To think workplaces should offer more flexibility if they cant increase wages?

[TheSmallestOneWasMadeline]

My workplace are fairly flexible by most standards but even though they claim we can work our contracted hours to suit us, it needs to be between 7am and 6pm (ie within those times not 11 hour days!)

I've just returned to work from maternity leave and my intention was to go part time for childcare but honestly with the current wild prices of food and energy as well as the predictions for future rises we are suddenly not sure if its affordable. Our salaries have increased by next to nothing and work are saying further increases arent likely due to budget constraints. Like most people I imagine. Nursery have also increased their prices by around 10%. I'm feeling really sick about how we were going to cope when we were so comfortable when DD was first born.

If DH and I were able to flex our working hours over a longer time - ie work in the evenings, earlier in the mornings or even over the weekends it would be so much easier to manage childcare and it seems like such a good solution for companies to ease the financial pressure on employees without actually paying them more. Obviously this wouldnt be appropriate for ALL workplaces but there must be plenty like mine where when it doesnt matter when the work is done, just that it is.

Just feels like an easy solution really!! AIBU?

YANBU but companies like to control their staff. Flexibility means a lack of control. That's why many companies made people return to the office after Covid, it's not that they were less effective at home (often they were more productive because of the lack of distractions and more pleasant environment), it's that it's harder for management to keep an eye on their every move.

I agree to a point. If you were hypothetically working sat and sun it means anyone coming in to work on Monday may have a lot in their inbox from you.

It also means of things need a quick turnaround during the week core hours then someone in your team has to pick that up whereas you can work your way through non urgent tasks at the weekend at a gentler pace. And you may miss he opportunity to speak up at important meetings if they are all mon-fri or someone may need to attend for the team and you are less likely to have to do that.

So yanbu in theory. But I think youd need to think about how your alternative pattern could work in harmony with your team.

If you were all doing data entry then I wouldn't see a problem.

I think employers need to do something. DH was supposed to have hybrid working when he was taken on for his job, but so many employees have left that he has to do their jobs instead and go in each day. The commute is killing him - 3 hours per day. No public transport possible and constant roadworks making it worse. It also costs a fortune. No pay rises in the 3 years he has been there.

As a result, he too is going to leave soon. None of this would be a problem if he wasn't paid a salary which might have been ok 12 years ago but something decent in reward for his efforts and skills instead. I actually don't think he would be financially much worse off if he worked as a cashier in a supermarket as he is paying a fortune in fuel, but he is actually going to go contracting instead.

You also need to be conscious that a mon-fri job may look to erode terms and conditions for all staff of some are voluntarily working weekends at plain time.

I think there are few places where this is possible. You'd have huge delays in communication between employees, people wouldn't be working together on projects, customers wouldn't get responses. There aren't many jobs where there's no element of teamwork.and what if you worked over midnight, would you call that hours from yesterday or tomorrow. You could work 6hrs one day and 10 the next by working over midnight. Which then opens the can of worms of people condensing working hours into fewer days and having 4 days off. You're still working the same hours but colleagues have to wait 4 days for a reply from you. I can imagine it getting very messy and nobody being happy.

Maybe in principle yes but you also don’t want to exhaust yourselves!

The worry with flexible hours for me, is that it alwyS seems to be the mother who is cramming in her hours at night, whilst looking after kids all day. Dad carries on working lovely sociable hours and getting a full night’s sleep.

I think some degree of flexibility is good and benefits everyone (in jobs where it allows). But I've also seen so many people take the piss and think flexibility only works one way that I understand why there need to be some guidelines. While I could do my work at any time of day really, thinks like engaging with colleagues, responding in a timely fashion to emails, calls and meetings generally need people to be working at a broadly similar time.

It would be a huge perk to recruit and retain staff, but to be honest I can see how it would be difficult to operate.
Very few roles work in true silo, so core hours tend to mean most people are working similar times, and can communicate effectively to get the work done.

I think that employers should seriously consider whether this would work for their business and allow it if possible. But there are many places where it just wouldn’t work. And I suspect people on the lowest wages would mostly be in places where it wouldn’t work (retail, call centres, cleaners, care work, nursery staff etc). I also think that some employers would use it instead of pay rise, when actually I think most people would prefer a decent pay rise!

Trouble comes when Ann starts at 10am, Barry does the nursery run 11.30-12 30, Carrie finishes at 2 30, Dennis doesn't work Mondays, Eliza doesn't work Wednesdays, and Freddie dorst work Fridays. You are left with so few slots the whole team can get together, it messes everything up.

I've done it trying to work with a team on a Sunday-Thursday week in the East, the US nd with me in Europe. It was horrifically slow, because every question took forever to get responses and you had to message East before Thursday lunch to get a response by Monday.

We also had the crazy telephone calls, where the US guy called in at 5am, and the others stayed back til 9pm.

It might work for roles that can be done in isolation, but not for many forms of project work.

They could say you could say you can work 6 or 8 hours a week outside core hours. There would be a little more flexibility but no one would be able to just work nights!