Rental payment processing system PayProp has given its employees the ability to choose where they want to work from in future.
Rental payment processing system PayProp has given its employees the ability to choose where they want to work from in future.
From 1 July, all 134 employees across PayProp, parent company Humanstate and Humanstate’s charitable foundation GivenGain, were given this choice as part of the Humanstate group’s wider adoption of distributed working practices.
Staff in the United Kingdom, South Africa, United States, Canada and Switzerland can now work from home, while travelling, in corporate and group offices – newly converted into co-working spaces – or theoretically, the beach.
The company has already made its first fully ‘distributed’ (location-independent) appointment, hiring a new senior accountant after an interview and onboarding process conducted entirely remotely via video conferencing.
A survey across the entire Humanstate group found that 46% of employees planned to work almost exclusively outside the office even after the pandemic, while a similar proportion wanted to split their time between offices and other locations going forward.
André Holtshausen, CEO of PayProp UK, said: “We trust our employees to make the right decision both for them and the company.
“But it is prudent to monitor the situation to make sure we don’t see any loss of productivity.
“I’m proud that our team has continued to tackle their workload while adapting to this new way of working.
“It’s also great to hear from colleagues that time which used to be wasted on commuting has been put to better use, allowing them to achieve a more harmonious work-life balance.”
Distributed working became a necessity in March in response to COVID-19, but the wider Humanstate group had been considering a distributed work model before the pandemic struck.
Johannes van Eeden, group chief executive chairman at Humanstate, said: "As a global company, we were already used to working together at a distance and had all of the technology in place to do so effectively.
"Now, even against the backdrop of a global pandemic, we’re seeing how distributed work is making us more efficient and more productive than ever.”
This month, all employees across PayProp and the rest of the Humanstate group have been invited to take part in a global inter-office online fundraising challeng.
Van Eden said: “It’s an ongoing process, but I am very excited about this new chapter and the opportunities it presents.
“Humanstate’s mission has always been to remove the barriers that divide us.
"Becoming a borderless distributed organisation is another step towards achieving that – in a way that benefits both ourselves and our clients.”
