Organisational and personal development opportunities have largely fallen by the wayside for companies since the pandemic forced workers out of the office and into pyjama pants.
Logistical and technological barriers mean that it isn’t as easy as getting everyone into a room together for scheduled development programs, despite being an important part of business growth.
Making the shift to digital work as smooth as possible has been priority number one for Class (ASX: CL1) making them an employer of choice in the highly competitive fintech industry.
Ignite@Class is the latest initiative launched by the Company where employees get one day allocated per month to simply innovate or learn. There are no meetings, BAU or sprint work, the day is purely reserved for innovation and connection with other employees. These days offer employees a chance to explore ideas they wouldn’t usually have the time to do and collaborate and problem solve with one another.
As workplace culture leaders, Class is going beyond providing their employees with the tech requirements. They’ve also been working to foster a culture of wellness.
Chief People Officer Jacqui Levings noticed the shift at Class last year and saw an opportunity to improve the lives of employees. “2020 saw a rise in mental health issues related to COVID-19 and long-term remote work. Class shifted to 100% remote work, and quickly recognised the need to support our people’s wellbeing to maintain connection, productivity and engagement”, said Levings.
Burnout is a rising concern with 61% of Australian workers reporting being at least somewhat burned out. With this in mind Class has launched another new initiative- ‘Class Recharge Days’. Class is gifting their people with company-wide days off to support employee mental health by allowing them to fully disconnect and recharge. By having most staff off work at the same time employees aren’t inundated with a backlog of tasks on their return.
These collective days off are also coupled with day to day initiatives to benefit employees such as limiting meetings to 25-45 minutes and encouraging teams to finish work at 3pm on a Friday.
Class is an excellent example of a Company that knows how to get the most out of their workforce by treating employees like human beings, and recognising the need for balance. Carving out time for both innovation and R&R are equally important, especially in an increasingly noisy world.
Many of these initiatives are part of Class’ wider 3-year Reimagination strategy to transform their already market-leading tech stack into new markets for wealth management and administration.
2 years into Reimagination, Class reported a 25% increase in revenue to $54.9m and 15% increase in underlying EBITDA to $21.9m for FY21.
Scaling the business further while prioritising innovation as a tech employer of choice, the Company has flagged a further 18% increase in revenue having issued FY22 guidance at $65 million.
Investors can learn more about Class and their leading workplace culture in a special report here.
*Owners of this website are CL1 shareholders
Samantha Freidin is a business journalist at Emerald Financial whilst also completing a Masters of Marketing and Digital Communications at Monash University.
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