Work. Life. Smarter.

Work. Life. Smarter. is Arqiva’s commitment to a flexible and hybrid working culture for everyone

At Arqiva, along with many other like-minded businesses, we’ve been aware for a long time that the world was never going to be the same once we emerged from the various restrictions that the Covid pandemic placed on our lives. Since that day in March 2020 when we were all told to ‘work from home if possible’, our teams have adapted to all the challenges thrown at them, and for that I am incredibly grateful and humbled. 

I know it hasn’t been easy and I want to take this opportunity to thank every one of them for their ongoing commitment and engagement.

I joined this business in June 2020, as the country began its first tentative steps out of the first lockdown, and we’ve been talking to our colleagues since then about the future of work. From day one we committed to thinking about our own approach with a blank sheet of paper, as throughout the pandemic we have all discovered new things about ourselves, our roles and the nature of our work that perhaps we hadn’t considered before. 

Maintaining an antenna at the top of a 1,000ft mast can’t be done from your back bedroom

So when looking at how we would approach ‘work’ in a post-Covid world we understood that is isn’t as simple as a division between ‘office’ and ‘home’. Arqiva operates critical national infrastructure and as such, we have many colleagues performing crucial roles that cannot be done anywhere else – maintaining an antenna at the top of a 1,000ft mast can’t be done from your back bedroom – and we tried hard to acknowledge the wide range of role types we have throughout our exploration of what to do next. 

Work. Life. Smarter. is Arqiva’s commitment to a flexible and hybrid working culture for everyone, giving our colleagues empowerment and support to work in ways that enable them to thrive in their role.

We are asking people to take ownership for how, when and where they work – taking into account their individual roles and responsibilities

The pandemic has challenged us, and we have learned that some jobs or tasks that we never imagined could be done remotely, actually could be, and very effectively. It just took some imagination. And that is what we are asking our people to do now – not default to the old ways of working just because it is familiar. We are asking people to take ownership for how, when and where they work – taking into account their individual roles and responsibilities, in order to secure the best outcome for themselves, their teams, and our customers. We are asking our people to think differently, to try new things, and to learn together in order to fully leverage the opportunities available to them. 

The ability to find a better balance between work and personal lives is instrumental in supporting people to feel happier, healthier and more productive in their roles.  

This could mean having team meetings in a mutually beneficial location rather than defaulting to an office

In a recent colleague survey we heard that the ability to meet up face to face in our offices and sites can provide many benefits, including the opportunity for collaboration, networking and building and maintaining connections with colleagues and customers. Whether that’s a planned meeting, or a spontaneous catch up in the corridor, there’s still a desire to come together while also continuing to recognise the benefits of remote working. For our colleagues who aren’t based in offices, this could mean having team meetings in a mutually beneficial location rather than defaulting to an office.

Conscious of all this, through Work. Life. Smarter. we are providing colleagues with the freedom to explore how to work best within a set of guiding principles. These are not a ‘one size fits all’ set of rules and we expect and encourage everyone to work together to balance business, team and individual needs. The concept of mutuality is at the heart of our principles. We’ve all learnt far more about how we can work to the best of our abilities over recent months while still delivering seamlessly for our customers. 

We’re now entering a period of what we’re calling ‘test and learn’. We know that how Work. Life. Smarter. looks now will not necessarily be its final form and I’m excited to see our teams embrace it over the summer and make the future of work at Arqiva work for them.