Anirudh Puranik, Offshore and Automation Operations Manager, flexible working case study
Anirudh Puranik, or Ani as he is also known, has been working at Zurich Municipal for 15 years this year. Ani has taken advantage of Zurich’s flexible working policy for many years and discusses the positive impact it has had on his family and work life balance.
Ani, can you give us a brief overview of your career in Zurich and your current role and responsibilities?
I started at Zurich as an underwriter, serving multiple types of customers and a couple of years ago I was given the additional responsibilities of managing offshore and automation related activities for Zurich Municipal. I was recently also given the additional responsibility of managing a small team. Along with these new management duties, I was asked to manage all the back office offshore operations.
How do you take advantage of Zurich’s flexible working policy?
Before I requested to work flexibly across four days rather than five, I already felt Zurich were very supportive of flexible working hours, like working a bit earlier in the day to finish early or work from home at times.
I originally requested flexible working purely due to family circumstances. I've got two children and we somehow managed ok between us working with one child but once we had the second one it tipped the balance and put additional pressure on running the family chores.
We had a real issue surrounding childcare. My wife and I both put in flexible working requests and Zurich were very welcoming with my request. Originally it was purely around childcare requirements and I wanted to spend quality time with my children in addition to the weekend. It’s given me a lot of comfort to know I’m not running behind on my work.
Do you think you’d go back to working across five days?
I’ve been working flexibly across four days for four years now. Although my daughter is now 11 and my son will soon be seven, I want to continue to have Thursdays off to give my daughter support with her schoolwork as she is due to start grammar school in September. It really helped that I was able to give the extra time to my daughter and her studies, I credit being able to give that time to her with her being successful in her 11+ exam.
Have you met any challenges working flexibly?
I would say there are more benefits as opposed to challenges. I’ve felt supported by my managers on this journey, I’m definitely not the first person within Zurich to adopt a flexible working pattern.
My output is based on the quality of my work but saying that, I do try and make the hours up, so if I have a doctor's appointment or I take our son to school and start an hour later, I ensure I finish an hour later if I need to get the work done. That flexibility has always been there. There's never been any issues around it.
What do you love about working at Zurich?
This is my 15th year working at Zurich and I’ve enjoyed every minute. The culture here is focused on people and the empowerment and the support we get from Zurich as an employer has been second to none. It’s evident that everyone takes pride in all they do, for both their customers and the community. It still feels like I only started recently, and I hope there are many more years to come here.