In 2002, the UK company I had been working for had recently been acquired by a US business, and this posed a problem. I had young children and wanted to play as full a part as I could in their early years. I had previously negotiated that I would work from home but come in once or twice a week at times that suited me. However, the US business wanted me in the office every day because that was how they worked.
As a compromise, we agreed that I could come into the office each day at 7.30am and leave at 4pm. That would, at least, allow me to get home in time to bath the children and put them to bed. I had gone from what was (at the time) a flexible UK employer to a rigid US one; but I had been given some sort of compromise, even if it meant a daily two-hour commute.
Each day when I left at four, all I got from my colleagues was abuse about ‘working half days’, despite the fact that I’d put in an hour and a half ahead of them. It was that experience that led me, at the age of thirty-two, to give up my London salary and set up as a self-employed individual working from home. It meant a big drop in income, but I could walk my children to pre-school, pick them up and be with them for a few hours each evening, working furiously in between. I managed to maintain that regime for five years before the business started to grow and I got sucked back into working in an office again.
Because I wanted to be part of my children’s lives at a time that was hugely important for bonding, my only option was to leave the company. Would that still be the case? You would think that in the twenty years since, the industry would have moved on to accommodate male and female employees who are balancing a career with raising a young family.
When I faced that challenge, much of the pressure came from my peers; but that was because it was the prevailing culture, and a company’s culture stems from the top. They were still going out for beers after work and couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to join them on a Thursday, effectively choosing the family over them. If the employer cared, they’d stamp on that sort of thing.
Today I am CEO of a national retirement savings business with 150 staff across six UK offices. As you would expect I have always been very supportive of flexible working, but some of my line managers had historically resisted flexibility. However, the COVID crisis proved employees can operate remotely and the business has adopted a hybrid working philosophy.
Early on in the national lockdown, our manager network meeting discussed the potential bias that an ordinary worker is a man with a female partner who assumes primary responsibility for childcare. This if often despite both workers being full-time and the pandemic creating the additional responsibility of home schooling or school holidays. Managers agreed that they would need to encourage staff to agree a daily agenda with their partners that allows childcare shifts to be agreed around work. In addition times of the day identified with their manager that an employee is not available, with managers focussing on productivity rather than number of hours worked. This approach has continued post lockdown and also included:
- Myself championing flexible working, setting the vision that 100% of employee will have implemented flexible working arrangement by end of 2021.
- Flexible working arrangements considered to be reason neutral.
- Line managers designing flexibility into jobs as standard.
- Managers networks supporting managers to build their capabilities to manage flexible and dispersed teams.
- Current flexible arrangements being reviewed in mid-2022 to ensure they are still working and appropriate for individuals.
- The London office being redesigned as a hybrid working space as a 12 month trial to support flexible working practices.
In many cases, flexible working is what makes it possible for a person to work at all, because of other demands, such as caring responsibilities, access issues or health considerations. Flexible working is the cornerstone to many diversity and inclusion strategies simply because it enables so many people who would otherwise be excluded from the workplace to bring their talents and maximise their personal and professional potential.