In association with 

The BlackBerry Remote Employer Award is for employers and companies that promote flexible working solutions with home working options or remote working. Also open to companies planning to implement a remote workforce. 

Read more details about The BlackBerry Remote Employer Award.

Name: Dr Amanda Potter CPsychol, Coulsdon, Surrey
Title: Managing Director
Company: Zircon Management Consulting Ltd
Website: www.zircon-mc.co.uk

Zircon is an entrepreneurial Business Psychology Company specialising in Talent Assessment, Development, Coaching and Engagement Consulting. Established in 2000 by Amanda Potter, Zircon draws their expertise from a team of 140 remote Psychologists and HR Consultants to deliver the most creative and suitable solutions to their clients.

Zircon originated from Amanda’s passion to find opportunities for Business Psychologists and HR Consultants to develop and work on client projects. Amanda’s style is energetic, enthusiastic, forward looking and engaging and Zircon’s culture and values reflect this.

Amanda is driven to give people the opportunity to develop, learn, share and deliver in this increasingly competitive climate - whilst still having the flexibility to work from home and achieve work life balance.

Zircon is different to other leading HR and Psychology Businesses. Amanda and her Directors at Zircon work hard to provide a local, flexible, cost effective, eco solution to their clients by offering a network of local consultants to deliver talent projects. Indeed, even the Zircon Directors are remote workers, operating mainly from their own home offices.

Working from home and using as much technology as possible, Amanda, her three co-Directors and two project co-ordinators use email, conference call technology, the internet, social media sites and webcams to conduct virtual meetings, manage projects and book consultants. This approach supports their Green values which encourages booking local resource for work.

Amanda said: "I am delighted that Zircon have been shortlisted for the Blackberry Remote Employer Award because I truly believe that Zircon epitomises the remote working model. Zircon is a Business Psychology Consultancy that was established in 2000, when it was “less cool” to say openly to clients that you worked from home. Zircon changed the perception of running a successful Psychology Consultancy from Home for our clients. Zircon is proud of the fact that we run a remote business, we advertise the fact that our cost model is reflective of our low overheads and the benefits of a local resource. We are regarded as professional, successful and entrepreneurial by our clients, but also cost effective, eco friendly and supportive of flexible working."

Name: Andrew Mills, Doncaster

* Ref: www.altruworld.com

Andrew said: “We are thrilled to be shortlisted for The Blackberry Remote Worker Award. If we win on 1st September, it will very much be a shared celebration and recognition for our strategic partners for “Paying it Forward” (the act of giving without thought of reward) to AltruWorld, and for sharing our vision of making this World a better place”.

Name: Jo Victoria Russell, Solihull, West Midlands
Title: PR Officer
Company Institute of Payroll Professionals
Website: www.payrollprofession.org

The glue that holds the IPP’s employees together is its flexible working policies. Due to the Institute’s diverse offering, which encompasses short training courses and the payroll industry’s benchmark qualifications, along with membership benefits that include an Advisory Service, PayrollProfessional magazine and national representation at over 60 Government consultation forums – the Institute recognised early on that it would have to implement remote working practices in order to serve its members effectively.

The IPP has invested in the relevant technology to enable approximately 30% of staff work to work from remote locations. This provides the freedom and flexibility for employees to perform their jobs and travel around the country, whether that be an IPP trainer teaching a Payroll Update course in Edinburgh or a member of the IPP’s Policy & Research team attending a legislative meeting in London.

Driven by flexible working tools such as Blackberrys, technology has enabled remote workers to communicate efficiently and access their IPP emails without the need for a laptop and internet connection. This is critical to the success of the organisation because this type of technology provides the vehicle that makes true flexible working possible.

The nature of many of the jobs at the IPP relies on remote working, with some employees living hundreds of miles away from the head office in Solihull. Therefore, the impact of remote working on IPP staff, along with its members and students, is significant.

Jo Victoria said: “The Institute of Payroll Professionals is delighted to have been short listed for the prestigious BlackBerry Remote Employer Award. Winning this award would highlight the emphasis we place as an organisation on flexible and remote working practices for our employees – something that the we feel is central to our success in serving our members and students effectively.”

Name: Rachel Newell, Newark, Notts
Company: Max Resourcing
Website: www.maxresourcing.com

Max Resourcing provides a consultative recruitment service to pharmaceutical and healthcare companies across the EMEA region. This service is facilitated by leading edge recruitment software, the internet, Blackberry  and a flexible approach to the customer and candidate that removes different time zones from the equation.
By working with this in mind, Max Resourcing mirrors the work practices of the customer and candidate, allowing time to be optimised for all parties and healthcare developments to be progressed. Supported by membership of REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation), Max delivers a high value, ethical consultancy service across the region for it’s multi-national global customers.

Rachel Newell, Max's MD  and her specialist recruitment team , work from home  to allow that personal balance of customer and candidate service and appropriate targeted family time. This personal touch is respected and valued by similarly placed customers and candidates allowing all priorities to be balanced. The company has grown since it’s start-up in 2008, year on year, and is on target to do so again this year.
The consultancy approach isn’t compromised by remote working with all customers met face to face to enhance the in-depth understanding that Max Resourcing brings to the candidates looking for the right opportunities. Virtual, remote and paperless could equally be replaced by consultative, personal and professional-all values that Max Resourcing operate by every day.

Rachel said: " Max Resourcing is delighted to be a part of the Remote Worker Business Awards. This is a fantastic opportunity for businesses to show their uniqueness and their support of working remotely. Successful people increasingly use specialists to help all aspects of their lives run smoothly. As a recruitment specialist, our clients and candidates turn to Max Resourcing to support them through one of the most difficult situations that they will have to negotiate. Remote working enhances our offering, allowing us to provide a more flexible service"

Name: Michael McKerlie, Richmond upon Thames
Company: RAN ONE Europe
Website: wwww.ranone.com

RAN ONE is a global organisation that operates from four regions (America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and South Africa).  The RAN ONE Europe region enables 100% of its employees to work either from home or remotely.  The business owner works from premises in Bali; the managing director works from a remote office in Scotland, and connects with the other regional offices in America, Asia Pacific, Bali, and South Africa on a daily basis.  RAN ONE is truly a global, remote organisation that does not have to operate from one location in order to do business.  

This principle is being applied by the company’s members all over the world.  Currently, RAN ONE is developing an entirely-online solution called Advisapedia that enables members to complete advisory and consultancy work without even needing to be physically present.  They can send questionnaires and diagnostic reviews to their own customers, who complete the reviews online, and then they can conduct a webinar or phone call to discuss the review results and help their customers improve their own businesses.  There are over 450 members worldwide, which means that 450 businesses are either learning to provide services remotely, or are already doing so.  The company is currently expanding into South Africa and repeating the process there.  This has made a  great impact on members’ abilities to expand their own markets without having to be geographically present.

Michael said: “Fantastic – at RAN ONE, we believe that success in business should not be inhibited by location.  We have always strived to ensure that our team members can work from anywhere, and being shortlisted for this award shows our achievements in this area. We’re very pleased.”


Name: Tracy Light, St Albans, Hertfordshire
Company: TJL Marketing Ltd
Title: Founder
Website: www.tjlmarketing.co.uk

Tracy Light founded TJL Marketing in 2003 and flexibility is at the core of the business. TJL focuses on helping small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs to succeed.

In the last seven years over 85 companies have benefited from the cost effective and practical marketing and PR support that TJL’s flexible team has provided.  Without TJL’s ground-breaking remote-working model, many of these SMEs would have been unable to afford marketing support.  

Tracy has a young son and is passionate about providing high level work opportunities, without the constraints of a 9 to 5 role and without too much travelling.  “There are many skilled individuals who want to work but are unable to do a traditional working day,” said Tracy Light.  “At TJL, we support the fact that people have other things in their lives apart from work and allow people to work the hours that they are able to do to fit around existing commitments.  In our team we have people with young children, some are setting up or are already running their own business or they are semi retired.”   

The TJL team are loyal, passionate and committed to supporting the ethos of flexibility.  Due to the high level of responsibility given to them, they are also happy to check their emails during the evenings and weekends to ensure that work is always responded to quickly and efficiently.

Those in the TJL team with children are encouraged to take school holidays off and cover is arranged during this period.    

Tracy said: “TJL Marketing is delighted to be a finalist in these prestigious awards. It’s great to be recognised for our flexible, remote working model which allows people to work, including parents with young children, who might otherwise struggle to commit to a 9 to 5 day.  Our team is loyal, passionate and committed because they appreciate the flexibility that is offered to them”.