Spanish companies turning to flexible work
The Law of Equality passed last year is not the sole motivator towards the trend of flexible working. An increasing amount of Spanish companies value this tool as a means of holding on to valuable staff. The list of initiatives is growing and they are becoming more sophisticated, from physiotherapy to gym memberships to help for organizing vacations to car washing. Mainstays in the field, like telecommuting and flexible start and end times are increasingly popular, with companies such as MRW, a package delivery service, and Endesa, the country’s largest energy provider, among its largest advocates.
In addition, two thirds of Coca Cola staff have company mobile phones, by 2008 each employee will possess one. When Santander moved its headquarters out of the city, with many companies following suit, they created a nursery (the largest of its kind in Europe) with over 60 professionals to facilitate their employee’s commuting logistics. Others offer pregnant women prime parking spots to minimize their walks. While programmes generally occur in large companies smaller ones are slowly changing too. BMC Maderas, with 30 employees, allows workers to miss days without having to make them up based on the honour system and also provides them with 50 hours of training per year.
