Picnic named a flexible company to work for, with 89% verification score

User-first advertising marketplace, Picnic, has been certified as a flexible place to work by Flexa, the leading UK verification provider.

Flexa members have to pass an independent verification process, including a survey of existing employees, to ensure their ways of working are genuinely flexible. Picnic has received an overall FlexScore of 89%, highlighting its commitment to providing a flexible workplace that meets the needs of today’s workforce.

As part of Flexa’s patented Flexification® certification, Picnic has achieved high marks across a range of categories, including Location (96%), Role Modelling (97%), Autonomy (92%), Hours (92%), Culture (92%), Mission (92%) and Work-Life Balance (85%).

A key theme highlighted among employees is trust, with comments identifying Picnic as “a very flexible and open work culture, where everyone is trusted to get their work done, regardless of location and working hours”. Others say the company is “entrepreneurial, fast, experimental, brave”, as well as “honest, open and kind (which is rare)”.

Some of the benefits that contribute to Picnic’s accreditation include 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays, a work-from-anywhere scheme, a flexible working week, pension match/increase, share options, salary sacrifice, team-building days, summer hours, company-wide shutdowns, holidays and offsites, as well as enhanced maternity and paternity leave, adoption and pregnancy loss leave, and a cycle-to-work scheme.

Picnic’s VP People & Operations, Connie Tough, says: “Picnic has always been a people-first company that fosters a bold, ambitious and open-minded working culture driven by trust. Being recognised as a flexible company that trusts and respects employees is a testament to this commitment. We know that flexible working means different things to different members of staff, so being a member of Flexa is really important to us.”

Speaking on the company’s stance on DEI, another key marker of flexibility, Tough says: “We are especially proud of the gender diversity at Picnic. 50% of the engineers we have hired have been female, which is a real achievement in an industry where women make up just 16% of the IT Engineering workforce today.”

Other employee feedback from Picnic’s Flexification® process includes:

“We have a strong balance between most people being in the office a couple of times a week without it being compulsory. We also have amazing benefits including 'Work From Roam', allowing you to work from anywhere in the world for a couple of months.”

“The people at Picnic are highly motivated, ambitious and genuinely excited by the product we're building, which makes it a very supportive and collaborative place to work."

"A very flexible and understanding team where trust is highly valued. The work-life balance is great, and the work itself is challenging and rewarding. Everyone is open to answer any question, so it's a great environment for people new to the ad tech industry as well."

Also pubished in: The Drum