CRASH Services’ focus on flexibility with innovative approach to work-life balance

CRASH Services’ focus on flexibility with innovative approach to work-life balance.

Leading accident management company, CRASH Services, is the latest innovative employer to announce they have reduced their working week for staff, with no impact on pay after a two-year long research project.

The Northern Ireland based firm who assist motorists involved in road traffic accidents, have cut full-time staff hours by 20%, from 35 hours to 28 hours, without reducing pay, from 6th April 2020.

Jonathan McKeown, CEO at CRASH, commented “We have over 80 employees who are customers rely on in a time of crisis.  We want to ensure they have the right work-life balance to be able to perform at their best in stressful situations. When we launched the project in summer 2018, there was real excitement within the team. We have been in operation for nearly 25 years and we have always wanted to offer the best working environment and employee benefits package, so our staff were reassured this was not about cost-cutting.

From our own research, we knew that having more free time to spend with family and friends is something employees want more of and benefit from in many ways.

Staff wellbeing has also never been as important than this year, with the new challenge that COVID-19 has brought. Thankfully the ground work we put into our working practices over the last 2 years ensured we were able to cope with the challenges the restrictions brought.”

Michelle Murphy Head of Operations & HR at CRASH Services said,

“Flexibility, homeworking and utilising technology were already a mainstay of our working practices so we were able to adapt quickly to the challenging environment this year.

‘When we first launched this project 2 years ago we knew there was a lot of preparation to do before we could implement the new working patterns We set our teams the task of reviewing every working practice, encouraging every person to look at their individual role and ask what was inefficient.  This has been an insightful process and they have eliminated some parts, streamlined other processes and used technology to make time savings.

“These suggestions were then documented before being reviewed by the management team with the vast majority of the recommendations being implemented.

“This project was not necessarily about reducing everyone to a four-day week. It might suit others to work their hours over five shorter days and if that’s what a staff member wants, we will try to accommodate them.’ Michelle concluded.

CEO Jonathan is delighted that the company can make this reduced working life a reality for the team, “We have always had very low levels of staff turnover but we never want to be complacent. We feel that with increased automation, reduced hours will be considered by more employers, particularly in the current climate where it is imperative for many businesses to find out expedient ways to carry out work. We wanted to take a leading role and are happy to share our experiences with others.”

For more information, visit: http://www.crashservices.com or call 028 9066 0244.