International Happiness at Work Week at Ravelin

September 23 to 27 is this year's International Week of Happiness at Work. It's an initiative that started seven years ago, with 350+ companies from 50 countries participating, according to the official website.

At Ravelin, providing an enriching working experience has always been a key goal.

But what is work happiness anyway? We’ve given happiness a lot of thought – but it’s our Ravelinos themselves who are best equipped to answer.

So we asked them. Responses included:

💙 “Opportunities!”
🤝 “Collaboration with lovely people”
📖 “A chance to learn and be creative every day”
🐶 “A consistent supply of pets in the office and pet photos!”
😃 “Fulfilling work”
🧑‍💻 “Nice colleagues”
☕ “Between one and three Aeropress coffee makers in the office kitchen at any given time”
🫶 “Freedom and space to be myself”
👀 “Custom Slack emojis!!!

There's no question about it: Happiness at work means different things to different people. We want to enable everyone to be themselves and be happier – whatever that means for them.

Here are some things Ravelin has put in place to support a happy and healthy team:

• We are a true hybrid workplace. Ravelinos can choose to come into our buzzing London office 🏢 as often as they want, work remotely, or combine the two.
• But we still love teamwork and spending social time together! Ravelin covers the costs for cross-team lunches 🥪, organize office get-togethers 🥳, and encouraging frequent team days. As well as parties 🪩, of course. We want everyone to feel included.
• Anyone can organize a microsocial event ⚽. From running to escape games, pasta making, online board games, and wakeboarding, Ravelinos love to be out and about with their colleagues.
  
• We trust our team to get work done on their own terms, and this means flexible hours ⏰ that work for different people.
• All Ravelinos have the last Friday of every month off 🏖️ to spend on their wellbeing – no matter what that means!
  
• Managing one’s career is an ongoing process that’s best driven by the individual themselves. In addition to other support, we provide a budget of £1000 a year to spend on wellbeing, learning 📖 and development.
• The “Ravelin Gives Back” 👏 initiative encourages Ravelinos to donate to worthwhile causes and also help raise money for any causes close to their heart.
• We’ve partnered up with mental health support platform Spill ☔ to offer therapy sessions, specialized advice, and support. Plus, our healthcare 🚑 coverage includes mental health services.
• Pets and happiness go together 🐶. We have a dog-friendly office (some of our colleagues’ dogs are celebrities around here!) We also provide BorrowMyDoggy memberships.
  

This is not an exhaustive list, and what we do is by no means perfect – but it’s a start.

We’ve been thinking more about our ESG and diversity policies and actions too, and many of our colleagues have been enthusiastically contributing to sessions and committees to make things better for everyone.

After all, we believe everyone should feel fulfilled here, on several different levels. And “keeping Ravelin a great place to work” is one of our organizational goals. Officially!

If you're interested in joining the Ravelin team, head to the Careers page to take a look at our current job openings.

*Guest starring: Pepper Q