London-based games firm Bossa Studios has made some changes to its work culture.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies worldwide were forced to adopt a remote working structure, including Bossa. However, the company has now asked its staff how they feel about working from home and found that 78 per cent of the workforce either preferred being at home or had no strong feelings either way.
Furthermore, 43 per cent of employees considered themselves to be more productive when working from home, with just 11 per cent feeling the opposite. On top of this, 82 per cent of management claimed that remote meetings are either easier or no different to hosting one in person, and that same percentage agreed that interdepartmental working had improved.
The main reason given for a work from home preference was family, as it offers flexible hours for employees to spend more time with loved ones. Also, a lack of commute was considered a bonus.
The choice is yours
As a result of its findings, Bossa has decided to introduce working from home as a permanent part of its work structure. However, employees will have the freedom to choose if they want to be remote, in the office, or a combination of the two.
“Once we had everyone in the business set up to work from home we began to consider what the future was for working at Bossa,” said Bossa Studios COO Vince Farquharson.
“We had heard a lot of positive comments from staff, and our first step was to gather feedback and quantify it. Was everyone happier and able to do their jobs? Was it feasible for them to continue to work from home. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, so we knew we had a will, but we had to work out the way. Bossa is built of specialist teams who all have different working needs.
“However, not a single area of our business, from the development teams of Surgeon Simulator 2 and I Am Fish through to Marketing and People, has found working from home to be negative. Additionally, management team members are the most supportive of continuing this way of working.”
Bossa is not the first studio to embrace a work from home culture. Back in May, Leamington Spa-based mobile games specialist Kwalee opened up its vacancies to remote workers, explaining the pandemic had taught it some lessons on managing teams outside of the office.
