Workplace and mobility: Giving people the flexibility and freedom they want

Kadence hybrid working OS

  • Luke Christian-Farman
  • Author Luke Christian-Farman, Product Marketing Manager

It’s never been easier to work from anywhere. In fact, one of the largest surveys by EY found that more than half of employees globally would quit their jobs if not provided with significant flexibility. 

At Kadence, we’re building a people-first culture, where flexibility and mobility are valued by everyone here, it’s especially important for our team leaders to be supportive when it comes to managing flexibility within teams – giving our people the trust, choice and freedom to decide what works best for them. After all, it’s not the office, but people that make our workplace worthwhile.

This month, we’re excited to have our Information Security Manager, Josiah Haddleton, join us to share his journey with Kadence so far, and his exciting new chapter ahead!

First of all, can you tell us a little about yourself?

I come from a small town in Northern California called Redding, and I spent most of my early career working in the food industry. I started at In-n-Out, which was as great as it sounds. Delicious burgers and fries every day, and with a 21 year old metabolism, it was bliss! After that I ended up managing a restaurant for a while before moving out of the food industry entirely to working at a local State Farm office. There, I helped get the office off the ground floating around between Sales, Customer Service, Office Management, etc. as one does in a start-up when the team is small and you’re building something new. After about 3 years there, my wife and I moved to London for her to work on her Master’s Degree. After a month or so of settling in, she began her course work, and I began to look for jobs. 

How did it all start with Kadence? 

Kadence (Chargifi at the time) came into the picture from a now good friend of mine. I met him at a church function, and we talked about his job and my job hunt. A few weeks later, he messaged me about an opening for a small role for a couple days a week, and I jumped at the opportunity just to get something started. After a couple weeks of settling in at Chargifi working on Sales Ops administration (a fancy way to say ‘busy work!’), I was hired on full-time as the 10th person in the company at the time, really grateful and excited to be joining the team. From there, I started to help develop our Sales Operations a bit and assist the Sales team in streamlining their sales processes in our internal systems. 

As time progressed in that first year and we started to grow, the part of my role that revolved around procurement, distribution, and warehouse management really started to expand and take shape. As a result, I began to take on more and more responsibility in that area of my job resulting in the company sponsoring our visas to continue to be able to stay, work, and live in London. From there, I moved into the role as our Procurement and Operations Manager, getting to work directly with our COO at the time. I grew a lot during that time, developing new skills and working on things I don’t think I ever would have otherwise. 

Tell us about the change during the pandemic (and your exciting new chapter!) 

As we all know, Covid-19 changed everything for almost everyone on the planet. One of those major changes for us was our rebrand and focus from Chargifi to Kadence. In about January 2021, I started to notice that our priorities around hardware were shifting, so I quickly started to work more with our VP Engineering (Jamie) around our information security and trying to learn and take on extra responsibility there. As a result of getting to work closely with Jamie and having gained some insight and experience into our current information security infrastructure, when Kadence made the decision to shift away from hardware, Information Security Manager was a natural fit for me. As it turns out, it’s a role that even more closely aligns with my natural skill set and personality, allowing me to thrive and grow even more in the Kadence team.

A personal change that was prompted by Covid-19 was that my wife and I were starting to feel like it was time for us to look at moving back to the US to be closer to family. She started applying for jobs, and after a short while of searching, she interviewed and was told she’d be getting an offer for a US based company in a role she was really excited about.

A major concern for us would be whether or not I’d still be able to keep my job, so I quickly ran it by the appropriate people on the team, and the response was overwhelmingly supportive, not only for me but for my wife as well. Especially now with how the ability to work remotely has become so commonplace, there were no issues with me moving and being able to maintain my role within Kadence. The flexibility to work remotely and be supportive of my wife and her goals and career has been huge, and the fact that Kadence gets to play a part in that too is a great benefit! 

Teams everywhere are experimenting with flexible work models. The best option is the one that puts your people in the driver’s seat, giving them the trust, freedom and flexibility to do their best work.