Due to the global pandemic, 2020 was the year that countless organisations embraced remote working for the first time. And in a recent nation-wide study, Resume.io found Bit Zesty to be the second-best company in the UK for remote jobs.
The study compared thousands of companies, analysing metrics like average remote salary, work/life balance, and culture. And although Bit Zesty missed the number one spot because we have fewer vacancies, Resume.io notes that we offer the best work/life balance.
We’re very proud to receive this recognition, and we’d like to take this opportunity to explain our approach to remote working.
Why did we employ remote workers?
From the start of Bit Zesty in 2012, we prioritised offering our clients the best service we could. Being more concerned with talent than whether employees could work on-site, we had remote working positions from day one.
Accordingly, our very first team included Ruby on Rails developers working abroad remotely. We realised that if you have the right team, processes and support, you can trust workers based anywhere.
As our business grew, we continued focusing on hiring the best people, regardless of their location. A few years ago, we gave most of our team—from operations support staff to UX Designers and Project Managers—the option of working fully remotely.
Where is the Bit Zesty team based?
Since we’re a UK company, we’ve always had more people based here than in any other country. However, our team has included people remote working abroad in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Belarus, Russia, Brazil and Argentina.
What makes our remote working approach successful?
We’ve developed strong communication methods such as regular ‘virtual’ team meetings, and daily use of Slack and Google Meets for seamless collaboration.
Our directors temper a hands-off approach with regular opportunities for communication and updates. We actively avoid a ‘big brother’ mindset at Bit Zesty, so staff are trusted to get on with their work while still having support when they need it.
Employees are asked to post end-of-day notes to confirm what they achieved and alert directors if there’s anything they need. Accordingly, managers are focused on information exchange and the removal of blockers, rather than supervising hourly workload.
How did the global pandemic of 2020 affect Bit Zesty?
As the rest of the world adapted to remote working during 2020, we were already comfortable with the dynamic. This allowed us to fully embrace the changes and continue to strengthen our own practices.
However, 2020 brought a lot of uncertainty with it, to many peoples’ work and personal lives. To help our team adapt, we’re now positioning employee health and wellbeing as a key priority. We’ve also made a conscious effort to increase our dialogue with staff through new engagement channels.
This year, we’re also exploring a range of initiatives to cultivate a greater feeling of connectedness, from regular all-hands meetings to fun activities.
What do Bit Zesty’s staff think?
“Working remotely for Bit Zesty allows me to live in different countries. While travelling to a new location around every six months or so, I am constantly exposed to new and different environments, cultures, and people. This enables me to try new things all the time, both personally and professionally.”
“Bit Zesty’s flexible working culture gives me the freedom to divide my work day into a few blocks. This improves my work-life balance and contributes to my mental health, as it allows for time during the day to meet friends, go to gym, surf, meditate or take a power nap.”
Kamile Mieliauskaite, User Experience Designer – Lithuanian born, London-trained Digital Nomad currently living in Sri Lanka
“While working remotely brings flexibility and a better work-life balance, in previous companies I felt siloed from the rest of the team.”
“Remote working at Bit Zesty is different. I always feel connected to my colleagues and it’s easy to remain in-the-know. We use Slack as our primary method of internal communication and this is well integrated with the other digital tools that we use.”
“Another advantage of remote working is that it allows us to have members of the development team in different timezones. As a project manager, I can provide a better service to clients since there are always developers available to help.”
Anita Mander, Principal Project Manager – from the heart of the United Kingdom, Midlands
Want to join Bit Zesty’s team as a remote worker?
To view our current remote work opportunities, visit our Careers page.
