Returning to the Duffel office in 2022

On 11th March 2020, Duffel was a team of 18 when we temporarily moved to work from home. On 10th March 2022, we’re now a team of 77 and with the continued rollout of vaccines and easing of COVID restrictions, we’re ready to safely head back to the office.

Over the past 18 months, we've learned that employees do their best work differently from one person to the next. For some, it's being surrounded by their teammates and the ability to jump into a room for a brainstorming session. For others, it's the flexibility to work from home while balancing personal responsibilities.

We surveyed our colleagues and we are pleased to share a hybrid working policy that helps everyone do their best work and keep a balance between Duffel responsibilities and life beyond the office.

What did Duffel team members ask for?

In our team survey, we found a lot of overlap in what colleagues valued:

• Time together. The number one reason to come back to the office is to spend time with colleagues and collaborate in person.
• Flexibility. Our team members have different likes and dislikes, working preferences, communication styles, and commitments outside of work. We needed a policy that was flexible to include everyone.
• Productivity: Many team members feel they are as productive or more at home than in the office.
• Balance: Splitting time between working from the office and working from home was important.
• Expectations: Be crystal clear on what's expected when returning to the office.
• Community: There's no substitute for being face-to-face when it comes to forming durable relationships and creating a sense of togetherness. We have big ambitions as a company and we want to achieve them together.
• Intentional gathering: To build a strong foundation for collaboration and trust, we wanted to get together for a reason, for the kind of high-bandwidth conversations that lead us to quickly converge on problems/solutions and make decisions to unblock ourselves.

What is our approach?

Employees can work from home up to three days a week

We’re able to work from home up to three days a week and come into the office twice a week. To make sure we’re intentional with the time we spend together, we’ll work from the office every Thursday to have lunch together with a company All Hands meeting straight after. This meeting is an opportunity to share updates from across the business, big and small wins from teams and individuals, and look ahead to the coming weeks and months.

The second day in the office is a dedicated ‘Team Day’ for cross-functional teams to collaborate and work on solving big challenges with ideas sessions, deep-dives, retrospectives, and presentations.

Employees can work remotely from anywhere in the world for up to 25 working days a year

You read that right. It means Duffel team members can be found exploring new cities, relaxing at the beach, or visiting family around the world without having to use their annual leave allowance. This benefit can be booked exactly like regular leave in our internal HR tool.

This flexibility was in place pre-pandemic and we’re making this official so team members know what to expect. We follow Foreign & Commonwealth Office guidance to make sure team members are working in a safe environment.

What else is Duffel thinking about?

Safety and COVID precautions

We want Duffles to feel safe and comfortable coming into the office. To help with this, we’ve published an internal COVID-19 safety policy detailing cleaning protocols, an office booking system, and regular lateral flow tests.

Social

We want to have fun as well as get on with the serious business of disrupting the travel industry. We’re planning monthly in-person socials – quizzes, table tennis tournaments, team dinners – so we can switch off from the day-to-day and get to know each other better. We’ll still offer virtual social sessions for folks who can’t join in person.

Continuous improvement

Our hybrid working policy isn’t set in stone. We’ll continue to survey Duffles each month to find out what’s working and what isn’t. This will likely change over time and as the company continues to grow.

Is Duffel hiring?

Absolutely, we’re looking for new team members across the organisation including Product, Engineering, Sales, and Partnerships. Find out more at duffel.com/careers.