Blended Perspectives is now a fully remote organization with no centralized office.
At Blended Perspectives, the well-being and satisfaction of our team members is at the heart of what we do. We are passionate about work-life balance and by giving employees independence and true flexibility, we are able to empower them to make the decisions that work best for them.
Like Atlassian, who with TEAM Anywhere are transitioning to a “fully distributed workforce”, we believe that where you are physically located has no reflection on the quality of work you will be producing.
That’s why we have adopted what we call “Work Anywhere”. With “Work Anywhere”, we have transitioned into a fully remote organization with team members all over Canada, the USA, and beyond… If you want to work for us and you are the right fit, then welcome aboard! It doesn’t matter where you live as long as you mesh with our values and have the right skill set.
With COVID-19 making another comeback and countries like the Netherlands moving forward with plans to make work from home a legal right, we’re more confident than ever that this was the best course of action for Blended Perspectives as an organization and for all of our team members.
If you’re interested in joining our vibrant, fast-growing, flexible team then take a look at our career opportunities!
Flexibility & Freedom
With the pandemic proving the efficiency of remote working once and for all, the quality-of-life improvements that came from working away from an office became non-negotiable for us. That’s why at Blended Perspectives, as an organization without any permanent physical locations, employees are able to work from anywhere they wish with no implicit or explicit expectations that they will be spending time in an office. That means less time commuting, more quality time with family, and greater employee empowerment.
Of course, within a healthy work-life balance, fostering a quality creative and social work environment is important. That’s why we host regular virtual and physical get-togethers and shared office spaces are always available to team members when needed.
This is an approach that works for our team and has worked for the organization as a whole. Our team are more productive than ever and more creative than ever, all while being empowered to live and work wherever they like!
Beyond “Hybrid”
Hybrid work is all the rage at the moment with employers priding themselves on expecting employees to be in the office one to three days a week (or even a month). While this is an improvement over pre-pandemic conditions, for employees it often leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, during the pandemic a number of our team members moved from downtown Toronto to other areas of Ontario (and even further afield). Requiring an explicit “hybrid” approach would require that these employees move back to Toronto or start making impossible commutes. While many organizations may say that they keep the hybrid approach “flexible”, telling employees the office is there for them but doesn’t have to be used, we feel that this can lead to an implicit pressure to be in the office and work to the detriment of team members who wish to be fully remote. The existence of an office also retains the implied, “maybe one day you will all have to be back here” mentality which can put doubt in the minds of those looking to move further afield.
Rather than maintaining a centralized office, we have partnered with a number of shared office space providers to ensure that when members of our team do want to get together to collaborate in person, it’s always an option. If they do or don’t opt into this though, we don’t mind. We believe that to get the best out of every individual in our team, they need to be fully empowered to work the way they know works best for them.
Furthermore, by committing to being a fully remote organization, we have established a firm and final commitment and culture to being a remote organization. With this approach, we are steering clear of culture clashes that can arise in hybrid approaches with some teams or individuals favouring being in the office and others preferring to be remote. At Blended, we are one team together and we are all committed to being a successful remote organization.
Why “Work Anywhere” Works
Team Autonomy & Independence
One of the main upsides team members bring up after joining Blended is the amount of autonomy and independence that they have.
Many organizations that seem to be transitioning back to in-person work appear to be doing so at the behest of the “micromanager class“. Thankfully for us, this was never a problem. We are a radically horizontal organization with the nature of remote work meshing very well with our company culture in this regard.
Empowerment is all about trust, both in terms of work itself and your life beyond work. Therefore, if you want to spend your summer abroad in a different time zone, no problem: we trust that if you are making this decision, you know it is best for you personally and best for your work.
Quality of Life Improvements
By now we’re all very familiar with the benefits that working from home can grant to one’s quality of life: from time and money saved commuting, to more flexible schedules, spending more time spend with family, and so on.
At Blended, our main priority is having happy and fulfilled employees so these advantages are non-negotiable for us. What we’ve also found as an added benefit is that happy team members make productive team members. We saw monumental productivity gains once we transitioned to being a fully remote organization with no noticeable losses to creativity and collaboration (often touted as two of the main downsides of remote working).
Purposeful Remote Working
Obviously though, work from home is not perfect and despite, to us, being the best option available there can be some issues that arise. However, at Blended Perspectives, we’ve worked hard to foster an environment of “purposeful” remote working. What we mean by this is that we haven’t just stumbled into being a remote organization, it has been a carefully considered choice so we have done as much as we can to mitigate some of the potential downsides to this approach.
In a remote work environment, employees can often find themselves working and responding to emails beyond their regular hours. At Blended, while we promote flexible hours, we actively foster a culture in which work notifications are turned off beyond 5:00pm (or whenever your scheduled workday ends) and we have found that this leads to a positive spiraling effect of fewer out of hours emails and messages.
Socializing with one’s coworkers is also an important part of a workplace environment that has the potential to suffer in a remote organization. However, at Blended we have ensured that team members enjoy regular virtual and in-person social events such as our weekly cocktail hour and seasonal get-togethers.
On top of these approaches to make remote working as good as possible for our team members, we also have incredibly stringent security protocols in place that ensure the security of our customers’ data is fully secure.
Atlassian Tool Utilization
Not only do we trust that our employees know what’s best for them, as an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner we also have a deep faith in the Atlassian suite of tools that we use on a daily basis. Atlassian’s suite of products are tailor-made for dispersed teams, especially across time zones, and we have found that our existing process reliance on these products meant a transition to remote working went effortlessly.
If you’re interested in joining our vibrant, fast-growing, flexible team then get in touch with us or apply for one of our vacancies!
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