Author: neuco-user

​I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with Will & John going on 13 years. neuco is nearly four years old, but Covid19 and 2020 have been our most challenging year. We have been overwhelmed by how the team have adapted to this new environment. If anything as a group, we have become stronger and closer. 

We didn’t have to make the hard decision to put any of our staff on furlough and have been able to continue to support our partners and to work on many exciting, successful projects across the East and West Coast of the United States, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Africa, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the UK. 

We are very grateful for the collaboration and support that our partners have shown during this challenging period and have been delighted how these existing and new relationships have flourished. If anything the use of video platforms, multiple calls and time that has spent communicating with HR, Talent acquisition, Senior Management along with the Executives that we have identified has been better than we could have ever had wished for before lockdown. 

 Working from home has had its challenges BUT we have also seen the benefits:

• Better work-life balance spending time with my wife, two children and our dog Henry
• Improved Productivity
• Team collaboration on all recruitment projects 
• Increased job satisfaction
• Less time travelling
• More time for fitness

The three of us spent a day this week in the office discussing the next six months and how we continue to adapt to this new environment. With social distancing entirely adverse too, you cannot beat seeing your peers, and we are counting down the days for when we as a group are back in the office and enjoying each other’s company.

 It is exciting for this “new normality” and as we start to return to the office towards the end of the year, we are excited to see this new era for neuco and ovyo.

 As a group, we would like to say THANK YOU, and I hope you like our terrible selfie!

The Easter weekend has been and gone, with beautiful weather to be enjoyed safely from indoors. We find ourselves still in lock down and working from home is no longer a novelty. While our amazing NHS workers inspire us from the front line, in the UK, and around the world we are all called upon to do our bit. Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Safe Lives.

It’s a simple instruction, right?! How hard can it be? Wellbeing, Mental Health and staying productive has never been more important. It’s crucial that we look after ourselves to manage these challenging times. Because it turns out, endless days at home are not easy and throw up unchartered territory to navigate. At neuco, we have had a great wellbeing seminar, sharing the solutions that work for us (not the problems that bring us down!) Here are some that work for us, please feel free to take them and make them your own or get in touch with the team to ask more.

• Focus on doing one thing at a time – be it a work or home task
• Stay in the moment – if you’re on a lunch break with your children don’t be afraid to not take that call
• Have a dedicated room or place for working and only work there
• Routine, routine, routine! it may look different to pre-lockdown and change on different days but try to make a schedule and stick to it (including lunch and coffee breaks)
• To stay connected use video as much as possible
• Exercise! For some, you will get the most from lunch time exercise to break up the day, for others it’s an after work walk to wind down and others still a morning exercise challenge gets your brain going
• Get fresh air!
• Setting hourly, or daily targets can help you feel like you’re achieving
• At the end of the day, switch off all electronics and have a few hours without screen time. Leave your phone and laptop in the home office, or a different room. Read a book or do a SuDuko
• Focus on relaxing and switching off when you’re not at work
• Enjoy the extra time you’ve gained from not commuting. Use it for additional time to cuddle your baby, do some meditation, mindfulness or yoga
• Keep your work clothes separate to comfy/weekend clothes
• During the weekends, set yourself one chore or task that you’ve been meaning to do for ages EG clean out that cupboard!
• Create a routine for the children too, give them clear expectations EG shooting hoops every lunch time
• Look after yourself and stay hydrated to keep those headaches away
• Focus on what you enjoy about working from home, get that sourdough starter going or nurture your chilli plants!
• Don’t NOT do things – If you were going to have a date night, still have a date night just get creative. (Ask Tom how he turned his living room into a pub…)
• Make sure you still eat really well – healthy food is good for body and mind
• Schedule weekend activities, get practical in the garden, do a zoom family Pub Quiz or master that Roast Dinner!
• Leverage Video Technology, use this common situation we all share in to build relationships
• Start and end the working day with regular team work video calls to check in and share success

And finally, all members of neuco are enjoying good wine, G&Ts, beer and amazing food – guilt free.

I have a new obsession…

GOLD TRAINERS.

Massive, blingy, bright and bold gold trainers.

I work in a corporate, male dominated industry and it is always flattering and often positive to hear the words “I don’t see gender”, or “It doesn’t matter if you are male or female, as long as you can do the job well”. These are great statements to hear and show that we have come a long way in previous decades. However, I believe that at times, this is a double edged sword. Diversity is a really great thing, something we should acknowledge and celebrate! Often men and women can have differing approaches and needs in the work place. If we simply enforce women to behave like men, we are restricting their full potential. The roles women are increasingly stepping into and wonderfully welcomed into have been created by men.

So how are we as women meant to behave? Are we to loose our femininity and conduct ourselves in a more masculine way? What do we wear? What will be judged against? How do we negotiate it all?

Comparison also plays a large part in all of this.  I work in an office where I am the only women. And it’s GREAT! Yes at times, I know my colleagues will not be so interested in the quality of my Gel Manicure and I may hold back chatting about some aspects of life.  But 90% I’ll tell them anyway! I do not shy away from having a pink fluffy pen or being any less “me”. To do so would be stressful and false. Guess what… I also enjoy debating the merits of VAR and am a huge Bath and Welsh rugby follower. (This Six Nations is not going as planned…) And if I am honest, the boys talk about the quality of hairdressers and footwear styles much more than I do!!

My company have allowed me the space and time to work out what does it mean to be a woman in a male dominated industry and how do I want to present myself. The answer and the best possible outcome… truthfully. I have not been made to feel I have to act and present myself in a certain way. I can just be myself. Yes I have to have the guts the step into an environment where I am the minority and I am different, yes I have to work some things out for myself. But my male colleagues are totally behind me and walk the walk with me. They are open to learning and discovering what being a women in this industry is like, just as much as I am.

One of the things that has been hard, is that when I leave neuco HQ the world is a little different. I can sum this up in one experience at IBC last year. I walked into the ladies toilets, to find the cubicles taken up; but women resting their blistered, bleeding feet having felt the need to be in killer heels all day. For me this sums up what it is like being a Woman in Tech. On the outside, and by most women are welcomed and encouraged but the underlying subliminal issues do not sing from the same hymn sheet. We are expected to present ourselves in an unrealistic and traditional way.

Many men I meet at NAB and IBC are in chinos and trainers, or at the very least in smart more supportive shoes. It is universally accepted that this is perfectly fine attire. Yet women do not have this option. We have two choices, crippling stilettos or totally unsupportive pumps to complement office wear attire. I wore flat shoes last year, as we know you are on your feet all day. By day one I had blisters that had bled through, and I still have a Plantar Fibroma (a benign growth/nodule caused by walking for extending periods in unsupportive shoes). HOW and WHY is this still ok? Women should not feel they have to suffer in this way, just for appearances sake and to be taken seriously. Ultimately we should be able to wear supportive shoes like our male counter-parts
What do you think? (Seriously – I’d love to know!)

This is about so much more than shoes. No matter your background or identity, you cannot be what you do not see. So, after spending many evenings in discussion with my partner and extensive research, I have decided that starting at NAB this year, I am going to be wearing a supportive, comfortable pair of kick ass, gold blingy trainers. Gold and blingy to boost my confidence, yes… but also to make a statement. I am taking my wellbeing into account. I am going to have the guts to wear what my feet need to do the job, not what I think people want me to wear. I’m not letting my wardrobe impact my levels of anxiety. Blingy, bright and bold gold trainers, because we should be allowed to be ourselves, embrace difference and, being a woman in the industry can and should be brilliant and golden.