At the end of a very busy and successful year, we have been reflecting on what the most important things are to us. The quality of our work has always been the number one focus at Baker Consultants, and that has helped us develop lasting relationships with our clients, some of which have been with us since day one. Often that meant putting in the extra hours, including burning the midnight oil, to keep their projects on track and strengthen our assessments. We do it willingly (although hopefully not too often!) as the whole team takes great pride in our work. Equally, we know that our greatest asset is our team and their experience and expertise is why we can deliver and industry leading service. The well-being of our team and their work/life balance is also critical to our success.
Being an ecologist is no easy career; it often involves long and antisocial hours of field work, particularly in the summer. No-one can function as their best-self 100% of the time, and we’ve never expected that. However, as the technical expertise needed to succeed in consultancy becomes ever-more complex, that means the job increasingly asks a lot of the team. As the importance of the work that ecologists do grows, quality really is more important than quantity. We want to focus on making a real difference and add genuine value to our client’s projects.
Therefore, inspired by the success of the recent UK pilot led by 4 Day Week – Global, we are launching our own 4 day week trial in January. Our staff will still get full-time pay, as we develop new efficiencies and more intelligent ways of working, to help us deliver 100% of the work, in 80% of the time. Our working days will be Monday to Thursday and the initial trial will run for 9 months, so that we can test it during both the winter months and the peak-survey season. There will also always still be a Director available for any urgent queries on Fridays.
We are confident that by giving our staff a free-day each Friday, the mental and physical wellbeing benefits that come from having permanent three-day weekends will mean we have a happier, efficient and more productive team. We will regularly report on how it’s going – and are aiming to confirm in October whether we are intending to adopt it permanently.
Our success and innovate approach mean that we are seeing demand for our services increasing. We are currently on course for a 40% increase in turnover for this financial year. We have recently recruited a data analyst who will be working with the team to develop new ways of delivering our work as efficiently as possible (more on this appointment later). If this sounds like the sort of place you’d like to work, then please get in touch with someone in the team, or send your CV to Gavin Ward (Consultancy Director) and we’ll arrange a call to talk about our exciting opportunities.
Find out more about the rest of the Baker Consultants team here.