Seat Allowing Thousands Of Its Employees To Work From Home

Seat has launched a new work model for its employees that will allow them to achieve the ideal work-life balance.

The new initiative is dubbed ‘Smart Work’ and has been agreed to with trade union representatives. It combines in-office presence with remote working and will enable those who join the initiative to work from home up to two days a week and give them the flexibility to organize their own schedule between 6 am and 8 pm.

During the coronavirus lockdown, Seat had more than 5,000 employees to work remotely, and while many are now back in the office, Seat says that of the 5,554 people that are eligible for the new Smart Work initiative, more than 1,000 have signed up during the first week of implementation.

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“Continuous improvement, professional growth and the well-being of employees are a priority for SEAT,” executive vice president for Human Resources and Organisation at Seat, Xavier Ros, said. “With Smart Work we want to consolidate a new digitalized, flexible and sustainable work model, which enables a better balance between people’s personal and professional lives. After the experience of the last few months, it has become clear that remote working is here to stay. At SEAT we want to continue to move in this direction and this initiative demonstrates the company’s commitment to being an innovative, agile employer, capable of retaining internal talent and attracting new professionals.”

As part of the initiative, a digital disconnection agreement is made that states the employee has the right not to respond to any type of communication outside working hours, ensuring that even though they may be working from home with instant access to work resources, they can fully unplug when the work is done.

Seat workers who want to apply for Smart Work will need to hold a position that enables distance working and must complete a training course on Occupational Risk Prevention.