Flexibility at SEEK
At SEEK we help our people to live fulfilling and productive working lives.
Flexibility has always been a fundamental part of the way we work at SEEK. It is not just about when and where we work but creating an environment that meets the needs of our people, different teams and the business.
SEEK is built on relationships, and the ability to connect in person and collaborate has and will continue to be an important part of what makes us special. But the last two years have changed the way we work on a global scale, and we need to adapt our approach if we want to continue to retain and attract the best talent, and foster an inclusive, engaged and high performing workforce.
Our data shows that as we emerge from the pandemic, 95% of people want to work remotely for at least one day per week, and over 60% of organisations offer hybrid working arrangements. [1]
To meet the evolving needs of our people and our candidates, we have updated our Flexible Working principles to reflect these changes, while staying true to the ways of working that have made SEEK what it is today.
Evolving the definition of flexibility
Flexibility today means more than work life balance; it is about having the choice to work where it makes sense depending on the tasks you need to do. For most of our people, hybrid working will involve working in the office for two to three days on average.
We have also introduced a new benefit at SEEK, which will allow for up to four weeks of temporary remote working. This is an exciting addition to range of flexible leave options SEEK currently provides, which includes flexi-leave days each year.
These changes are an important expansion of what flexibility means for our people, balancing the benefits of in person connection and collaboration and working from home in a way that meets the needs of the individual, their team and SEEK.
Changing expectations for Technology talent
Our recent Laws of Attraction research indicates that the ability to work from home or remote working options are considered either a ‘must have’ or an opportunity that would ‘delight’ 91% of ICT candidates compared to 78% overall. [2]
At SEEK we have big growth ambitions for the next five years. To get there, we are optimising the way work and unifying our platforms for scale across our Asia Pacific footprint, but nothing is possible without people and technical skills. If we are going to grow our workforce at the rate we need when competition for talent is so tight, we need to be responsive to what people want in a Technology role – a range of flexibility options, competitive compensation, and career development opportunities.
Ongoing Remote working at SEEK
We’ve designed our Ongoing Remote Working policy for our Technology, Strategy, Product and AI teams, who already work in a distributed way, across multiple countries or locations.
An individual’s experience, the needs of the team, the type of work they are doing and the scarcity of skills in their role are important factors when deciding on a remote working arrangement for an individual and for SEEK.
Based on the application of these principles, around half of all roles across our SPA and Technology teams are eligible to work remotely provided they are based in a country in our APAC footprint where SEEK currently operates.
This doesn’t mean that half the people in these teams will work remotely on an ongoing basis– it just means that certain roles have the option for this arrangement. Remote workers will also be expected to return to their home base once per quarter for at least a week, and continue to contribute to the culture of their wider team.
So, for talented people working in roles across SPA and Technology – from Software Engineers, Security Engineers, Principal Developers, UX Designers and Data Engineers just to name a few – at SEEK you have the option to work from an office, between home and the office in a hybrid arrangement or permanently remote.
What’s next?
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we need to be ready to adapt our approach and learn as we go. As we embed these practices, we will keep testing their success against the only metric that matters – our people.
[1] SEEK Data: November 2021. Independent research conducted by Nature on behalf of SEEK. Interviewing 4,800 Australians annually
[2] Laws of Attraction: Interviewing over 11,500 Australians, December 2021.
