10. Flexa

Exceptional Founder Award Shortlisted

For the entrepreneurs who have turned their own personal struggles or challenges into a force-for-good, leading the way for industry change and innovation.

Startups 100: Exceptional Founder Awards

Founders: Molly Johnson-Jones, Maurice O’Brien, Tim Leppard
Founded: 2019
Website: flexa.careers

Flexible work is one of the biggest trends to have emerged from the pandemic. But, the word “flexible” means something different to everyone. For an employee, or someone hunting for a job, it could mean the freedom to work from anywhere in the world, or to set their own preferred working hours. For an employer, meanwhile, it could just mean offering one day a week to work from home – but not if there’s an important meeting that day.

This mismatch of expectations sets the stage for friction between employees and employers, and in particular, it makes job-hunting a challenge for anyone seeking flexible work on their own terms.

That’s where Flexa comes in. In effect, it’s a global directory of verified flexible companies. It presents job hunters with opportunities to work with employers whose approach to flexible work will genuinely match their expectations.

The inspiration behind Flexa came from cofounder Molly Johnson-Jones’ own appalling experience when flexible work wasn’t offered to her.

The inspiration behind Flexa came from cofounder Molly Johnson-Jones’ own frustration with a broken job-hunting process – as well as an appalling experience when flexible work wasn’t offered to her.

Since she was 18 years old, Johnson-Jones has lived with a chronic auto-immune disease, which could cause swelling in her limbs and discomfort. In an earlier job, she asked her employer if she would be able to work from home one day per week, to help her manage the condition and reduce the need to commute.

“Within a few days, I was sacked,” Johnson-Jones reveals.

Thanks to Flexa's accreditation process, job seekers get validated insights about working conditions before they hit apply.

But, she didn’t let her unfair dismissal stop her. Sensing an opportunity to empower employees by giving them insights into which companies truly offer flexibility, she teamed up with Maurice O’Brien and Tim Leppard. Each had their own experience with the benefits of flexible working, from an employer’s perspective. Together, they launched the Flexa platform to help both businesses and employees get ahead in today’s competitive jobs market.

Flexa achieves this by making the job market more transparent when it comes to the flexible working conditions. This is possible thanks to its accreditation process, so job seekers get validated insights about working conditions before they hit “apply”.

There's a strict assessment that businesses must go through before they make it on the Flexa directory. This includes being judged on location, hours, and global hiring capacity.

“Flexa is a genuinely unique company,” Johnson-Jones enthuses. “We are the only source of truth regarding what it’s actually like to work at a business before you apply for a role.”

That source of truth is possible via a strict assessment that businesses must go through before they make it on the directory. This includes being judged on location, hours, and global hiring capacity.

Such a process enables the platform’s 450,000-plus users to feel confident that if a business is on the directory, they are guaranteed to offer excellent flexible working conditions and benefits, rather than just claiming so.

As for the startups achievements so far? It has over 150 accredited companies on its directory, over 450,000 users, and recently secured a £2.3 million investment to expand their global reach and help even more people find truly flexible working environments.

We are excited to see what the future holds for Flexa, with international expansion on the horizon and ambitions to be any job seeker’s first port of call when looking for flexible work.