The Inside Scoop At ScreenCloud

Inside Scoop is a segment in which we take a closer look at our Flexified partners and what it's truly like to work for them.

This time around, our Co-founder, Molly Johnson-Jones caught up with Anna Thomas, Talent Acquisition Manager at ScreenCloud. 

Tell us what ScreenCloud does in one sentence

We are a SaSS business, creating software which enables our customers to create content that can then be mirrored on multiple screens. 

How would you summarise your working environment?

We’re fully hybrid, so under normal circumstances, we have two to three days in the office and the rest of the time you can work remotely. 

How would you describe ScreenCloud's culture?

So we’ve got four hubs, and I think one unique thing about us is that everyone feels like they know each other; everyone feels like they’re in it together and we’re all really transparent. 

We’ve still got our three founders in the business.

I would say that’s definitely been a big thing at the moment, with people onboarding remotely, everyone still feels like they’re part of the same business and not left out, so to speak. 

We’re very much a community and as we’ve grown (we’re now over 100 people), that is something that has remained a constant theme - feeling like we’re a community and almost like a family! 

ScreenCloud have always been pretty flexible...

Has the pandemic changed your attitude to any aspects of flexibility or has it made you realise you were always doing the right thing?

We’ve actually just reviewed our benefits and we’ve now implemented a working from home budget, so each individual who joins us has a £150 budget (and it’s the same equivalent across all of our locations), to purchase anything they need to make their working from home environment more comfortable.

So, whether it’s a desk or a monitor, and then these are things that our employees can keep, they don’t belong to ScreenCloud, it’s theirs. It just means that they can work from home with all the tools that they need.

Could you ever return to an office-only 9-5 environment?

No! Absolutely not. I was having a conversation with my colleagues and we were saying, how did we get to an office in central London, for 9am? I’ll still probably go back to three days in the office, just for some structure and so I’m not in one room, but no, I couldn’t go back to five days and I think a lot of people would agree.

What is your favourite benefit at ScreenCloud?

I’d say the Working from Home fund, but also there’s another we’ve recently implemented which is our Development Fund. So, every employee now has a certain amount of money in a “kitty”, where they can look to improve their skills. So whether that’s purchasing books, or some people have purchased audiobooks instead, some have taken courses or a day’s training for a certification.

Another great benefit we have is our volunteer days, so, being able to take a day out of work to volunteer for a day; to work at a charity shop or work with charities in general, or attend charitable events and things like that.

We’ve had a big overhaul with our benefits this year!

What is your favourite thing about working at ScreenCloud?

I think it’s having people spread across the world, pretty much, we’ve got another office in LA and we also have one in BangKok.

I have to work with everyone, which is great. You get to see so many different perspectives, so many new ideas coming to light, but also there’s so many different cultures -  even in those offices, there are people from all over the world and I’d say that’s definitely my favourite thing about working here. 

What advice would you give to prospective employees?

I think you have to be very open, and it’s great for people who are comfortable with change because no day is the same.

You’re not going to have your same structure every day, it’s going to be different, because we’re scaling, we’re growing; we’ve hired 40 over the last year. There’s constantly new faces and you’re not going to be the new person for very long, because there is always going to be someone else coming in within the next few weeks. So, you need to be open to change and open to seeing a lot of new faces. 

What is your ideal future of work scenario?

How would you be working in 5 years time...

I think how we’re about to come into this post-Covid world of hybrid working, is the ideal. I’ve worked for businesses where you need to be in the office five days a week and they wouldn’t have ever imagined anyone being remote.

Having the option of coming in for five days if you want to (we tend to say 2 days a week is our minimum), but then having flexibility to work around that. Maybe one day you’ve someone coming to the house to fix something so you can’t come to the office, but the next day you have dinner plans after work in London, and then it makes more sense to be in the office