One of the country’s largest charities says that the “vast majority” of new staff will be able to work completely remotely under post-Covid-19 arrangements.
PDSA, the animal welfare charity, told Third Sector it was advertising some jobs with “zero expectation” that employees would work from its offices unless they wished, as part of a more flexible offer to current and new staff.
Gordon Miller, head of digital services at the charity, said the changes, which applied to PDSA’s non-frontline staff, allowed employees to work “closer to where they live, where their family are, where they feel comfortable”.
PDSA raised £105m and employed more than 300 people in support roles in 2021, according to its latest accounts filed with the Charity Commission.
Miller was speaking after research showed a 900 per cent increase in the proportion of fundraising job adverts allowing staff to split their time between home and the office.
He said that greater flexibility was “the expectation of our workforce now”, adding: “That allows us to be based anywhere in the UK – and that is bringing new voices [and] a new ability to attract talent into the organisation.”
Before the pandemic about 95 per cent of PDSA’s support staff would have worked every day at its headquarters in Telford, Miller said, but about two-thirds of his own team now have remote or hybrid arrangements.
Other changes include leasing under-used office space to other voluntary organisations and offering staff a four-day working week with condensed hours.
Miller said: “Some teams still require an occasional presence in Telford but the vast majority of vacancies that go out now are non-geographically descriptive.”
Speaking about recent jobs advertised for his digital team, he added: “There is absolute zero expectation for those colleagues to ever set foot in PDSA HQ.
“Some of my colleagues have never done so and I have no real need for them to do it.”
Miller said: “We don’t see any return to the ways of working of old.”
He also told Third Sector that PDSA used one of its main offices to provide a warm place for staff when energy bills started to spike at the turn of the year.
“Over the winter we kept it running and heated so that if colleagues were finding it tough through some of the increasing energy prices then there was a safe space for them,” Miller said.