Long office hours & flexible working?

[Jadefeather7]

Just curious to hear about flexible working practices in other companies particularly where roles require working outside 9-5 hours and there are long commutes involved (eg if you work in the city). It’s hard to find much information online and most of my friends are in totally different careers eg medicine, teaching. I have three friends who work in similar jobs who work flexibly but I often wonder if they are just super lucky- one is in Legal for tech company, one in Banking and one works for the Big Four.

Do you have working from home options or flexi time and if so what’s your arrangement? Is it common in your workplace for people to choose when and where they work? Do you work for a large or small employer? Did you change your job in order to get more flexibility? Were you with your employer for a long time before you requested flexible working? Did you find it a challenge to convince management? Is it a company culture thing or down to who you get as a boss?

At the moment I’m trying to figure out whether to stay in my current role where my employer doesn’t seem to be very keen on flexible working (is this still common or are most companies progressive about flexible working?) or take a role closer to me (these are very rare, would involve a 30%pay cut and involve establishing my reputation as a newbie).

I would love to get a feel for what it’s like out there with different companies.

I work in finance in the North East.

Started off in a service centre environment where flexibility was prescriptive (start time 7am-10am finish 3pm-6pm but office open 24/7 to accommodate month end and dealing with non European conf calls).

Additionak flex often depended upon manager.

Moved to a UK construction company, large business, finance service centre style, similar flex which was prescriptive (start 7-9 finish 3-5).

Very much dependant upon manager, I had a flex working arrangement agreed where I took excess overtime back on an agreed day, next manager frowned upon that so didn't use it.

Moved to UK homebuilder head office--zero flex, 9-5 but 0 overtime required.

Now work in another company where its incredibly flexible and my manager is flexible within that which means it's even better.

So it's a mixture of organisation and manager. If the org isn't flexi ke then your manager will never be able to accommodate you.

If the org is flexible but your manager is not, then moving within the org may help.

My husband works in civil service in the north east of England, his working hours were 6pm to 2am weekdays. He has a commute of over an hour each way. He now has a flexible work request in place and works a compressed shift of 4pm to 2am four days a week. You have a legal right to put in a flexible work request and your employer has to have good business reasons to refuse it, there is some info on the gov. Website.

Big FMCG company, in central
london headquarters. We basically show up when we need to. it can be 8am in the morning, or past 6pm (for phone conferences with asia or westcoast usa etc). but we have a lot of day to day flexibility. no compressed weeks though (sitting in the office for longer doesnot mean the work is done), and very few people working part time.

I work for a large airline in aircraft maintenance. I do the admin for the engineers. Only a part time job (22.5 hours).

Initially when I started I worked Monday Wednesday and Friday, 0845 to 1645. 60 mile round trip commute so not too bad unless there’s traffic.

The engineers work 24 hours a day 7 days a week, so sometimes they need me at random times. I’ve went from working 3 days a week and commuting, to working just about everyday but from home. Not crazy hours, I still only do my 22.5 hours but it’s spread over the week now. I go to Edinburgh or Glasgow airport once a week approx.

I only earn 12k a year so it’s a pocket money job but it’s so flexible and laid back. As long as the work is done they don’t really care where or when I do it.

Will be ideal when DD starts school next year, and DP is just starting up on his own so it lets me help him out too with his admin.

I worked full time I’m a stressful job for 13/14 years until May this year and I absolutely love the new chilled out life.

@myself2020 Sounds like the type of place that I would want to work! I’m happy to do full time (or near enough full time hours( providing I can choose where and when I do them). My hope is that there are many more companies like that out there or that many companies will be heading in that direction.

I work for a corporate who expects more than 9-5. Most people Are in the office three or four days a week. Those with DC seem to split with their partner so they’ll either come in super early or stay super late, but not both (those that do early start and late finish have stay at home partners).

There used to be more flexibility but I think it’s going backwards, with more presenteeism expected.

@jadefeather7 its not only us deciding - if you work with japan, 8am it is for the project. if your project is with the west coast, you are in late. but there is freedom as well

Large employer, finance, city-based. Hour-ish commute. Now home-based via formal flexible working application. Think there is a minimum length of service required before you can put in for flexible working (across the board, not just my co), 6 months or something? But they have to give it proper consideration and there is a list of 8-10 reasons they are allowed to give for refusing. My approach has been to discuss informally first (as you can only put in one formal request in 12 months, so best to get it right!), then put the form in. If you think your employer isn't inclined to be flexible, push for a 'trial period' first so you get a chance to prove it could work.
If you move to another job, look for places that bandy about words like hotdesking and agile. That can mean not enough desks in the office - and they'll be more receptive to flexible working requests!

@scoobyd2 Good advice. DH works for a very flexible firm and they use the terms agile a lot and everyone is hotdesking

@scoobyd2 are you home based 5 days a week?

I work flexibly now but it took me a long time to get there. I can see it from both sides though...

I used to work as a Legal Secretary and there were 6 in our team - 4 fee earners and 2 secretaries - I worked 9-5 the other secretary worked 8-4.

Every day after 4 all the fee earners would want me to do her amendments etc to get post out but she never picked up any of my work before 8 - used to drive me potty - I got so annoyed about it and of course I could never leave early etc because there was nobody to answer phones etc after 4.

I've moved on now and I am now a fee earner myself.

My new firm is extremely good for flexible working BUT there is a process - i.e you have to have a good reason - my reason was that my daughter is disabled and I wanted to offer one day a fortnight care.

I then had to submit an applicaiton to HR in which I proved that my flexible working would not affect my work colleagues.

I opted to work 8-5.15 Monday-Friday one week and the same the next week, except with the second Wednesday each fortnight as a non-working day.

It doesn't affect my salary because I still do my core hours. It doesn't affect my colleagues because I manage my own files and I picked a Wednesday so that it meant it anything happened I would always be back in the office the next day to deal with it.

At first it was really hard doing a long day - I only get 3/4 of an hour for lunch and if I'm honest I always end up answering emails etc on my phone on my non-working day....

... but my daughter and I are exstatic that we get to do this - we love the time we share together and now I've got used to the hours it's like having a day's annual leave every 2 weeks.

I have to say I would have struggled more to get what I wanted if I had asked for a Friday or a Monday - I very carefully picked the Wednesday - everybody wants a non-working day or to leave early on a Friday.

I also had to trial it for 6 months before it was fully approved.

HTH

I work in an industry loosely related to finance and it's generally 9 - 5, office based plus customer visits, but getting more and more squeezed so most people do over this.

Ita a big company and in some ways that makes it harder as it takes so long to roll out things like laptops and mobiles to everyone.

I work 4 days a week and one of those from home but I am a bit of a special case as I've worked there forever and they trust me. Some managers in the past havent been keen because there were others on their team who wanted to work from home but were clearly taking the piss...my opinion is that they should manage that with those staff rather than have a blanket ban.

Although they say they are all for flexible working and part time etc, they will never consider part time less than 4 days (even though some jobs there are very well suited to it), and prefer condensed hours over those 4 days rather than just doing 4 standard length days. They also refuse to put anything in writing about working from home - they say it's an informal arrangement, presumably so they can pull it if it doesnt work for that individual.
I find they are more receptive to it if you show you are flexible. So for example I have a 'preferred' wfh day, but it's not set in stone so if there is a meeting on that day, I'm expected to come in and swap my wfh day, and occasionally if there are meetings every day then that's tough. Which is kind of a pain in the ass - for example if I knew I was always at home on a Monday I wouldn't need after school club or I could take my child to an activity that day

There is still a bit of a culture of people assuming that wfh = skiving, so for example when people phone me to ask me something, they often say 'sorry for disturbing you when you're at home' and I always reply 'you're not - I'm working' and make sure I email them a link or something straight away so they know I'm at my computer!

As with a lot of things it often depends on the attitude of your immediate manager and their manager. I've had one manager asking me to come in after a lunchtime doctors appointment. I said 'I can come in for an hour and a half before i have to go home, or i can get at least 3 hours done at home, and I have no meetings and a load of admin to do', and she wanted me in as she had a very 'bums on seats' mentality.

I work at head office of a huge company. They offer flexi hours - core hours are 10-4 but you can start/finish when you like as long as you get your working hours done each day. Realistically almost no-one works 10-6 as you'd just never get a parking space by arriving at 10.

Working from home is a massive no-no. The offices are overcrowded, parking is horrific and the roads around the office are always gridlocked (took me 35 minutes to travel 2 miles from work on way home tonight) but they are resolute that home working is not something they support. It's archaic and probably costs them a lot of valuable people, both in terms of recruitment and retention. The long servers (of which there are many!) tend to be local people, whereas there is much higher churn of people who commute longer distances.

@yabadee would you mind telling me how you got your job? It sounds great!

I second looking out for hotdesking/agile in the job description. My office is so overcrowded that they've mandated WFH a day a week!

Also, look into the pharma industry. Very family-friendly. Most people worked PT of some sort and had flexi-time around core hours.

@Jadefeather7 yes I am 5 days a week from home, initially informally and now its in my contract - previously I did 1-3 days a week at home, so have a proven track record going back about 6 years. I do have personal/medical reasons to back it up but you actually do not have to give a reason for it, you just have to be able to explain how it will work from a business perspective (ie will it impact your work by not being in the same location as your colleagues).

Was funny as when I was formally 2 days a week at home I had a fair bit of flack from my colleagues (all-male team except me), until I pointed out that any of them could put in for the same - there can be a view that flexible working is for mums only (I'm single, no kids, I just like my work-life balance!) - my colleagues didn't realise they were just as entitled to it as I was.
Statutory guidance can be found here: www.gov.uk/flexible-working

I work for Local Government so their flexible
working policy is pretty great. I work from home 3x days per week. No questions asked. Everyone does it.

Also bear in mind, if you move to a more local firm that entails a pay cut, negotiate from the beginning if you want a part/full time working from home solution. The reduction in commuting costs could well balance out a potential pay cut.

@Morgan12 was advertised on Indeed :)

@ItIsWhatItIsInnit I’ve worked with some pharma clients and I agree the work life balance is great. Unfortunately many have offices outside London in places which aren’t convenient for me to get to :(

@scoobyd2 very lucky! I would be happy with 2 days from home

I'm a civil servant in London and we have to utilise working from home as otherwise there's not enough desks!

People choose which days to work from home and can also work at other offices around London. We can also start early and work late if we want, but we have to have cover for the core hours.

I have not submitted anything formal but split my week 2/3 in the office 3/2 days at hime. No set dates, I do what I want.
8.30 to 5.30 are my hours, commute is 1 1/2 hours each way and is very costly so I try and maximise my ticket.
I am an individual contributor with a very small overseas team.
I work globally with little or no interaction with the London office, so in theory I can sit anywhere.

I work for a property company and we are very flexible. Property sets the standard for gel bike working quite often because office leasing is such big business. Everyone wants to spend less on offices and take less space by allowing staff to work flexibly (even though they end up spending more by going for higher quality) therefore the property industry needs to be demonstrating they play that game. It is incredibly old fashioned in other ways as an industry but flexible working is nailed.

Flexible not gel bike!

I work in a regional role, so home based or at one of 4 or 5 regional offices around the country depending on where the work is. I love the variety, never know each week where I'll be. I pretty much work out for myself where I'll be working, it's not set days or anything, totally depends on business need. I dont think I could manage a 9-5 type job in the same place every day now.