This week I interview Molly Johnson-Jones of Flexa. Flexa have a simple mission “To bring flexible work to everyone”. Given we’re in the midst of the biggest flexible work experiment the world has seen I wanted to find out more about Flexa but also Molly’s take on the world of work and whether the promised land of flexibility is here to stay or is this simply a blip on the way back to business as usual.
How did Flexa start?
Like a lot of the start-ups in the Decksender start-up community Flexa was born from a very personal story just over a year ago. Molly had requested flexible working with an employer and 10 days later was given her marching orders. This probably sounds alarming, unfortunately her story is not unique, the promise of flexible working is often a promise that’s quickly broken. Not every company behaves like this, the central premise at the start of Flexa was based on employers who could use flexible working as a talent acquisition strategy in polar opposite to Molly’s personal experiences.
What is Flexa?
Put simply Flexa is a flexible working platform. The platform started as a flexible working jobs platform that launched in February this year. The initial demand came from people already in flexible roles who wanted to ensure that if they moved they would retain the flexibility they had. It quickly became apparent that most employers didn’t really understand how to deliver flexible working and this has lead to an evolution of the platform. As such Flexa aim to be the one-stop-shop for flexible working, applying a seal of approval to employers, advice on managing flexible working and of course a place for employees to find roles.
The Flexa team
The Flexa team is made up of three co-founders who collectively take care of finance, technology and client and talent comms. They’ve deliberately kept the team lean and as such the current lockdown hasn’t affected them too badly.
Funding
To date the team have bootstrapped the business to the point of revenue generation. They’re now in the midst of their first seed round and have already amassed about 80% of their £250,000 target. Grab a look at their deck there’s a link below.
The future
Molly’s very pragmatic about the future of work. At the start of the lockdown everyone was giddy about the prospects but this has steadily weaned over the last few months. In her experience most companies haven’t changed their attitudes. However, it’s a totally different story for the workforce for whom flexible working is now one of the most important factors. This is likely to create a scenario driven by supply and demand, with employees moving to companies that can offer what they are looking for, a real risk for those determined to maintain the status quo. This is where the reframe is likely to take place as employees change what’s important to them at work.
We’ll move beyond the idea of flexible working to a place where people can choose how they work.
Longer-term this shift in priorities could well start to reshape the relationships between employer and employee, it’s fair to say the talent pool will vote with it’s feet. It’s certainly easy to see how the decisions made over employment will be less focussed on the pay-check and more about the well-being.
However things pan out I see a bright future for Flexa positioning themselves at the heart of flexible work, helping companies and employees transition into a new normal.
More about Flexa
Flexa pitch deck
Flexa on Linkedin
Flexa website