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.

@AlunWynsKnee It’s something I’m thinking about. I think In the long run we will be able to manage ok with me taking a pay cut but I may need to do it sooner rather than later. I keep worrying that I’ll regret it though. I guess you never know.

@Jadefeather7 I think flexible working is almost priceless, I could earn a lot more in the private sector but one way my organisation has battled more competitive private wages is extremely flexible working practices. They shouldn't be overestimated in terms of their influence on work life balance and ultimate life happiness,
especially while having a young family. Plus I have great pension benefits. My flexible working doesn't impact my career though, if I thought it impacted my career negatively it would be a more difficult decision but to me I'd much rather work flexibly full time than deal with the ramifications part time working can bring on a career. I should add my DH works flexibly too although he doesn't have the freedom I do.

I have recently changed jobs, worked 15 years at big bank (city London). They thought they were really flexible but they weren’t at all. I had to work reduced hours to manage with childcare. In new job now, really flexible. 1-2 days wfh a week, can come in late and leave early as long as work get done. It’s heaven

@Lndnmummy if you don’t mind me asking what sort of environment/industry have you moved in to?

I've seen a major change in the last fee years . Big 4, not London but other European capital, everything cloud based, all internal and many external meetings on google hangout or equivalent. Hot desking so working from home some of the time is normal. You still need the human contact but not everyday or all day.

I've stalled my career in favour of flexible/home based working. I left a home based role last year to get a higher level role in an office. By the end of the first day I was itching to get out of there.. couldn't cope with having to sit in the same seat from 8.30 to 5.30 in a room with 100 other people.

I went back to a similar level role/set up to what I'd done previously. It kills me every day as I know I could go up the ladder and am regularly approached by recruiters wanting to put me forward for roles, but the minute I find out they are office based I say no.

@CloudsCanLookLikeSheep don't you find though that the more you progress the more flexibility is on offer? That's certainly been my experience, while juniors might be expected to be in the office more I've found as soon as you get into management you're able to dictate your working pattern/method much more. My jobs haven't been advertised as home based but achieved through flexible working applications.

These days working 1 day per week is quite standard in many city jobs. And it is better remote IT and pressure on office space leading to hot dealing that has often driven this.

I think though that finding a new job that is 4 days a week will cut down the available job options. And if you can find one I think more likely that you find one that will allow you to wfh one of those 4 days than will allow you to leave at 4 every day. Particularly if you are working with the US at all.

But ultimately this stuff comes down to supply and demand particularly when looking for a new role. If you have sought after skills and are great at what you do employers will be willing to be more flexible than if there is a glut of people with your skills and experience.

house you cant get more flexible than wfh/field based which I currently do. My manager has to be in the office 3-4 days per week as she manages the admins, I don't.

Civil service - our team does home working, up to 2 days a week, plus flexi time / compressed hours if desired. The home working has only been introduced in the last year

We have a flexi working policy at my workplace. It’s totally fictional and as far as I can tell is only flexible in that you can arrive early and leave much later.

I work for a big corporate in a finance role in London, relatively senior and reasonably well paid. After I had DS I dropped to 4 days, 1 wfh and shifted my hours to 8 til 4. My company accomodates a lot of people, plenty do 3 or 4 days. I could wfh 2 days if i needed to. My team are good at understanding I have to be out the door bang on 4pm to collect from childcare at 5pm.

The downside is really I'd like to move nearer home but can't find anything else as flexible!

@CloudsCanLookLikeSheep I guess it's career specific, I'm a manager and work remotely, I manage higher grades than admin though, my boss is a director and he's full time WFH!

Banking here. I've worked for same company for 7 years and always worked from home one day a week. But since we had a big restructure this year my old team doesn't exist anymore and my new team are all London-based bar my manager, who travels a fair bit so is used to working remotely with me and knows me inside out. I stay in London for two days every fortnight, get out and about to customer-facing teams pretty regularly but otherwise I'm basically at home.

I get lots done, am well thought of and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I love that flexibility. It's very much quid pro quo and I pretty much do anything I'm asked outside of this arrangement if I can. I am also part time. Was 3 days a week and gradually upped it since DD started school. I now do 32 hours in 4 days.

I wish I knew what companies some of you worked for There needs to be a website which rates companies on workplace flexibility where input is provided by actual employees rather than what the company says

Glass door has reviews. What's your profession? Public sector, speaking generally, tends to be more flexible but wages won't be as competitive.

I work for a mid size consulting firm. Public sector would mean a big paycut. If I go in house in a few years I could probably manage on the 20-30% paycut i would have to take as DH would have probably had a significant promotion by then.

I’m keen to move now though as I have DC but I can’t really take a big paycut right now!

Can your DH work flexibly? Have either of you tried submitting flexible working requests? Everyone has a legal right to. (Sorry if you've mentioned previously I'm being lazy not reading back!)

Also bare in mind pension, I'm civil service so I need to add 26% onto my salary to work out the whole pay package. Plus the savings I make by relying less on after school clubs (that alone saves us about £300 a month than if I needed full time wrap around school care)

I'm a civil servant. Have worked for current dept for 13 years and have always been flexi working - I wouldn't have taken the job otherwise as the commute in rush hour would have been impossible. We are now allowed to WAH 2 days a week - but they are agreed days, not just as you feel like it, as an office presence is needed and we are a smallish team. I love it! It has transformed my attitude to working after getting a little jaded, I wouldn't actually want to WAH the whole time, but not doing the commute every day makes a huge difference.This is a department wide thing though - we couldn't just decide off our own backs to do it, I'm hoping that in the future we can WAH more often - our particular role is totally commensurate with that.

It's definitely down to your line manager and company culture. More so your line manager. I work for a very large insurance company. Started out in the call centre which was shifts, and not particularly flexible although they would try to accommodate requests with enough notice, but obviously no working from home. A couple of years ago I moved to a non customer facing admin role in a different department and it has been so different, I'm able to work from home if I need to. I'm on maternity at the moment and when I go back i will hopefully be working 3.5 days a week with half a day from home. I think it helps at the moment that there is the women in finance charter at the moment where companies have to aim to have a certain number of women in senior roles, so they're focusing on their HR policies on things such as flex working. In my experience though apart from returning from maternity leave where a change of contracted hours or something is involved, it's almost always a very flexible arrangement between you and your line manager. I think my company much prefer it to be this way rather than having it written into a contract what you are entitled to.

Civil service - flexi and home working as standard. Long commute for me though - 1.5hr each way.

I work for the civil service in a London based office but I live in the East Midlands and am a single parent to an under 2. My work have been very accommodating as they know I can commute more than 2 hours each way door to door on a bad day. I work 2 days in the office and 2 days from home which really helps me a lot; luckily I have the kind of job I can do anywhere that I have my laptop, a secure internet connection and peace and quiet.