Revolut’s employees have adapted well to remote working with 98% saying they’d adapted well and 90% of team leaders saying that performance was unaffected. Nevertheless, 65% of employees said that they wanted the freedom to come to the office when they wanted - maybe missing their colleagues and the ability to bounce ideas off one another in person - and so Revolut wanted to create a framework that creates a great environment for collaboration when they need it while fully supporting employees who want to still work from home, the company informs in a press release.
The same surveys showed that, while teams have been working remotely, 92% of employees found that their individual productivity had not changed or if there was a change it was positive. 80% of employees felt that team collaboration had not changed or had a positive impact and 96% of employees considered that team performance was not negatively impacted or experienced a positive change.
RevLabs will be designed to facilitate collaboration and teamwork with around 70% of office space devoted to collaboration. The new format will cater for rapid headcount growth and provide spaces for creative thinking, brainstorming, training and knowledge exchange - some of the face to face interactions that people have missed in lock-down. There will also be quiet zones and space for external meetings.
Over the course of 2021, Revolut plans to open RevLabs in new locations where it has never had a physical presence before while the current offices are gradually repurposed to fit this new model.
Revolut introduced a hybrid working policy at the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak in early 2020 and employees’ responses to company surveys have shown that the work-from-home measures were successful. The fintech’s entire workforce has worked exclusively from home since late March 2020, with minimal disruption to services. During the global pandemic, Revolut successfully launched in three new big markets, USA, Australia and Japan and launched new products including Junior accounts and commodities trading across the world.
“Our people have told us that they really love the better balance they’ve achieved by working from home. But they said they missed colleagues and the chance to collaborate face to face on key projects and to balance the convenience of home with the camaraderie of the office. RevLabs offers everyone the best of both worlds. Revolut is a fun, exciting place to work and we want RevLabs to preserve that energy. We’ll be completing the flexible working policy over the coming months, to be attractive to our current colleagues and the hundreds who will be joining us as we grow around the world", says Jim MacDougall, VP of People at Revolut.
Throughout the pandemic, Revolut has focused relentlessly on its goal to build the world’s first truly global financial superapp, adding new products and services including Revolut Junior for all customers, Rewards in several new markets, Subscriptions, new cryptocurrencies, and commodities trading. Revolut also launched Revolut Plus, which offers purchase protection to customers. Despite the pandemic, Revolut has grown its customer base in 2020 and it has kept its focus on hiring exceptional talent, with greater flexibility in a location allowing the company the ability to build increasingly borderless teams and to offer career opportunities to a far wider range of talented people.
Ten months of remote working has fully demonstrated that flexibility is good for employees and good for the company, and Revolut has adapted well to this new way of working because its systems are largely cloud based so the business can continue as usual. For 86% of Revolut’s employees, not commuting is the main advantage of working from home, while 60% reported a better work-life balance.
