At Booking.com, we believe in experimentation and collaborative problem solving. Finding the best ways of working for our own people is no exception.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach for how teams and individuals work and collaborate. And when it comes to where our team members work in order to be productive and effective (from the office or at home), we trust that they know best.
We have decided that instead of specifying what percentage of their time they need to spend in the office each week, we are partnering with an external expert team at NeuroPower to run a hybrid work pilot and are dedicating the year 2022 to learning together as an organization.
We’re natural experimenters, and understand that we all thrive in different working environments. That’s why we’ve taken the approach to understand our employees’ feedback as well as our business needs to offer a flexible approach for our teams. Our Hybrid Way of Working pilot offers a flexible approach for employees to work from home, while encouraging them to use our office space as an important place to come together, innovate and collaborate face-to-face.
We also currently offer a Working from Abroad solution. Our guidelines allow for 20 days working from their home country and any country where our employees have the right to work (i.e. EU citizens have the right to work from anywhere within the EU for these 20 days). The limitations are needed due to Tax and security risks. We’re exploring opportunities for improvement throughout 2022.
We’re taking the year 2022 as a learning opportunity to refine and test our approach. Our guidelines may change in the future, but we know that flexibility for our employees will remain key.
What is the process for coming to a Booking.com office?
How often you come to the office or work from home it’s currently a manager and team decision and may differ by team. During the hybrid working pilot, there is no company-wide requirement on how many days one should spend in the office.
How are we adjusting our offices to be ready for flexible work?
As we evolve how we work, the Booking.com office will evolve as well – we aim to create a great place to work and connect. In all of our offices, health and safety remains a priority and in some of our offices we currently still have safety measures due to COVID government restrictions. We continue to adapt our offices to better fit and support our employees in a hybrid way of working.
Our journey ahead
We’re going to be in a stage of experimentation, learning together, and adjusting for a while, and may need to adapt our approach. For now, we’re giving our employees and our managers the time to understand how the hybrid way of working will work best for them.
How often you come to the office or work from home it’s currently a manager and team decision and may differ by team. During the hybrid working pilot, there is no company-wide requirement on how many days one should spend in the office.
No, partial days can be spent in the office (e.g. coming in for a half day working session).
Based on our employee handbook, core working hours are during the times between 10am and 4 pm. Exceptions can be discussed with the manager and HR depending on individual needs.
At Booking.com, our offices are a special part of our DNA. Face to face connection and collaboration play an important role in our culture. While Booking.com has a flexible hybrid approach we want to encourage you to come to the office where it works best for you and the team and therefore we leave it to teams to outline how often this is.
A colleagues’ place of work will continue to be their assigned Booking.com office, unless otherwise agreed. Additionally, colleagues’ main work from home location must be within a commuting distance of their assigned Booking.com office.
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