By Paula Bos

 

Ever since I was young, I had this urge to see and explore the world. In one of the first videos ever made of me I was 4 years old, sitting on my bike with a backpack and telling my parents I would go to Africa.

 

When I got 19, I had the opportunity to travel far for the first time. I spend 3 months alone in Indonesia and Malaysia and I fell even more in love with travelling. I knew instantly that I would want to do this a lot more.

 

But then, I finished my studies. I was ambitious, and I had convinced myself that I wanted to make a career as an HR consultant. So just like everyone else, I started a traineeship in a corporate, from 9-5 and was in a big office all the time. Living 90% of the year in The Netherlands.

 

Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but there was something in me that was struggling. A lot. Going to the same place every day, being almost all year in the same country, with the same people. I couldn’t help but feel uninspired and even a bit lost. A sense of freedom is incredibly important to me, so I felt that I was the triangle that tried to fit in a square box.

 

On social media, I saw some people living my dream: working from anywhere in the world, with flexible times and being productive in a meaningful job. But at that point, I felt that this life was just for a few lucky ones.

 

But then, the COVID-19 crisis hit. Companies all over the world had to send their employees home to work virtually. Suddenly, we all got acquainted with this ‘remote working’ thing that seemed impossible at first.

 

This working from home gave me back a little sense of freedom, but it was also hard. In this period, I had a lot of time to think and this feeling of wanting to go away and explore seemed to grow even stronger on me now that we weren’t even physically possible to go abroad.

 

By the beginning of 2021 I had made a decision. Despite COVID-19 still running the world, I was going to run the world too. I was going to follow my heart. I quitted my job and moved out of my house. I left my whole life behind and started a new chapter in Portugal.

 

The first months, I was just going to enjoy life and not think about work. But the seed was there already to find a great remote job at some point. I already past the point that I wanted my old life back and knew that living abroad was my path!

 

Then finally, in August I put out a LinkedIn message for a job. Not expecting anything: I was still in Portugal and wanted a parttime job. Who would want me?

 

But then, I got an overwhelming number of messages.

 

So did the world of working then change forever?

 

One of them was from Dorus. The founder of Successr. Successr stood out to me immediately because they are so internationally oriented, and they were totally okay with me being abroad. In fact: they were stimulating it and seeing it as an asset. What a breath of fresh air!

 

Successr is fully embracing remote workers, not just because of the known benefits that were showing during COVID-19, like better productivity, less meetings, less commuting and fewer distractions, but also to be inclusive and diverse.

 

I made my choice quite quickly and started working as their Recruitment Marketeer. And so now I am the one that is living the dream life that I was always looking up to! Living in Portugal, working parttime on the most meaningful job I could ever imagine and be given all the freedom that I ever wanted.

 

Successr’s vision

As Successr we have sky high ambitions, and we only want the best people to work with us on those ambitions. Giving our employees the possibility to work remotely increases the range of search for amazing colleagues and provides us with an international team that can inspire each other. Besides that, we can also help our clients better by widen our reach and source for talent in diverse talent pools all over the world.

 

It also supports our purpose of making a sustainable impact and aiming for the best. Not only for the companies that we work for, but also for our people. We acknowledge that life is about more than just work, so we also want to support our employees with their other life goals and aspirations. We believe we hit a win-win situation here: our employees getting the best out of work and life.

 

So yes, we believe this trend is here to stay. The future holds a solid focus on the best talent by being open to new ways of working: from anywhere in the world, with the right efficiency, the right goals in mind and an undeniable motivation to be the best!