January 1, 2024
Like most people, I found the last lockdown extremely hard. Work was (thankfully) busy, but being stuck at home, missing colleagues and the “in-person” interaction from my clients and candidates that I thrive on, was very challenging.
As soon as we could double vax and escape our neighbourhood, my colleague Arron and I decided to drive up to Byron Bay for the week and work in tropical surroundings.
Admittedly, I made this decision, booked it and then okayed it with the powers that be. Colin (our CEO) was, as always, extremely supportive of the decision. Given it was a critical time during which we started returning to in-person work, I had a bit of guilt lingering and wondered if we should have just sucked it up and returned to the office to be with everyone. In true Colin style, his response to my “Is this OK?” was “As long as you take me”. What a legend!
At TalentWeb, we have built our culture and teams based on trust, values and, most of all, supporting wellbeing at all times. We work towards outcomes, but the most important thing comes first – YOU.
There is no sugar coating that recruitment is a sales-driven role, and you need to perform at your best and provide the highest standard of service at all times. Chuck in a global pandemic and “Bob’s your uncle” – the burnout hits you.
I think I may have been just at that tipping point but as soon as we got on the road, I felt the fog lift from my mind and weight from my shoulders. It’s also really important to be with your teammates in person as much as possible, and there’s nothing like a 10-hour car journey to kick that off! Thankfully, Arron and I have been mates for many years and are fortunate enough to find ourselves working alongside each other. We also share the same music choices (some bad 90’s pop and garage) which made the drive fly by.
We set up shop in the gorgeous hinterland of Clunes with our two dogs in tow (we needed the assistance with the huge workload we needed to smash through). It was a great talking point when having meetings with clients and candidates. Most comments were along the lines of “You are so lucky to work for a company that lets you do this” or “I wish my boss would let me do this” (Arron’s reply to that one was “Oh, my boss is with me!”).
Our productivity was through the roof, but most of all, we were able to balance and look after our mental health too.
I would urge anyone to put this business case to your manager and hope they support the decision to let you “work where you work best”. You don’t have to go as far afield as a week in Byron, however, you don’t always need to be chained to your desk, nor should you let yourself get to the burnout stage where, actually, you are no use to your business, colleagues or clients/external stakeholders.
It was lovely to learn how missed we were when we returned, and most of all, we are reset and motivated to finish off 2021.
A huge thanks to Colin and all of our teammates for supporting this, and also getting on board with the fun we had along the way while sharing pics and stories on our internal chat platforms.
Want to know more about working with a recruitment agency that recognises people as its greatest asset and cares about wellbeing? Reach out to me for a no-obligations conversation.
