Farfetch has already hired 400 in Portugal in 2020. Remote work includes mental health app and online appointments
Dinheiro Vivo
· 28 Oct 2020
The company leader in online sales of luxury brands continued to hire in Portugal during the pandemic, it already has more than two thousand employees in the country. Farfetch also has a list of perks and benefits for remote work, which is here to stay at least in a hybrid way, says the vice president of human resources Ana Sousa.
As a rapidly expanding technology company, Farfetch, a Portuguese-British company founded and led by José Neves and which is a kind of Amazon of luxury fashion, has long included a package of perks for its employees. Talent attraction is one of the priorities of any company that is distinguished by innovation. With the pandemic and the need to have more people on the job, the company has created mechanisms to provide extra support, including global access to a paid mental health and wellness services app, Unmind.
"We have created several wellness initiatives, ranging from remote classes to online medical appointments", states Ana Sousa, vice president of People Strategy at Farfetch, the first Portuguese "unicorn" (a company with a market value above 1,000) million dollars). The company already has more than 4500 employees in various areas of the world, more than two thousand are in Portugal - the majority in the offices of Leça do Balio.
Despite the period of disruption that followed the pandemic, the company that completed 12 years this month, continued to hire and, in Portugal alone, 2020 brought 400 new hires from the beginning of the year to the end of September. 70% of these hires were already during and after confinement - between March and September. There were no changes in terms of hiring strategy, but the climate of uncertainty "leads to constant adaptation".
The areas with the most hires were Operations and Technology, although they continued to hire in all areas. "These hires are the result of a business need and were not a consequence of the pandemic. These new employees did their integration remotely and that was one of the quick adaptations we made", explains the representative.
Farfetch already had several dimensions of assured employee well-being, "but the pandemic has helped to speed up some processes and ideas". "What we are certain of is that flexibility at work helps our people to promote a better balance between work and personal life."
