Global Marine Group launches a flexible working and wellbeing initiative

Now they are looking to change the way they work, with an innovative remote working initiative that will allow employees worldwide to have more control over their work-life balance. 

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the learnings taken from a year in remote working environments, the Group is launching a new programme: GMG Evolution. The industry-first initiative represents the future of working and will help to create a healthier, happier Global Marine Group family.

GMG Evolution is a unique working programme which encourages remote working for all of the employees across the organisation. It is entirely optional, but employees will now be able to determine how much time they spend in the office compared to their home, giving them more power over how they work. Employees will also be able to adjust their hours so that they can work when they're most productive and move it around commitments such as childcare or school runs more flexibly.

The company has over 900 personnel all over the world, across multiple time zones. This includes employees in offices, vessels, depots and offshore environments. Regardless of where they work and how they work, they will all be part of the GMG Evolution programme, given full support from the business’ central teams to ensure they can take advantage of the benefits.

These changes to the way GMG operates as a business are a result of listening to employees, customers and suppliers over the last 12 months and understanding their views.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent restrictions forced GMG to adapt its working practices over the past year, in order to maintain their growth trajectory. Like so many others, they invested in remote working at the start of the pandemic to ensure there was little to no disruption for their staff or customers.

This shift to hybrid working has been hugely popular amongst GMG staff as evidenced through positive engagement in WinningTemp, their employee insight tool. By learning from these adaptations and interrogating the data, they have been able to determine a new more flexible way of working, tailored to individual circumstances - which benefits everyone.

Ian Douglas, CEO of Global Marine Group spoke about the success of hybrid working, “GMG does not want to lose the best bits of these new ways of working by simply reverting to the 9 - 5 office-based patterns which were so ingrained in society pre-pandemic.”

He continued: “We are committed to continually searching for ways that we can offer flexibility on work location while ensuring the way we work meets our customers' needs. And there’s been no better opportunity than right now to make it happen.”

GMG Evolution has already brought about positive change. By giving GMG employees the freedom to choose how they want to work, the business is putting the needs of its staff first - creating a stronger, more flexible work-life balance. Internal data shows that 50% of the workforce have already seen a productivity increase through remote working. GMG doesn't want to see that end.

What’s more, by being less focused on their hub locations, GMG are able to recruit from a much wider talent pool than before. GMG Evolution will give the business access to the very best workforce regardless of their location therefore assuring the highest levels of service for customers are still upheld.

On top of the encouragement of flexible working GMG are modifying office locations so that they are more centred around collaboration – making it easy for teams to meet and work together on projects, training, creative thinking and strategic planning – with open-plan and adaptable facilities to enable them to do so.

The aim of the GMG Evolution scheme isn’t just limited to improving the business’ philosophy on work culture, it is also a progression of their efforts to reduce carbon emissions. By cutting down office energy bills and lengthy commutes for employees, GMG is doing their part in the fight against climate change.

The average UK home to work commute by car is 23 miles per day GMG has 315 office-based employees in the UK. Using these numbers in the last 12 months GMG have saved 1,702,575 commuter miles on UK roads by facilitating teams to work from home. This equates to approximately389 tonne of CO2 not being released into the atmosphere since the first lockdown began!

Given the flexible, hybrid approach that is going to be offered to all going forward through the GMG Evolution Programme, the reduction of GMG’s corporate carbon footprint will be remarkable. This will mean less energy, heating and lighting within offices, and may also reduce commuter miles by on average 60% per person - equating to a huge annual saving of around 233 tonnes of CO2 emissions. 

GMG are currently in the process of trialling the GMG Evolution scheme across multiple business units ahead of a full rollout in mid-2021. GMG will continue to monitor the efficacy of the programme to ensure they are delivering the same quality service whilst continuing to support their employees. This long-term initiative is tied to GMG’s 5-year business plan which aims to create a template for other businesses of their scale to follow. Not just in offshore and renewables, but in all industries.

Ian Douglas, CEO of Global Marine Group spoke about his excitement of being one of the first businesses to introduce a scheme like GMG Evolution: “We’ve always prided ourselves on being trail blazers within our industry so to be able to introduce a scheme like GMG Evolution is something I’m tremendously proud of.”

He continued: “We want to put our people first and give them the power on how they wish to work after all that’s the way to get the best out of anyone. I urge other businesses to follow suit and join us in this movement towards a healthier, happier work life.”