps in store for us and all the inspiration it will bring. It fits our culture and team so perfectly, as flexibility and open-mindedness bring us all together.
What is your experience with workation? Or are you currently considering introducing it in your firm? We'd love to hear about it via email or on our social media channels Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing and Instagram.
Your Coopers Team
Photo by Muhammadh Saamy on Unsplash
