Gone is the culture of presenteeism that keeps people at their desks late into the evening to make up for long lunches. Now, teams decide between themselves how much holiday they will take each year and when to be in the office. Tomas says it was important to make flexibility formal to make sure that as the company grew everyone felt comfortable taking advantage of the system. It had the added benefit of making them an attractive employer for new, young talent, too.

Sol González has been with the company since before the formalised flexibility policies, and says she’s unlikely to quit – things like working from home let her spend more time with her daughter without stressing about schedules all the time. “To me teleworking has multiple advantages, such as… taking care of my little daughter when she gets ill, or having lunch with her occasionally.”

“The flexibility not to be at work at a certain time takes the stress away,” says Tomas. “Then I don’t know why but you have more productivity. When you say you trust your team 100%, people respond with more responsibility. They say: ‘This company treats me well, so I want it to succeed’.”

Change from the top

Tomas says that Spanish companies have ignored employee satisfaction in the past. Job security has traditionally been the key factor in a country where unemployment is high, meaning companies could demand more of their employees and be less flexible.