Flexible professional hiring platform Juggle Jobs has made diversity, equity and inclusivity a central part of its business, and uses employee benefits to help make this a reality.
Romanie Thomas, founder and CEO, says: “The purpose of the company is to create a psychologically safe environment where a good range of people can perform at their best. It’s about providing an employment environment that allows for that diversity and inclusion.”
From an employee benefits perspective, this has meant allowing staff to choose what is important to them. Staff are provided with a fitness budget rather than gym memberships, with some people choosing to spend it on yoga or therapy. “Another example of that is around learning and development,” says Thomas. “We give people an annual subscription to a platform called Sunlight, where they can choose different things that they want to do, whether that’s work-related or non-work.”
Flexible working also helps to create an environment which works for a wide range of people. “I’m loath to call it a benefit because it’s how we should all be working,” says Thomas. “But if flexibility is completely normalised in the organisation at a cultural and policy level, then that’s probably the most inclusive benefit of all because it enables people to work completely on their own terms.”
She admits that the business has yet to fully solve the maternity and paternity leave issue, as well as childcare, but has again sought to give employees flexibility. “We say people can have as much time off, within reason, as they need, within a year,” she says. One employee has currently been off for a year, while Thomas herself will shortly be taking a period of maternity leave.
The business employs 15 people, with women accounting for 42% of the total number, and 50% of the senior leadership team. “We work across five different countries, and have six different nationalities,” says Thomas, who is also a board adviser at Circl, which works to give young adults from underrepresented backgrounds the skills they need to find work. “Sometimes we dwell on an issue a bit longer, because lots of people are coming from different perspectives. But I think it’s given us a performance edge.”