10 ways to champion a great work-life balance

How we support work-life balance as an employer: 

We know that it is our duty as a team to promote healthy work-life balances and a great culture to allow everyone to be the best version of themselves. Last year, we were proud to achieve several awards related to our working environment, including Employer of the Year and Overall Winner at the SME Cambridgeshire Business Awards, plus Wellbeing and Diversity Award at The Energy Live Consultancy Awards (TELCA).  

Before we take a closer look at the how we have achieved this, don’t just take our word for it! Here are some words from our team: 

“Working at Energise provides me the flexibility I need to maintain a sensible work-life balance. I don’t need to worry about taking time out to go to doctor’s appointments or pick up my child. I can pick up my hours at a time that suits best.” – Mags Kelly, Associate Director (Digital)   

 “For me, work-life balance means not missing out on things with my children that happen during standard work hours e.g., a class assembly or sports day etc that I want to attend. Energise give me the flexibility to attend all of these and the trust that I will work my hours later instead. Not missing out on these events is priceless to me.” – Jody Jones, Senior Carbon and Environment Consultant 

“Alongside being managing consultant at Energise, I’m a musician and founder of a grassroots campaign in sustainability for South Asian communities. Throughout my career, I was never able to find my sweet spot in being able to balance all my passions, until I found Energise. The culture to embrace and celebrate everyone for their individuality and creativity means I can genuinely bring my whole self to work, without fear of judgment because of everything I juggle. I feel empowered to manage my time effectively and still achieve everything I want to do, without having to compromise. I’m the most productive and healthy I’ve ever felt because flexible working at Energise is truly flexible.” – Vibhati Bhatia, Managing Consultant (Social Sustainability) 

Now, let’s look at how we embed fantastic work-life balance into working at Energise. 

B Corp 

We are proud to be a certified B Corp, scoring 105.2 out of 200, compared to the minimum score of 80 for certification and median score for ‘ordinary’ businesses of 50.9. As a B Corp, we focus on the governance, workers, community, environment and customer pillars, with workers being our highest scoring pillar. Through becoming a B Corp, we have made commitments to be leaders for change, exhibit transparency, prove high social and environmental performance, plus change our corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders. We also promote volunteering time to allow our team time off to do good and give back to their local communities.  

Employee benefits  

To ensure we support work-life balance, we have some perks to help. First, we offer unlimited annual leave. We know that it some people may worry about how much holiday to take, or take less holiday than expected, so we ask our team to take a minimum of 28 per year and 5 per quarter. 

We also have a wellness budget to spend three times per year, on anything that helps our team to unwind- perhaps that’s a spa treatment, day out with family or something simply to enjoy! 

Policies 

Creating policies are fundamental to ensuring that our culture is transparent, and all team members are equal and aware of what they can access. As standard, we offer a high degree of flexibility to allow everyone to maintain a great work-life balance. Our team are encouraged to utilise the hours that work best for them- whether that’s starting early, late, or condensing hours into 4-day week.  

We are proud to provide enhanced maternity, paternity, parental and sick leave policies that go beyond the minimum requirements. As well as this, we’ve recently expanded our health and wellness package to include access to private healthcare insurance. Whilst we hope the insurance isn’t needed, we hope that our team feel supported in all areas of work and periods of life. 

Leadership development training 

We know that team happiness and great culture can begin with management, so we’ve invested in partnerships with Happy to provide training solutions. Our first cohort, consisting of 8 people from the management team including our CEOs, are taking part in Happy Leadership Training. We hope they will become culture-change multipliers and encourage everyone at Energise to flourish, embody our culture values and safeguard employee wellbeing. To read more about this partnership and how it will help our team, read: ‘Happy people, happy planet: how Energise and Happy partnered for good’. 

We hope our team’s top tips and policies have left you with feeling inspired for own work-life balance. 

If you’re interested to join our team, take a look at our Careers page for current vacancies as we continue to grow!