More and more companies are offering their employees unlimited holidays, but Norman Crowley – the CEO of Crowley Carbon – expects his trust to be repaid.
We all dream of unlimited holidays from work, and the employees of Crowley Carbon are given the freedom to decide their own hours and how much time they take off.
Founder Norman Crowley – our guest this week on The Architects of Business, in partnership with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ – explains that his company’s working ethos is mission-led, and that any flexibility in terms of time off is dependent on getting the job done and tackling any problems straight away.
“You can take as much holidays as you want, we don’t track you at all,” he tells host Tadhg Enright. “So if you don’t show up for work until 4 o’clock in the day we don’t notice because we’re what’s called ‘mission-led’.
“You do the mission, that’s the job. But if you didn’t notice that morning that there was a crisis, then there’s war. If one of your clients is in trouble and you’re not answering that, BIG problem.”
Listen to the show here…
Crowley Carbon is a massive player in the energy industry, and Norman regularly saves the world’s biggest companies tens of millions in terms of their energy costs.
He has built a hugely successful business, but tells Tadhg about time he was forced to sell his shares in another lucrative enterprise due to his lifestyle’s effect on his health.
“I woke up and I couldn’t feel my hand, and then by lunchtime I couldn’t feel up the whole side,” he reveals. “I went to the doctor’s, they thought it was very serious, they thought it was either Motor Neuron Disease or something (similar).
“It turned out to be just wild stress, basically, from this lifestyle. So I woke up one morning, went to my business partner and said, ‘I’m outta here. We’re done.’”
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