Posted by Andy.
I am working today (who takes their own advice?), but most of our staff have the day off for our ‘not-quite-statutory’, self-declared unofficial bank-holiday, Bristol Day.
Britain has not enough official holidays in our view. We can’t change that across the country (Gordon Brown could, if he chose to), but we can give Team Rubber people one extra ‘statutory’ holiday. So we did, and our staff looked frankly gleeful as they left the studio last night. They’ve got a range of things planned: pleasingly, quite a few are taking a long weekend to see friends and family (which is what we hoped as that’s supposed to be a GENERALLY GOOD THING), but really we don’t mind what they do, that’s their business.
Our business of course is running Team Rubber (Rubber Republic’s parent company): our income comes from billable time, so the cost to us is around £6000 in lost billings, but we think it’s worth it. One way to look at it is that £6k is less than the typical recruitment fee for a graduate, so if we can attract (or retain) just one person through this kind of thinking about our employment culture, that’s a winner. Or we can look at the health and productivity benefits of giving our staff a break between August and Christmas, just when those dark days come in and everyone gets a bit under the weather. And if that doesn’t convince, then it’s still a great story that’s got us good PR and is a nice thing to talk about.
Why is it Bristol Day? Because we thought it up in Bristol – the city that brought you an extra day off. We’re not the only ones doing this either, thanks to the magic of Pledge Bank, Bristol Day has been adopted by a bunch of other businesses who are imaginative about their employment culture. We’ll be doing it again next year, same time (October), same place (Pledge Bank).
So happy Bristol Day. Will you join us?
Posted By
AndyP