Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work at JH?
Well – here’s your chance to find out!
While we place great emphasis on creating a positive environment for our team – offering a suite of benefits and policies to support and develop our staff – we’re actually historically very bad at talking about those things outside of JH. We think it’s about time we changed that.
So here we are – here are 9 reasons we think JH is a great place to work.
1. The freedom to be yourself
We’re putting this one at the top, because we think it’s the most important. We hire people we think will be a positive addition to our team – from a diverse range of backgrounds, and across a range of skills, and who perfectly fit the culture that we are building here at JH. We want you to challenge us, be curious, ask questions, make mistakes (and learn from them), and push to make every piece of work better than the last.
We think of ourselves collectively as innovators, pushing the boundaries of eCommerce, but we are our people. Our team are the true innovators – we’re just here to give them that opportunity.
2. Leaders in our field
As a specialist eCommerce agency, who design and develop websites on Adobe Commerce and Magento, we’ve earned our place as Adobe Commerce Gold Partners. Our team creates highly bespoke, custom website builds, integrate complex systems to work seamlessly for the end users, and design beautiful and thoughtful digital journeys so our clients can deliver amazing experiences to their customers.
What does that mean? In a nutshell, we create some of the very best eCommerce sites in the world. For over a decade, we’ve consistently won awards for our technical abilities, mobile experience, and incredible work we’ve delivered for our clients – and we’re known the world over as trailblazers in PWAs (which you may also know as headless commerce). Not only were we the first agency to deploy a PWA on Magento – and we were actually the first to deploy a site on the Magento 2 platform as well – our PWA builds also consistently rank as some of the fastest in the world.
Our reputation and status in the eCommerce space means we attract and work with some of the most exciting clients out there – merchants from every industry, across B2B and B2C (and sometimes both) – and our client roster is packed with unique, innovative, and fast-growing household name brands. However, you’ll never feel pushed and pulled between projects – we’re realistic with what our team can actually achieve, and our pod structure means you’ll only work with a handful of clients at a time, so you can really focus on delivering your best work.
3. Empowered to work remotely
With team members across the UK, Europe, and further afield, working remotely is our default. As the world opens up again post-COVID, and we want to get together in-person again, we’re building a version of hybrid working (and connecting) that works right for us and our team – without losing that freedom remote working has given us.
We’ve found remote-first has empowered our team to each create a unique work environment that suits how they work best – a seat in our Nottingham HQ, a relaxed home office setup, or a quiet corner in their local coffee shop. To help them make that space as perfect as it can be, we’ve made our Remote Working Fund available too – making sure our staff have that key thing their workspace needs, whether it’s a comfortable headset for video calls, a stand-up desk, or a SAD lamp to make those winter evenings feel a bit more bearable.
4. Flexibility is our default
Life doesn’t stop for the 9 to 5 – for us or our clients – and we aren’t in the business of pretending it does. Every single person at JH has the freedom to work flexibly around their other commitments, and we find that makes for happier and more productive teams. No brainer, right?
Our teams build their own calendars and plan their own days – can’t do a meeting at 4, because you’ve got to pick up the kids from school? Say no more. Working at 10pm because that’s when you’re most inspired? Fantastic. Flexibility isn’t code for ‘working all the time’, though. Every team member tracks their time worked, and are encouraged to stick to their overall contracted hours – taking back the time where needed by using flexi days. With our colleagues spread across the world, and all with different lifestyles, we’re pushing back against that ‘always-on’ mindset, and focussing wherever we can on asynchronous working, with organised communication that works for everyone in our business.
5. Your team around you, wherever you are
While we recognise remote working has many benefits, there’s no denying it can be lonely. We’ve built up a range of elements to tackle this – and making sure our team feels supported and happy at work is key for us.
Of course, much of our time at work is spent doing – or talking about – work; but we also make time for wider conversations, with regular randomised 1:1 chats, team catch-ups, and games (Among Us during retros is a current fave). Slack is the hub of our asynchronous communications, from #watercooler for sharing all those weird factoids you’d chat about in the break room, to #recognition for shouting out your colleagues for being amazing, and of course – the most important channel in all of JH’s Slack land – #animals_of_jh, which is packed with all our cutest dog, cat or other miscellaneous animal snaps.
And of course – we come together to celebrate, too. With a balanced mix of in-person and remote-friendly celebrations, we go the extra mile to ensure everyone feels included.
6. The training (and time) to continuously better yourself
We hire people we see potential in, and we don’t want them to stagnate – so we pride ourselves on giving our teams the tools and support to develop into the person they see themselves being. If or when you choose to move on from us, we want you to leave a more well-rounded person than when you first joined, whether that’s technical, specialist skills like development or UX design, or softer skills like brainstorming, facilitation or management.
“We have constantly gotten better and better every year I’ve been here. We provide all the tools and support anyone could need, and it’s what you do with those that counts.” Oli, Senior Frontend Developer
Those aren’t just empty words – we don’t expect you to do that all on your own. From our all-company Team Sterka training (designed to build soft skills key to growing successful digital agencies) to generous Personal Development Budgets, we provide the time and investment for you to improve yourself, and support your colleagues to do the same. Plus, we’ll build you a Personal Development Plan, based on where you want to go – and your line manager will check in with you in regular 1:1s to make sure you’re achieving your personal growth goals as well as your work-based ones.
7. Wellness is the priority
Making sure our team is happy at work, and in their roles, is key to our organisation thriving, so we place wellness very high in our priority list. We’re always watching out for one another, tracking team happiness across a range of metrics in our anonymous feedback system Officevibe, and giving regular updates and Q&A opportunities, with both an all-company Town Hall and Leadership Q&A each month. We’re pleased to say we’re already far surpassing our engagement score goals for 2021, and plan to continue on this upward trajectory into 2022 and beyond.
And this doesn’t stop at work, or just with our team members – we want their families and loved ones to benefit from it too. Our wider range of policies and benefits ensures our team and their families have access to the support and space they need, no matter what they’re going through in their lives – with regular transparent progress and salary reviews, generous holiday entitlement, personal wellness budgets, and comprehensive support covering both physical and mental illness, maternity and paternity, pregnancy loss and more.
8. Championing the community
Community has always been at the heart of JH – and we’ve continuously pushed ourselves to give back in new and creative ways, from creating a device testing lab open to freelancers, to giving lectures at local colleges and universities to the next generation of budding designers and developers. Over the years our ability to invest in projects and organisations has grown with JH, and we’re proud to have nurtured, supported and even hosted grassroots organisations and events.
For the past 5 years, we’ve organised and hosted Meet Magento UK – now the biggest community event in the Magento and Adobe Commerce space, in 2021 attracting 2,000 attendees from 83 countries. Other events and projects JH has supported include Design Exchange, Second Wednesday, PHP Minds, Browsersync, PHP School, ProjectFunction, and Women in Tech Nottingham.
9. Everything you need to do your best work
As an eCommerce agency, unsurprisingly, our computers are important to us. Whatever your preferred choice of hardware or software, you’ll be furnished with a high-spec machine and any required peripherals to enable you to work efficiently – most of our team use Macbook Pros or iMacs, but if you’d prefer a Windows or linux machine, that’s fine too.
And if or when you do decide to pop into our Nottingham office, we’re sure you’ll feel right at home. Split over two floors, you’ll find spacious desks, a lounge area, several meeting rooms and two fully stocked office kitchens – with proper coffee machine, instant hot water, sandwich press, microwaves and our signature bright red fridges! Help yourself to a selection of hot drinks, tons of healthy snacks (and a bit of chocolate too) and maybe most importantly – our office drinks fridge, stocked with a rotating smorgasbord of beer, cider and soft drinks. Our team regularly enjoys free lunches from a selection of our fave local eateries – and if you need to get the heart rate pumping after all that tapas, we also have ping pong and foosball tables to challenge your colleagues on.
Sound like your kind of place?
Then we’d love to hear from you! Check out our current vacancies here, or subscribe to our job alerts to be notified when we post new opportunities.