5 Ways Venture Stream is Working to Support Employee Wellbeing

May 16, 2019

To mark mental health awareness week in the UK, we thought we’d take stock of what it’s like to work at Venture Stream and share with the wider world some of the employee wellbeing initiatives we have in place to achieve two things; firstly, to create a pleasant working environment and secondly, to help employees strike a great work-life balance.

1. Every day is bring your dog to work day

Some employers may have the odd ‘bring your dog to work day’, but here at Venture Stream, that’s something that staff have the option to do every day. There’s lots of evidence to show that pets in the workplace improve office morale, reduce absenteeism and promote a healthy work-life balance.

For us, the decision to allow dogs in the office was taken from the very early days of the company forming, rather than as a reaction from the result of any scientific study. It’s common sense that owning a dog can change a person’s life in lots of positive ways – so extending this to the workplace in order to create a positive environment was a no brainer.

On a typical day, there will be between one and three dogs in the office. Some of our regulars include:

• Ellie Robinson – Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
• • • Likes: Snoozing, cuddles and eating
    • Dislikes: Being woken up (unless it’s for treats)

• Jake Banfi – Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
• • • Likes: All food, looking for food, asking for food, doing tricks for food and his tennis ball
    • Dislikes: Being out of routine

• Bailey Brodie – Cavachon
• • Likes: Stealing toys from other dogs, looking for the other dogs, asking for attention
  • Dislikes: Being ignored by humans or dogs

• Teddy Stelling – Cockapoo
• Likes: Playtime, walking on two legs, belly rubs
• Dislikes: Being called Tina Turner
  

2. Flexible working

At Venture Stream, we like to make sure that employees know we’re flexible when it comes to adjusting working hours or working out of the office if it makes life that little bit easier for everyone.

For example, ways in which employees currently benefit from this include:

• Regular adjustment of working hours to suit home commitments or public transport timings
• The ability to work from home in order to fulfil a commitment, for example to make a GP, hospital or dental appointment or even to receive an important delivery or supervise home improvements / repairs.
• Some of our employees aren’t based in Newcastle (unfortunately for them) and so work from home 5 days a week. Currently we have a developer based in the Wirral (just outside Liverpool) and another working from home in Cramlington.

3. Free fruit & free food

We won’t bore you with 10 reasons why it’s good for you to eat fruit. For us, it’s all about balance. Each Monday we have a basket of 40 pieces of fruit delivered to the office that anyone can help themselves to. The ‘balanced diet’ part comes into its own on Fridays, when the company buys everyone lunch. This tends to be picked by an employee on a special occasion such as their first week here, their birthday, work anniversary and so on – so everyone gets a few chances to pick throughout the year.

4. Continued Professional Development

Let’s be honest, it’s in our best interests for everyone that works here to want to learn more skills – whether that’s gaining a broader strategic understanding of digital marketing or honing in on a specific discipline to become a true expert in that field. That’s why we encourage employees to develop in their roles and carve out a career for themselves right here at Venture Stream.

We welcome requests to attend courses, work with other employees within the business or gain certifications and qualifications. Ultimately, everyone needs to feel like they are fulfilled, challenged and doing a great job – and continued professional development is key to this.

5. Encouraging the ‘life’ bit of work-life balance

Naturally, everyone that works here has their own unique set of hobbies and interests and we’re always supportive of encouraging these to be pursued whenever we can. For example, optional work evenings / nights out, team building days and other activities are regularly organised. Past events include Go Karting, Go Ape, poker nights, snooker / pool nights, escape room challenges, attending local gigs, 5-a-side football and more. We’re always up for new suggestions too!

Our team is growing pretty quickly, so if this sounds like somewhere you think you’d love to work, then take a look out our vacancies page to see all of the roles we’re currently on the lookout for.