Creating Sweet Success: The Impact of Flexible Working at The Biskery

As a way of balancing work and raising their kids, Saskia and Lisa founded The Biskery - as their business grew, they were able to give other women the same opportunity. Their employment model offers women the chance to learn new skills and rediscover their confidence. Their goal is to provide a supportive work environment where women can thrive, offering flexible working hours and fostering an inclusive culture.

Flexible working has never been more important to working parents than it is right now, especially with rising childcare costs. Companies and employers must recognise the importance of flexible working and provide the right resources to help working parents manage their workloads and balance their personal and professional lives. 

I spoke to Saskia about the importance of flexible working. She believes that flexibility is essential for working parents to be able to balance their personal and professional lives. She also believes that having a supportive environment is key to fostering creativity and productivity. 

I also talked with Saskia about The Biskery and how she and Lisa built up their business, upcoming projects, and her advice for up-and-coming entrepreneurs. 

MR: Where did the inspiration for The Biskery come from?

SR: Well, Lisa and I aren't from the UK, but we both moved here around 2011 or 2012, and we ended up working for the same digital marketing agency. Lisa is originally from Germany and I come from the Netherlands and we really missed the flavours from our home countries. So we thought, how about we put our recipes together and create a little market stall and sell biscuits, cakes and pies with the flavours from our home countries? That's really how it started, just a market stall once a month and because we had a background in digital marketing, we also built a website at the same time.

So for five years, it was a busy hobby and then in 2020, I was made redundant and then this hobby was there to pick up and design into a proper business. 

MR:  Yeah, that's awesome. I always think sometimes things happen for a reason. It obviously wasn't great news to hear that you were made redundant, but you probably wouldn't have taken the step to go for it with your business and create this awesome thing. 

SR: Yeah, that's true. 

MR: What are the key factors that you look for when choosing the right recipe? 

SR: To be honest, we have a very, very niche business, so we only do biscuits, and the biscuit recipe that we offer is pretty much a carbon copy of Lisa's grandmother's recipe. So the base of all of our biscuits is the same but you might get it in jam form, or you might get it with a layer of icing on it or you might get it with a design printed onto the biscuit. And for Christmas, we add gingerbread flavours to our range. You know we've got one recipe and it's really good and we have tweaked it here and there a little bit, but by and large that was the jackpot.

MR: You recently expanded The Biskery. How did you make the decision to expand? Were you met with any issues?

SR: So we were called Bloom Bakers when we first started out and then we rebranded in 2021 to The Biskery. Everything was happening from my kitchen or Lisa's kitchen and we always felt uncomfortable asking other people to bake in our home kitchens so we decided we had to move away from our home kitchens and go into a professional unit. Thankfully I had a good relationship with my old boss and the operational manager, so we sent them an email asking them if we could use their kitchen - we knew it was currently empty. We were able to rent the space and thankfully the space already had fridges, freezers and everything we needed in the space which allowed us to take the time to save up enough money to get our own space. 

MR: Your business attracts a lot of women, particularly mothers. Why do you think your business model works so well for working mothers?

SR: Well, when Lisa and I started this, we said it had to work for us as working mums. The whole reason we did this was so we could be there for our kids and be able to pick our kids up at three o'clock at the school gates. We didn't want them to have to go to after-school clubs and wraparound care, because that was the thing that I found the most difficult when I went back to work after having my daughter. I found that she was away from home longer than I was - I was working 8 hours while she was at nursery 9. I didn't want to be that mum. So, we made an unconventional decision to only run this business during school hours and when we had job vacancies, we said that these were the hours that were required and they loved the idea of having to work those core hours and some work more because, again, there are mums who just need more hours or some mums who have more availability and want to work more hours. But most people work 4 hours a day.

MR: No, I love that. I absolutely agree with what you said in a recent interview about the importance of flexible working and employees trusting their team. I recently became a mother myself and flexible working is something that has become even more important to me. What steps can businesses take to make their business model work for working parents?

SR: Hmm, the first step is acknowledging that the realities of working mums and dads differ. Like you have a child who's 22 months and I have two who are nine and 12, and they go to primary school. Your child may go to nursery or you may rely on family to take care of her while you work. Or you may be a single parent, all of our realities are different which is why they shouldn't fall into the same box, each parent may need different support from their employer.

I think you should speak to them and understand their needs and that their needs will change as their progression into parenthood changes. 

So I think it's a continual discussion and I know our team is small and I appreciate that when you get to businesses over a certain size it gets more complicated. In larger businesses, it's up to the manager to listen to the team's needs and how to help them. I know for a fact that as a working parent, that discussion will be valued so much, and if you feel like your employer has your back, you will give them so much more in return.

MR: I absolutely agree with you, especially about the need to not box people in. They have this preconceived idea that all working parents only require A, B and C instead of talking to the person and being like, what do you need? How can we help? They roll out this prepackaged version of their needs. Also, the rules that were set were set under the assumption that only heterosexual couples would need this help or that fathers wouldn’t need to be at home or need time off because the mum would be there. As mothers, our careers are always secondary. These thoughts are so archaic to me and they need to be reminded that everyone's situation is different - people were not made to fit into boxes. 

SR: I think that really hinders the progression needed to make flexible working actually work for people and I know it's a lot of work for HR but in the long run your employees will feel seen and feel like they are actual humans and not just a number on your staff sheet. 

MR: We've lost the “human” aspect of “human resources.” They're trying to make human resources so automated to the point where it's like what is the point of HR if you're not reaching out and checking in and making sure that your employees are happy? In my experience, the best places I’ve worked were where they didn't care how or when we made up our hours as long as we did our work and hit our deadlines - they trusted us. They understood that giving their employees the flexibility they needed enabled them to be more productive and motivated. 

In your opinion, is flexible working an important factor in employee retention and job satisfaction?

SR: Yeah, I think it's just being treated like a human and not like a number. 

And I think people can sense when it's genuine and when it's just done as a tick box exercise. And I think when you do care about the fact that your employee has a life outside of what they do for you, and you set clear targets, clear goals, as you said, it doesn't actually matter so much how you do it, as long as you get your job done. 

Obviously, at The Biskery, we have to produce our products on-site, so not everyone has the same degree of flexibility, but we try to accommodate as much as possible. In the past, if one of our bakers needed to take time off for personal reasons it was never an issue because we knew they’d make up the time - that’s one of the benefits of having a five-hour working day it gives our team even more flexibility. 

MR: How do you approach sustainability in your business?

SR: So we only bake biscuits to order. We only roll out the dough once an order has been placed which means we have very little to no food waste and we only use recyclable packaging made from recycled materials. We don't use any plastics to wrap our biscuits so all of our packaging is compostable and biodegradable.

MR: Are you able to share any advice with aspiring entrepreneurs who are just starting out in their entrepreneurial careers?

SR: I would say don't compare your day one to someone else's day 10. As a newbie, you're surrounded by so many people who may operate in the same industry as you and they may be doing amazingly - you have to remind yourself that they didn't start out that way. You just have to keep going and know that it is probably most likely a long game. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but don't be disheartened by looking at where other people are, thinking you're never going to arrive there. You will, but it will just take a lot of time. 

And if, like Lisa and me, you didn't have a lot of time because you were working a job, you are a parent to a young child, just give it the time that you do have. And it might just be an hour in the evening when the kids are in bed, and as the kids grow older, it might become two hours and three hours and before you know it, you're working full-time on the thing. So just give it your time, literally the time you have available, and don't stress too much about what other people around you are doing, because they're doing their own thing and it really isn't comparable to what you're doing.

MR: Having already worked with some amazing companies, what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who wish to approach larger companies? In terms of business or sponsorship. 

SR: I would say, be visible. I think a lot of business owners spend so much time working on their business, producing the actual thing or delivering the service, that they don't have time to connect, network and meet people, shake hands and talk about their business in networking settings. The problem is that if you're constantly busy delivering your product or service, there's not much time for you to meet people that might help further your business.

We actually get a lot of our business via that route and it's not always obvious and it's not always a straight line, but having your business be visible is extremely vital. Also, you need to be visible online, use SEO, and paid advertising, maintain a website, and have a social media profile somewhere that's relevant to your business, whether that's Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn, and keep being visible because if people don't see you enough, they'll forget or not even know that you exist.

MR: Any exciting projects?

SR: Well, we are working hard on developing this and strengthening this arm of the business where we produce, and deliver a service. It's called Live Biscuit Printing, for events. 

I don't know if you've seen that on our website. 

MR: Yes, they look amazing.

SR: But basically, we have a printer that we kind of trolley and ferry around with us around the UK. We go and support exhibition stands, mainly to give them more footfall and traffic. During that time, we print people's pictures onto biscuits right then and there, so anybody can send us a picture via WhatsApp and we'll print it on the biscuit with the brand's logo within minutes. We're the only ones currently offering this in the UK, so people don't really know this exists, so it's difficult to spread the word. 

MR: It's an amazing tool to attract new customers and footfall, hopefully this helps people become aware.