CET commits to permanent homeworking

After successfully implementing homeworking throughout the past 12 months, CET has announced the decision to commit to a business model no longer reliant on office-based working.

As a result, all near 300 employees of the property assurance specialist will now continue to permanently work from home.

Chris McLain, CET Chief Executive Officer, explained: “As a business, we have long advocated homeworking as being beneficial both for the employee and the company as a whole, and with this in mind we made the decision as far back as June 2019 to encourage our people to move away from the office as their permanent place of work.

“However, we initially had only a limited number who expressed an interest in making the switch, so we actively engaged with our teams across the business to determine how we could make the transition as smooth as possible.

“When the global pandemic developed and it became clear that social distancing was going to play a key part in tackling COVID-19, the steps that we had already taken meant that we were able to close all of our offices and move all our people to work from home well ahead of the first Lockdown. The entire process was seamless and we have found the positive impact on both our employees and the business as a whole to be enormous.”

"The feedback we received was that, although many of our staff were very positive about the move and had the technology they needed, the main concern for them was creating a comfortable place to work within their home and they were worried about having to use chairs, sofas and even ironing boards as makeshift desks! To address this, we made the commitment to deliver all the equipment and furniture required to create a safe, welcoming and efficient working environment within all of our employee’s homes across the UK.”

Since moving to a homeworking model, CET has seen absence and attrition levels fall significantly while the business has also benefitted by having an increased pool of recruits not restricted by geographical location, all of which contributed to a decision to extend homeworking after Lockdown restrictions were lifted.

Chris continued: “By working from home our employees now have greater flexibility within their lives. They don’t spend on average of over an hour a day commuting, meaning more valuable time with their families and less negative environmental impact. Similarly, any costs associated with travelling to and from work have been removed and, for those who are keen to work overtime, they find it much more convenient to work an additional hour or two at home rather than stay behind in the office, offering a welcome boost in their pockets.

“In addition to having a happy workforce, CET benefits in terms of systems stability. If there is a power outage impacting 300 people in a single building, then clearly this has a huge detrimental impact on our ability to function as a business. However, with our teams essentially working from 300 individual networks there is much less risk posed by a heavy snowstorm closing an office, while our employees don’t have to take public transport or drive in dangerous conditions.

“The benefits and opportunities associated with CET adopting a homeworking business model really are endless and we continue to engage closely with our employees to ensure that they have all the support required, not only in terms of equipment but also through our extensive team of Mental Health First Aiders and 24/7/365 access to our Employee Assistance Programmes.”