Inside TaskUs: ‘Ridiculously good’ sites, culture make the office worth coming back to
MANILA, Philippines — Across industries, companies struggle to make return-to-office (RTO) enticing. Workers have complicated feelings about going back to the “old normal,” most especially when many have proven in the past years that work-from-home is a viable option.
The same is true for BPO companies, which were faced with this challenge upon orders of the government.
In bringing its workforce back to the office, outsourcing company TaskUs Inc. has a simple yet purposeful pitch to its employees: a “ridiculously good” return-to-office experience.
People first, always
Since its beginnings at a small office in Cavite, TaskUs has continued to embrace a “people-first” approach—something that many companies have just learned from the pandemic.
For TaskUs, a “ridiculously good” RTO program means going back to it being a “people-first” company that prioritizes the needs and demands of its teammates and clients.
TaskUs conducted discussions with team leaders, managers and agents through “Ask me anything” google forms to understand its employees. The company also doubles down on wellness programs and site improvements to create a culture of care for employees who might have a harder time readjusting to office work.
“Fifty percent are fine returning to office, and then there’s a good fraction of 10 to 15% that would say that ‘Hey you know I can work on-site but I have concerns’ and then you have the rest of the population say ‘hey work from home works for me,” said Kris Mandap, vice president of TaskUs Phoenix, Ortigas.
TaskUs has been doing staggered RTO and has kept work-from-home setup available to select roles whose tasks don’t need to be done on-site. But for those teammates returning to the office, TaskUs believes “it’s just a matter of working with our employees on the challenges that they might encounter while on-site.”
Conducive, thoughtfully designed spaces
TaskUs has built a reputation for having some of the best office spaces in the industry that are meant to inspire creativity, engagement and wellbeing.
For its RTO efforts, the company provides beautiful office spaces, which it believes can keep employees happy and resilient so they could be more agile, flexible and focused at work.
In time for the gradual return of many of its BPO employees on site, and the celebration of the Global Employee Health and Fitness Month, TaskUs’ recently unveiled its two newest, state-of-the-art offices in Ortigas and Batangas City.
Phoenix, its new headquarters in Ortigas, is designed with augmented reality-inspired elements, reflecting how TaskUs values people and cutting-edge technologies to create Ridiculously Good customer support experience and innovation.
Meanwhile, the Batangas site called “Atlantis” is an ode to the province’s underwater paradise, beaches, coves and rich marine biodiversity.
“Our teammates are the bedrock of our organization,” said Bryce Maddock, TaskUs’ CEO and co-founder, who visited the Philippines for the first time since the pandemic. “Individually our teammates are great, but united, together, in office we are unstoppable. This is why we build the coolest offices in the industry. We want our people to be excited to come to work. I can’t wait to see our teammates back in our amazing offices!”
In a media tour at Phoenix and Atlantis sites, TaskUs showed facilities that are ready to welcome and give returning employees a good time at the office. Among these are thoughtfully designed common areas, sleeping pods, gaming and multimedia space, massage chairs and more.
The two new TaskUs sites feature a fully-equipped gym, in-house clinic, psychologist’s office and dedicated spaces to do exercises such as yoga, boxing and dancing, among others.
Another unique aspect of the new sites is the free-to-use workplace daycares, an on-site facility that provides child-care for TaskUs employees’ children, and frees working parents from worrying about their children while at the office.
A culture of wellness
Over the past years, TaskUs has recorded industry-leading Employee Net Promoter Scores. In 2021, it got an eNPS of 70. The voluntary attrition rate for employees who were employed by TaskUs for more than 180 days was 15.3% for the year ended December 31, 2021.
Vina Paglicawan, TaskUs director of Wellness & Resiliency, credits this feat to the company culture they have fostered inside their sites: a culture of prioritizing workplace wellness and employee mental health.
The BPO company takes employee wellness a notch further by creating a program that is developed by a team of life coaches, wellness researchers and clinicians. Round the clock psychological services offered not only to employees but also to their families.
“I believe we’re the only organization that employs a full-time team of life coaches, psychologists and psychiatrists 24/7, anytime they can just come if they need anything,” said Paglicawan.
Apart from wellness-centered office amenities, TaskUs keeps its employees well and happy through programs and perks such as LGBTQ HMO coverage, funds for passion projects, food and rewards allowances, among others.
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