What is flexible working?
Flexible working is a working arrangement that helps balances work and life (usually family life!)
Not only does it make doing the school run easier, or help to manage childcare better but it empowers employees to make decisions on how they manage their time to get their workload complete. This is crucial for helping to develop respect and trust between employees and employers so employees are happier and less likely to leave.
Juggling the demands if childcare
As working parents it can be hard to juggle the demands of parenting along with the stresses of working so this is why flexible working is so important not only to make employees feel more empowered and happier, it also reduces stress.
Poorly kids
How many times have you had that dreaded phone call that little one is sick and needs to be collected? And the fear of having to tell bosses you have to leave or you end up taking holiday or unpaid leave to simply pick up your poorly child. If your kids were like mine this was a weekly occurrence, so much so my employer seriously thought I was making it up!
Wasted skills
Not only is it beneficial for employees to have fleixble working options but for employers too. It provides a greater source of skill available to them when they offer flexible working. For example a female marketing executive who has 10 years of experience can’t work in most marketing roles suited to her skill level, mainly as they demand a standard 9-5 Monday to Friday set up. So her skills are wasted and unused. In the meantime she finds a part time role at a school that better suits her family demands. She’s unhappy, underpaid and the company looking for a marketing executive missed a trick as she is highly capable but merely unreachable. Whereas if the employer offered flexible working options, she would be available, her talent could be utilised and she would be far happier too!
So what the the flexible working options?
Remote working
Or working from home (wfh) we got used to during the pandemic. It’s been hugely successful not only for parents to better manage their home life and work life, but for employers it saw a huge reduction in the amount of overheads (office rental for example.)
Hybrid working
This is a mix of remote working and office based working. This again helps employers to reduce their spend on rental as they can reduce office space and employees can alternate and rotate between coming into the work place (sort of like hot desking). Hybrid working is really useful if you are part of a team that needs to meet collectively every now and again, or if you’re one of those people that actually works best in an office environment but still requires flexibility of working from home some of the time.
Job share
This is where a vacancy is split between 2 or 3 employees so they can split the workload between them. If a company requires a full time employee, 2 employees can be used to split the demands so they work half of the time each divided up however they agree on!
Compressed hours
This is essentially fitting a full time role into less days. This could mean where employees work 3 or 4 longer days to get more days off in week. Not only is the beneficial for parents who have children at nursery (as let’s face it a day rate at nursery should be maximised), but it also helps personality types that are better at working in bursts and like to complete everything in one go!
Part time
Part time means working less than full time hours, whether it’s split to do a few hours a day or only a day or so a week it’s usually based upon hours and it’s then arranged how these hours get split across the week.
Flexi time
Using core hours set by the employer, flexi time allows employees to adjust and choose their start and finish time. There will be a set amount of time needed to work in the week and employees have the freedom to adjust their days accordingly. Have to pick up the kids early one day? Not a problem just work slightly early or later another day.
There are lots of flexible working options available for everyone and they’re not just about the employees but employers too, there’s benefits for everyone!
Whether you’re looking for a new role or are currently in a role, the first thing to do is ask for flexible working. What’s the harm in asking? Also don’t ask don’t get!
What I’ve learnt over the years is that everything can be negotiated and especially if you make it easy for employers to say yes. What do I mean by this? Setting out your intentions, how it can work and how it will benefit you, your output and the company.
Not everyone will say yes but it’s worth a try! If you’re still struggling and need fleixble working options, we’re working with companies to provide you with some great fleixble working opportunities, why not send us your cv to cv@befreflexibleworking.co.uk or sign up to our newsletter where you can get job opportunities sent straight to your mailbox? You can sign up on our website https://www.befreeflexibleworking.co.uk/contact
Or are you an employer wanting to attract great employees? Get in touch and we can help you either implement flexible working or advertise flexible working opportunities!
