Blog | Tombola Careers

Last week marked one year of remote working for our permanent office-based staff at tombola. There’s still a lot of debate ongoing around the future of working from offices or remotely, and some technology companies have said they will shift to a new, or different, way of working once the coronavirus crisis is over.  The advantages this brings to the tech companies mean a reduced need for real estate investment and infrastructure, and talent can be hired from anywhere in the world.  The potential advantage to the people is the reduction of commuting times and a positive impact on work life balance. 

We’re huge believers in the value of “place” in an organisation. We feel when we physically come together it is much more of a shared experience. Those accidental and impromptu meetings, overheard conversations, the impact of body language, mentoring, learning, development and relationship building that goes beyond work is invaluable to the culture of a business.  Then there’s the less tangible aspects of identity, belonging and a visibly shared endeavour. As well as the cultural aspect we’re also very passionate about investment in the North East and we believe there is amazing talent right here on our doorstep. 

Having said that we also recognise that for our people the flexibility and choice that working from home provides is something that they really value. So, after much careful consideration we’ve decided to move to a hybrid model of working for our office-based teams, both in the UK and Europe (our +300 people strong Chat Moderator and Customer Service teams have been working from home for the last 15 years already). This will mean people have the flexibility, if they so wish, to work for up to 2 days from home, with the other 3 days being based in the office. We also want to ensure that when our people are working from the office they have that strong sense of belonging, so we’re ensuring that everyone will continue to have their own dedicated desk which is theirs whether they are in the office or not. We think this new way of working gives a good balance between maintaining the culture of tombola that we’re so incredibly proud of, and what we believe makes us unique, whilst giving people flexibility and choice. 

We’re also going to be looking at ways we can make our existing office environments the best they can be to facilitate this new way of working. 

We have an incredibly passionate and loyal team who ultimately have made us what we are today, so it’s crucial they feel happy and fulfilled at work. We know that having a happy team is key to creating the feel-good factor that helps us be the best we can be as a business. We’ve already been blown away by how our people have adapted to a new way of working in the last year and I’m confident that this hybrid model is a positive change that will help contribute to the continued growth and success of tombola. 

Starting a new job is always daunting. Starting a new job during a global pandemic - that’s just a new level!

Not being able to meet any of my new team, not being in the office and not being able to sample that amazing food at lunch. I knew that starting at tombola was going to be a bit tricky.

The first few days were great to settle the nerves that I had. I was able to meet my new colleagues through teams and it really settled my nerves. Everybody seemed to go out of their way to get in touch and welcome me. My initial days were full of really useful and informative inductions about the history of tombola and how it has become the company it is today.

Something else that really blew me away was how seriously the company values and cares about the safety of the players and how it prioritizes the safety and wellbeing of its players before any profits. The safeplay induction was a great way to understand how the company promotes its players to play safely from the amount of tools that are available so the player can play safety and a whole team dedicated to safeplay.

Overall my first weeks here at tombola have been really great and despite everything that is going on, I already really feel part of the team. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone properly! 

Sam.

This year we were lucky enough to be invited to umbraco codegarden to tell the unique story of how we used umbraco CMS to deliver content to our players during I’m a Celebrity… Get me out of here!

Umbraco is an excellent CMS and as a project/company are very similar to tombola in terms of culture – users and community first always.

You can check out our talk below