Written by Sarah Warburton
New year, new career?
For many of us January can bring a mixture of relief and sadness that Christmas (which if you celebrate it can be a bit full on and wildly expensive) is over, the tree’s been taken down, the last of the Baileys has been drunk and that rouge After Eight has been polished off. It also brings with it the New Year which is a time to reflect on the past year and for many of us to make plans for our ‘best year yet’ (obviously we can all ignore 2020 and 2021).
We’ve had a couple of years of uncertainty; we’ve seen a global pandemic affect each and every one of us in differing degrees of severity and I for one am staggering in to 2022 with a level of optimism that it can’t get any worse. Unless however you’ve got a crystal ball that actually works we can’t foresee what is going to happen in the next twelve months. As the saying goes however, Control the Controllable’s. We’ve had so much in the last two years that has been out of our control that as a nation we rightly hunkered down, protected ourselves and our loved ones and made the best of a pretty rubbish situation. Of course some people thrived, some businesses soared but other’s weren’t so lucky. Equilibrium were in a position of strength both from a financial and cultural perspective so were able to ride the covid wave pretty effectively but for a lot of people to even have a job and a regular wage was something not to be taken for granted.
But as we start to see light at the end of a frankly massive tunnel it’s time for us to think about life on the other side. The pandemic has created a seismic shift in priorities, for some this has centred around their working life. Working in inflexible environments, feeling like just another number on the payroll and that awful Sunday night dread are old news, it’s never been good enough and now that’s more evident then ever.
Before the pandemic our culture was always at the centre of everything we did and during the crisis we worked hard to support our team - with everything from gifts, to online meditation and workout classes and even an extra days leave to recharge the teams’ batteries. We continued to recruit and grow our amazing team. As a collective we passed over 50 exams during lockdown – the focus on learning and development didn’t slow due to the pandemic. In May 2021 we won the prestigious ‘Best Companies Number 1 Financial Services Company to work for in the UK’ award.
Our culture is not something we take for granted and it is ever evolving as we find new ways to make Equilibrium an awesome place to work. Last year we introduced our flexible framework which gave the team more freedom to manage their time in a way that suits their life. We’ve also launched our Emerging Leadership program to develop our future superstars. More recently we’ve added enhanced maternity/paternity pay and enhanced sick pay to our benefits package.
We currently have some amazing opportunities available so if you’d like to be part of a forward thinking, people first team please email us at careers@equilibrium.co.uk.
