Working overseas with flexibility

Jamie Heron was able to move to Ireland, but keep his job in London due to the flexibility of his employer M&G Investments.

The flexibility and understanding that Jamie’s employer, M&G Investments, has provided is part of what makes them a stand-out employer – they were awarded the 2017 Workingmums.co.uk Top Employer Award for Family Support.

Jamie is Head of Investments Portfolio, Transformation and Technology at the company and has been working there since 2001. In 2012 he and his wife made the decision to move to Ireland and in 2014 Jamie approached his then manager to see if he could work from home one day a week to enable him to spend more time with his four children and wife at the weekend. This was agreed on a three-month trial basis and has since been formalised.

Jamie says: “By having the family home in Ireland it means I fly over early Monday morning and get into work around 10/11am. I then stay in London for the rest of the week and fly home on Thursday night arriving home at 1am Friday morning.”

He says his daughters are heavily into Irish dancing and spend many weekends travelling to competitions. With him working from home on a Friday it saves him travelling back from London late on Friday night and instead allows him to have the whole Friday evening with his family. He says: “If I wasn’t able to have this arrangement it would mean I wouldn’t get to see my family over the weekend when my daughters are competing.”

Flexible arrangement

The arrangement is very flexible and if Jamie needs to also work from home on a Thursday due to the family commitments this is supported. He is also able to extend the days he works from home. Equally, if there is a reason why he needs to be in London for a particular Friday, he is very relaxed about changing his flight and working five days that week in London.

Jamie says: “M&G are very flexible with my working arrangements and in return I am equally flexible. During the week as I am in London on my own I am able to log in at night as needed. Balancing managing a team in a busy role alongside a busy family life and without the flexibility offered by M&G I don’t know how we could make things work.”

The arrangement hasn’t affected his ability to progress either. Since it came into place he has had two promotions which have seen him take on additional responsibilities.

• Vote  
• 0
• 0
• You already voted!