Every mental health expert I’ve spoken to tells me this way of living is toxic to our well-being. We never switch off. Many of us are aware of the toll it is taking. Personally, I find it a real challenge to do business any other way. This also seems to be true of many people I have spoken to, both inside and outside of Bastion Collective, and at all levels of various organisations.
‘Work-life balance.’ We talk about it, but I’ve never met anyone who actually has it. In my view, it doesn’t exist.
It’s a fallacy; a made-up term developed by big corporates so they appear to address the problem of working long hours. This concept falls flat because the corporate world fails to address the balance of life. Businesses only care about the work component.
How is it they have no issue with employees working till 10 at night yet are outraged at the thought of an employee going to the movies on a Wednesday afternoon?
All bosses want is for staff to work harder for longer. The outdated notion of ‘knocking-off from work’ is merely paid lip service.
A happy team makes a good team at Bastion Collective.
At Bastion Collective, we don’t strive for work-life balance. Even if it did exist we’d be firmly against it. In our minds, work and life shouldn’t be separated. If you don’t like where you’re working, chances are you’re not enjoying life. Nobody wants that.
At Bastion Collective, we create opportunities for our people to enjoy living, full stop. We work anywhere, at any time, in any fashion that works for, well, life. Thankfully, technology enables
this.
I started Bastion Collective because I wanted to create the kind of place where I’d like to work — one where people are happy to be themselves.
Over time, we’ve built an environment that champions the growth of the individual. We, as a collective, feel driven to create worldclass work, and this drive comes from passion, not pressure.
At 23 years old, I was too inexperienced to start my own venture.
Also, I was faced with the much bigger issue of being a generalist, not an expert — so I searched for people. I looked for the right people, those who were particularly good at their particular thing. That’s how Bastion Collective was born. It’s always been about people first.
In 2008, I set out looking for partners to help build an individual consulting businesses within Bastion Collective. With no money behind us, it was vital to the success of the business that we created complementary partnerships.
The kind of partnerships that add value to people’s lives and not the monetary kind. The first two years were about finding our feet. We needed to figure out what Bastion Collective could be and what it wanted to be. We acquired our first business, Undertow Media (now Bastion Effect), in 2010. Six years later and we’ve now expanded to London and Shanghai and grown the team to 150 staff.
Not everything has worked. We don’t know all the answers. But, we’ve always been comfortable with failure. It’s this approach that’s given us the confidence to keep going even when things have not gone to plan. We want to evolve and learn from everything we do.
It begins at the top
Technology has allowed us to walk what we talk. We work from wherever we are, whenever we want to. Our COO lives near the beach in Sydney, 1.5 hours away from the office. I live in London. Our CFO works two days per week from home so she can look after her daughter. Our Global CEO picks his kids up from school twice a week at 2 pm and manages his life around his home life. We meet once, sometimes twice a week via Google Hangouts. If it works for us, then it works for our staff too.
Our people are our soul. The process to join the Bastion Collective family is something we take very seriously. If we are going to genuinely make people’s lives better, we need to know everything about our new employees. We truly believe in ‘one life’ and bringing life to work every day – all the ups and all the downs. If you just want a job, then Bastion Collective isn’t for you.
We ask the candidates, as a part of the recruitment process, to deliver a presentation about themselves. This approach will bring their personal and professional lives together in a seamless manner. So, it doesn’t feel like a clash of two worlds. It’s all just life.
We’re not about being fluffy or creating a big love-in. The commercial world is not a charity institution, and Bastion Collective is no different. We demand a lot from our staff. We expect excellence and passionate commitment. We work plenty of hours.
Thanks to technology, the walls between work and play are being broken down at Bastion Collective.
At times, I am sure that it feels like our people are doing nothing else. But we’re true to our word. We don’t want to strive for a work-life balance – just one all-encompassing awesome life. Live it proud.
Be the best you can be. The best parent, the best sibling, the best friend, the best employee and build yourself the absolute best life. Don’t curse technology for encroaching on your personal life.
Praise technology for breaking down the walls between work and play. If your employer doesn’t allow you to do this, it might be time to find a new employer.