The Wake-Up Call the Work Environment Needed - Tracey Carey

Tracey Carey is the Global Benefits Manager at Indeed. Tracey has managed employee benefits for over ten years across different industries. She has been in charge of the benefits strategy, harmonisation projects for mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures in markets from Canada to Turkey. She joined Indeed in 2019, with a primary focus on the EMEA region. Indeed, was one of the first companies to close all offices globally in response to the COVID19 pandemic. On March 6th Indeed requested that all 10,000 colleagues work from home.

Life at Indeed before and during the pandemic

Tracey joined Indeed in mid-November of 2019, and she feels lucky to have had the chance to experience work in the office and get an excellent feel of the company. She is part of a global team, so she was accustomed to working virtually even before this became the new normal. 

Nevertheless, she and the team miss all the facilities offered by their offices. Tracey mentioned the excellent breakfast they had available every morning, the onsite gym, and the very social atmosphere in the office.

Indeed’s shift to working from home began on March 6th, when they closed all their offices globally. The IT, facilities & office management teams did a fantastic job at making the transition as easy as possible for all of the employees. Within the first week, Tracey had all her peripherals, monitor and keyboard shipped to her home, and all the employees received a $500 stipend to set up their home offices. 

What does the future of work look like for Indeed?

The initial plan for Indeed employees was to work from home until July, but they quickly realised that the future of work is changing. Their Chief HR officer, Paul Wolfe, sees this situation as an enormous global experiment that we have all been forced into, but the outcomes are quite surprising. People demonstrated that they could work better and more efficiently when they’re allowed flexibility. 

To check the general feel on the situation, Indeed launched a global survey of all their employees asking them what way they would like to work. They were offered a fully remote option, a flex option (going to the office 2-3 days a week) or a fully office-based option.

Unsurprisingly, the most popular option was the flex option, where people get that connection with colleagues in the office, but also have the flexibility to work from home when they need to. The remote option was also very attractive.

Tracey sees this as an opportunity for the company to hire people from different locations.It is also an opportunity for employees to be more flexible with their living arrangements. 

Employee engagement and wellbeing support during the pandemic

Tracey tells us about their employee experience team and their diversity, equality and inclusion team who have been working together to make sure employees feel connected and supported during this time. They communicate via different formal or informal Slack channels, share photos from their homes all over the world and have team coffee chats and virtual wellness or fitness classes. 

The leadership team keeps in touch with employees more than ever during this time. They organise weekly updates from HR leadership and a weekly Q&A with their CEO and CTO. It’s an excellent way for them to engage personally with all of the people in Indeed, and foster that sense of community.

A passion for sailing and a personal view for the future

Tracey Carey walks us through her time as a boatyard manager and then as a world traveller. She spent ten years sailing around the world, seeing incredible places, meeting amazing people and engaging in local communities. She feels that time changed her perspective on life and also helped her develop her career in politics.

Tracey is now an active member of the Social Democrats and thinks that her politics are driven by a passion of fairness, equality and caring for people. She feels that her role at Indeed matches up very well with her values.

To Tracey, the future of the workplace is deeply dependent on each organisation. Of course, tech companies can easily transition to remote work, but there are sectors like hospitality where remote work is not possible. To her, flexibility and a change in perspective should be a top priority for more traditional companies. Most roles do not need to be office-based, and this global experiment proved one thing for sure: people are productive at home. 

Yyou can watch the full video of our conversation through this link.

Want to connect with Tracey Carey? Follow her on LinkedIn or Twitter. For more information about Indeed, you can go to their LinkedIn page.

Are you interested in learning more about workplace wellbeing and educating yourself in this area? Head on over to www.workwellinstitute.org, where I’m launching my online education programmes. You can learn all about my 8 Step Framework for developing a workplace wellness program that lasts.

If you have any suggestions for future topics you’d like to hear on the show, email me directly, brian@workwellpodcast.com