Speaking to Recruiter yesterday [30 July 2019], Hayley Still, an associate director at the global specialist recruitment group, revealed Hydrogen’s new initiative known as ‘I own my time’ enables consultants to work the hours that maximises their output.

This means if consultants want to work wherever they like and if they need to work at different hours to serve international clients, they can do so.

“We want to recognise as long as people are owning their output and are hitting the right outputs, we don’t mind how they do it. We want consultants to work in the best and most productive way for them,” Still explained.

She added the new initiative was optional and would not be used as a weapon to penalise consultants who are not hitting their targets by making them revert back to a 9 to 5 day. The new initiative is designed to open up adult conversations between the agency and its consultants. 

“The idea is you set up the parameters of what they [consultants] need to achieve. The more junior they are, the more guidance they need from you in what they need to do to achieve their goals, in what they want out of the job, but we still don’t set any rules for them.

“You would hope the bright sparks and talented people would recognise that to be successful you’ve probably got to be in and around people, and learning from people – maximising your time with people who have got the most experience.”

However, newer consultants will receive guidance on how they need to work to maximise their time, Still added.

“We want people who are able to recognise what they need to do to be successful. We’ll give you the support and the training and the tools to do it, but we’re not going to put rules in place to force you to do it.

“You’ve got to show that you’re motivated and want to do it. So even at that junior level we also feel we don’t want to teach them how to work 9 to 5 if that’s not going to be how they work going forward. 

“It’s a different way of life. It’s about what you need to achieve and how you need to set your week up and time up to do that.”

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