The Coronavirus pandemic has led us, and millions of others around the world, to adopt home office routines and adapt to months of social distancing from our colleagues, family, and friends. Although lockdown restrictions begin to ease in Berlin, with shops and restaurants opening their doors, remote work will remain in place for many until the end of July. Limiting the spread of the virus remains our highest priority, but we also recognize the significant challenge extending remote work poses to our colleagues. To help ease this new way of working, 360 Digital Starters have introduced a number of benefits to support our team through the process.
Crafting the perfect home office
For many, having a separate study room for remote work is not a reality. And living in a small apartment without a desk or the space to separate your work area from your personal area can prove tricky – particularly when sharing that space with someone else. Although we cannot create additional space for our employees, we can provide equipment to make the working area more comfortable. In order to do this, we asked our colleagues what they needed in order to work productively and happily at home. We then introduced a home-office budget of up to 500€ per person allowing them to purchase desks, chairs, additional screens, or anything that will improve their working conditions.
"It's exciting to be able to create your own workspace at home. It allows you to work in the best conditions. I love minimalist Scandinavian style and it was cool to source the right pieces of furniture for me - a lot of white and light wood." – Jeanne, Graphic Designer.
Keeping fit
As gyms and fitness studios closed, we were forced to put our Urban Sports Memberships on hold and find alternative means to stay fit and active within the rules of the quarantine. For us this has meant exchanging fitness plans and sharing online workouts over our dedicated Slack channel, to keep our team motivated.
Cycling scheme
To support our colleagues in finding alternatives to public transport and their paused sports membership, we are also offering them the opportunity to lease bikes or e-bikes.
For those who already partake in the company-subsidized sports membership, a small contribution will be added from their salary, but for those who do not, the bike leasing scheme is completely free!
Equipped with the tools to learn
We offer our colleagues an annual educational budget of up to 1000€ and an additional five days to attend courses. Unfortunately, live courses and training events have been cancelled during the lockdown, but for many this has opened up opportunities to take online courses at home - including a Digital Painting class and a number of online German, Spanish, and Italian language courses.
“I am very thankful to the company for providing this great opportunity to learn something new outside of the office. We can choose to study something that will improve our professional skills and help the company to grow further! At the beginning of this year I started to learn Italian, which is very exciting” – Iuliia, Marketing.