The flexible
Work Alternative

Sometimes life hands you lemons. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that lately, it feels like we’ve collectively run into a giant lemon lorry and are now standing shoulder-deep in the world’s biggest pile… of lemons. Here’s our chance. We can either stand there, paralyzed, or pull together – remotely – and make the world’s most delicious lemonade, then sell it at our virtual lemonade stand. Too abstract for you? Just replace lemons with shoes. And sports gear. And accessories. And you have PUMA.

Home office and other mobile work alternatives require an enormous amount of trust from the employer side. Having your employees out of sight, but being confident that they are still doing exactly what they need to do is tough.

But good companies, and good leaders, move beyond these doubts, knowing that – if the infrastructure is in place, and the right people are hired – the work will get done, whether employees are in the office or off-site.

To take a multidimensional look at this topic, we talked to an employee, to get her perspective on mobile working, and to her manager, to get his take on it all. Spoiler alert: They had plenty of good things to say…

The Employee Perspective

“I love mobile working, when my kid is sleeping ((laughs)). I’m able to concentrate and work more effectively when mobile working and it gives me couple of hours more time in the day – no need to drive, not so many interruptions (at least when the kid is somewhere else) and I might be able to put dishwasher on after having lunch, so it’s then done after my workday is over!”

-Miina Ritterbusch, Project Manager IT at PUMA

The Manager Perspective

“At PUMA, we took great strides to upgrade our IT infrastructure to support mobile working a few years ago, so it’s something that most users are very comfortable with. I have full faith in both the PUMA employees, mine included, and our mobile working tools and services, provided by IT. I know that – regardless of location – we‘re all doing our best and will continue to make our brand stronger and even more resilient for these increasingly dynamic times.“

-Kurt Walther, Global Director of IT/CIO at PUMA

Whether you’re managing other people or just focused on your own tasks and agenda and those of your team, mobile work can work for you. Adam Henderson, Employee Engagement Specialist, TEDx/event speaker and writer and thought leader on new ways of working, sums it up nicely.

“Modern businesses need to remove the old habits ingrained from the industrial era where you went to a single place of work between 9 and 5 every day to perform standardised.”

We couldn’t agree more. Now let’s get back to that lemonade stand. Whether we choose to work remotely or in the office, if we continue to work together to make PUMA better, and faster, there’s no limit to what we can achieve.