If We Can, You Can

Author:

John Hays

Business:

Hays Travel Ltd

Published:

10/11/2008 11:14:00

We’ve got 329 home workers. It’s a great business model because it allows people to have flexibility and take their kids to school, but we’re very conscious for the individuals involved. Some people need that social interaction so we’re careful to point out the minuses.

We also put the home workers into teams when they come in for their three days training at Sunderland, so they can feel part of the company. We then give them constant support and feedback whilst they carry out their work at home.

At the Christmas party we had quite a few of our home workers attend and some of them had travelled big distances. That indicated that they do feel part of our team, and I’m obviously very grateful for that.

Technology has been quite important for us and we look to innovate where possible. It’s been instrumental in terms of system design especially for the home workers because it’s really important to have excellent communication and as good a private network as we can get. They need to be able to access and give good service to clients so we’ve got this sophisticated telephone switching system. It means that if a customer rings up who wants to go on a cruise, we can put a cruise specialist on the other end of the line very easily. It could be someone in a call centre in Newcastle or someone sat at home in Aberdeen.