Daniel has been working at Plantvision 2001, in other words for over 20 years. Many milestones have taken place during these two decades, including starting a family and becoming a father. So how does he manage to juggle everything in his everyday life, and what do his days look like?
"A typical workday canvary greatly. For example, I might spend half the day in meetings and then spend the other half developing a script. It could also involve running tests or performing installations. The variety of tasks is a big reason why I've stayed at Plantvision long. I rarely sit and work on the same tasks; things are always happening, which I think is really important, otherwise I think I would get pretty bored."
For our company, it is important that employees have great flexibility with their assignments so that family life can also be prioritized. By reducing the "stress of the daily grind" (long word), people will feel better and be able to perform at their best.
"I think it works really well to be a parent and work at Plantvision. I can manage my time very flexibly, which reduces stress in the morning when taking the children to preschool or school, for example. It doesn't matter if it takes 15 minutes extra if I don't have a specific time to be somewhere. It feels good for both me and the children. Of course, I sometimes have scheduled meetings that I can't control and that I need to attend, but otherwise I manage my time completely myself, which really makes everyday life easier," says Daniel.
We asked Daniel if he feels his role has changed since becoming a father or if parenthood has affected his professional role.
"My role has not changed much since I became a parent. There has been a little less travel to customers, but it is probably not because I have had children, but rather because the world has been digitized and our customers have better technology, VPN connections and the like. It has turned out to work especially well now during the pandemic, that I have been able to do my job basically as well as if I had gone to the customer. And yes, parenthood has affected me a little in my professional role. When you become a parent, I think you get a little more structure in your everyday life, and in that way you also get a little more structure in your job. That's probably mostly what has influenced me. And it is also up to me to structure when I own my time", Daniel reasons.
For many, VAB is associated with stress and this should not be the case. That's why it's important to have a good safety net, even at work.
"It usually works really well, even when I'm on maternity leave or in a jam. I have so many good colleagues that I can reach out to and ask for help, so there are usually no problems," Daniel concludes.
We thank Daniel very much for the chat and can conclude that it makes a huge difference when you are given the opportunity to be flexible. Hopefully, such a corporate culture contributes to people wanting to work with us for a long time and that they feel good at work and continually develop, without a lot of unnecessary stress.