As we continue to grow here at FuturLab, we thought it was also time to grow the benefits and perks on offer for our employees. We truly believe that happy people make great games, and our benefits are an important part of making sure everyone at FuturLab is happy and healthy.
Our benefits have been carefully reviewed and updated by our incredible People team to make sure they’re meeting everyone’s needs. We caught up with our Studio Welfare Manager, Hayley, to find out more about these changes.
What’s your role here at FuturLab, Hayley?
“I like to think of myself as self-appointed studio Mum! Technically my job title is Studio Welfare Manager, and my job is to look after our people in a way that has them feeling content and supported in the workplace. I try to be someone who anyone and everyone can turn to for advice and guidance. If I don’t have the answers, I can try to point you in the right direction.”
How important are benefits to FuturLab?
“They’re massively important. We want everybody to feel happy in their roles and we offer these perks to help with that. Work is such a big and important part of your life, so we want to make sure that you feel valued and rewarded for your hard work.
“Our benefits tie in quite heavily to our company culture as a people-first workplace and they’re a way for us to show that we take it seriously.”
What are the new benefits available to employees?
“We’ve enhanced some of our current benefits so they better suit our people’s needs.
“An example of that is we’ve increased our employer pension contributions to 5% and increased our number of fully paid sick leave to 8 days (not including long-term sickness situations). More people working for us are parents or starting families so we wanted to increase our fully-paid maternity leave to 9 months and paternity leave to 2 months – which puts us well above the government requirements.
“Dental insurance has been added to our existing private healthcare coverage and we’ve brought in some completely new perks like share options, skill development days and volunteer days so people can work on their professional and personal development.
“We’ve also introduced some additional smaller perks like paying for Xbox Game Pass/PlayStation Plus memberships and flu jabs.”
Why have the new benefits been brought in?
“We wanted to do it as a thank you to our employees. Our retention is strong because our culture is good, and as a reward we have enhanced our benefits to help show that we appreciate everyone for all their hard work. We’ve grown so fast and wanted our benefits to catch up and keep us competitive with other game studios of a similar size!”
“We listened to what our teams felt were missing from our current perks and benefits. One example is the addition of private dental care. Getting an NHS dentist is so difficult at the moment, so lots of people are having to go private or simply not visit the dentist anymore if they can’t afford it. So, we added dental cover to our existing private health insurance to help relieve the stress and cost from that situation that a lot of people were experiencing.
“Another example is introducing a day off for your birthday. We always sent people a cake on their birthday which was a nice way of extending the sort of experience they might receive working in our physical office. But, a lot of people want to celebrate their birthday doing something other than work and it gives them the opportunity to plan something nice.”
What is your favourite benefit that FuturLab offers?
“I think our free remote therapy service Spill really stands out. It’s not the sort of thing that many studios offer, and it came about because we wanted to better support people’s wellbeing and fill the gaps in our benefits. The need to focus on wellbeing became apparent during and after the pandemic and that was part of the reason my role was created – so we could do better by our employees. I’ve personally used Spill many times and it’s been a great help when I’ve felt low and needed to talk through a problem.
“My role as Studio Welfare Manager was also born out of FuturLab looking at the needs of our employees. We take welfare seriously and want to give people lots of different avenues of support.
“I also love our FuturLab bank holiday. It’s coming up later this week and it’s a nice bonus day to spend time doing what you love. As a parent, I love that it coincides with the October half term!”
How else is FuturLab focusing on employee happiness?
“One thing I love most about FuturLab is the way that there’s a real sense of community and comradery between us all. We’re all so included, and the company really is led people first. We feel informed and included in changes and updates and it’s like we’re along for the ride as opposed to things happening to us. All decisions have our best interests at heart.
“We try to give everyone ample opportunity to have their say including a monthly ‘Ask Me Anything’ which gives anyone in the company a chance to submit a question anonymously to our CEO, Kirsty, and the Chief Operations Officer, Chris, and have it answered during the company meeting. I find that the fact that we’re even asked makes me feel cared for.
“I never feel that there is a hierarchy here, I can ring up Chris for a social chat as much as the next person. I also have lunch with Kirsty often because we get on, and I don’t go into those situations anxious about the fact that ‘she’s the boss!’
“Earlier this year we were honoured to win ‘Indie Studio of the Year’ at the MCV/DEVELOP awards. That was a huge highlight for me personally and I think helps to show that people are at the heart of FuturLab’s success.”
These new benefits join our existing amazing line-up, making life at FuturLab better than ever. Check out the full list, and maybe even discover your Futur role, on our Jobs page.