Home is where the work is

How does homeworking work for Tailored Travel?

We’ve always liked to consider ourselves a forward-thinking, family-friendly company, which is why we have been open to the idea of homeworkers. Tailored Travel currently have three members of the operations team who work from home on a regular basis. With the flexibility offered by homeworking, staff who would otherwise find balancing the demands of work and home impossible are able to remain the key staff that they are.

As our managing director, John English, says:

“I honestly believe that we have the best staff in the group travel sector. It would be madness for us to lose the expertise and experience of any of those staff simply because of some old fashioned notion requiring them to be physically present in the office. Particularly when, with full accessibility to all the same systems that we use here in the office, for the two days a week each of them are homeworking they are simply in an office that we cannot see!

“By providing that flexibility, we are not only ensuring we retain our very best staff but also that they are motivated to give their very best to their work while juggling life outside of work.”

How does homeworking work for our Group Organisers?

Our group organisers will notice no difference. On the days that they are working from home, our homeworkers are available to talk through anything you may need to discuss with them, just as you would when calling the office.  What’s more, because we work with our staff to meet the conflicting demands of office and home, they are not only able but also want to keep working at Tailored Travel. So, for you the group organiser, there is a long term continuity to the relationships that you build with our staff.

Introducing our homeworkers

Sandy Cornish, our operations manager, lives in Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury and so to avoid the rigours of a daily long commute to the office near Tower Bridge, she works from home on a Wednesday and Friday. Sandy does have to face that commute on the three other days of the week.

Louise Ramsden has two small children – Joshua aged 5 and Sophie who is 3. She also has a very supportive husband and father and the three of them work together to ensure that one of them is always there for drop off and pick up from nursery and school. That wouldn’t be possible if Louise didn’t have the flexibility of a four day week; working from home from 8:30am to 3pm on Mondays and Thursdays, in the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with Friday off.

With 18 month old baby Oscar, Kate Atkinson also needs the flexibility that home working offers to combine working at Tailored Travel with motherhood. Like Louise she works a four day week; working from home from 8:30am to 5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in the office on Mondays and Fridays with Wednesday off.