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Looking after yourself#

A very important part of a sustainably productive and happy work life is making sure you look after yourself, and maintain a work/life harmony. amazee.io provides you with structure and benefits in order to support you in this. Here we discuss how you can make these work for you and your well-being.

Prelude#

Working remotely and within a global team, being able to structure ourselves in a way that maintains our mental and physical well-being is not only more possible, but also even more vital to avoid burnout and isolation.

It can also be harder for the usual support centers (HR, Feel Good Team, Leads) to spot issues in the first place due to the distance and lack of in-person interaction. Therefore it’s important you as employees feel empowered to manage your mental and physical well-being and to actively set yourself up with a structure and routine conducive to this.

On this page, you’ll find ways we structure our processes and benefits to aid this empowerment.

Your Responsibilities#

We will do everything we can to support you, however ultimately you yourself have to own your mental and physical well-being. Therefore we have the following expectations.

  • You develop and maintain a routine and structure that works for you.
  • If you struggle, don’t suffer in silence. If you need support or advice on how to manage your well-being then reach out to HR, the Feel Good Team, or your lead. Whomever you feel is best placed to help you.
  • You communicate openly and set realistic expectations.

Flexitime#

Some days will be longer than others, so make other days shorter. When you track your time you’ll be able to use any excess hours you’ve accumulated at a later date. It’s important that you use this extra time and don’t accumulate too much. The idea of flexitime is to manage your work hours consistently and in a sustainable way, not to work yourself so hard that you build up lots of hours in order to take a month off later in the year.

Your lead and HR periodically review accumulated flexitime - If it's clear that you’re continually working excess hours and not using your time, then they will reach out to you to support you in a plan to make your workload more sustainable.

How to benefit from Flexitime:

  • Track your time! This is the key step. You can find out more about time tracking here
  • When you want to use some excess flexitime, make your lead and team aware ahead of time if you can.
  • If you book off more than half a day in flexitime, then be sure to add it to BambooHR as “reclaim my hours” too
  • Before you head off out, pop a message in the #amazeeio-team Slack channel to let the team know you’re taking time off by reclaiming some of your hours.

Flexible hours#

This one is simple, flexible working hours are exactly what they sound like. Where possible we allow you to choose and manage your own working hours in a way that works for you. In doing so we can help accommodate colleagues with personal responsibilities, lifestyle circumstances and preferences, and general “life happenings”. The idea of this is to help you build a work life that can complement your personal life.

Flexible working hours can be used in two ways:

  • In an ad-hoc manner - maybe you have an appointment you need to fit in or issues at home, or maybe it’s just one of those days and you need to start later or finish earlier.
  • In a structured manner - This would apply when you have consistent and set needs for specific working hours. Examples of this could be for carer responsibilities, regular personal appointments, or lifestyle preferences such as working outside of the standard “9-5”.

Note

It’s important to note that there are some limitations and considerations to take into account when choosing your work hours.

  • Some roles are time-zone dependent. If you’re in a customer-facing or support role, whilst you’ll still have flexibility regarding start and end times, and dealing with life events, it’s likely that there will be a business need for you to be available within certain work hours in general, so speak to your lead about this.
  • We ask that in general you are available for regular team meetings that may take place depending on your role. These meetings give us a set time to discuss ongoing topics and mean less unplanned, unstructured last-minute syncs, saving us time and affording us greater flexibility the rest of the time. 
  • You notify the team via Slack so they know when you are around and when you have to pop out
  • Work is still completed and deadlines are still met

How to benefit from flexible working hours:

  • Speak to your lead about how you can manage your work hours in your role. We’ll want to find a way that works for you and your team
  • If you have specific custom hours you’d like to work each day, or a set time you need to be free each day for personal reasons, discuss these with your lead too
  • Once this has all been arranged, be sure to update your Google calendar with your preferred work hours to stop the team or clients booking in times with you when you aren’t available

PTO has obvious uses when it comes to managing your well-being.

  • Try to plan and book your annual leave for the year upfront if you can, this has numerous benefits for your well-being
  • You’re more likely to use it
  • You have something to look forward to, this can make current work assignments or immediate workload less overwhelming
  • You and the team will be able to plan your absence ahead of time, leading to no last-minute panic closing things off before the holiday
  • When you feel like you would benefit from a break for a day, you can use PTO for a “mental health day”. Doing so can keep you refreshed and stop smaller issues from turning into things that adversely affect your mental health. Sometimes, we might not be “sick”, or in dire straits, but just need a little bit of space, so it's better to take a break, and return refreshed.

How to benefit from PTO:

  • Head into BambooHR and book time off. The request will be sent to your lead.
  • If you need to book some time off at short notice, then speak to your lead directly so they can arrange what is required for your absence
  • If you’re struggling for ideas of where to spend your hard earned PTO, then reach out to colleagues, we have tonnes of well travelled amazees (especially Martina Augurio - hint hint)
  • You can find more about booking time off here
  • In some regions Sick Leave may be available to be used in place on PTO for existing mental and physical health concerns, although using PTO effectively can be a good way to mitigate bigger concerns developing in the first place.

Avoiding Isolation - Watercoolers and Donuts#

Working remotely, we understand that there are benefits to taking the time not to work too. The usual conversations and general chit-chat which can break up the day in an office environment aren’t as ever-present when working in a distributed manner. In order to avoid the feeling of being isolated, and/or only going from task to task with no outside stimulation, we encourage attendance of Watercoolers and Donuts.

Watercoolers: 

Watercoolers are also Zoom-based social meets, but much more frequent than Donuts. They place daily to allow for the crossover of two time zones and serve also as an open forum, just to pop in and say hi to any colleagues who may have decided to join the water cooler that day. 

Donut: 

Donuts are social meets which take place over Zoom, and are completely open forum. The application matches between 2-4 people, randomly selected out of participating employees, every 3 weeks. They are a great way to end up chatting to someone you may otherwise not interact with regularly, to build closeness and familiarity within our remote team and across our timezones.

How to benefit from Watercoolers and Donuts:

Watercoolers:

  • Just join the Zoom call! We encourage attendance for anyone who is available. You’ll already have the invites in your calendar

Donuts:

  • Join the #team-donut-friends, and/or the #team-donut-1on1s channel in Slack You can find out more about Donut here

Employee Benefits#

Our benefits are designed specifically with your well-being in mind.

Tech Benefit:
This benefit can used to improve your well-being in the following ways:

  • Buying something for your workstation, enabling you to be more comfortable in your home office e.g. An ergonomic chair or standing desk
  • It can be used to purchase tech related to your well-being. e.g. a health tracker/watch, noise-canceling headphones to cut out distractions

Health and well-being benefit:
Naturally the health and well-being benefit can support your well-being over a wide range of uses:

  • Physical training equipment and members (gym/club membership, sports/training equipment)
  • Physical support tools such as rehabilitation equipment
  • Mental health support such as a contribution towards counseling, mental well-being support groups, tools and equipment.

How to benefit from... benefits:

  • If you’re unsure if something can be claimed under your employee benefits, then reach out to the #team-bizops-help channel on Slack, or reach out to HR directly if its something you’d rather keep private
  • Once you know its something covered, then you can make an expense claim for it. It will be paid in your salary. You can find out more about making expenses here.

When that’s not enough#

If you struggle, if you want or need support, if you feel isolated working remotely, if you’re unhappy or feeling overwhelmed, speak out. We have all struggled at some point. Speak to HR, or to the Feel Good Managers, or your Lead. You can find out more about ways to handle struggling at work here