Do you have flexible working? How does it work for you?

[TheBogQueen]

Have landed a ft job after career break and crap pt job. Am BACK in old industry but now public sector.

Anyway - the new employer is waxing lyrical about flexible 'modern ' working and am wondering what that looks like in 2014.

Am old enough to be extremely cynical about this stuff, am fully prepared to be ft 9-5 or whatever required to get job done. But what are the possibilities of flexible working? Just exploring what might be possible.

I think you have to start 9-5 & see how others work it & what flexibility you would like to try. I'm told things like you can work 8-4 or 10-6 or even 2-10pm (sometimes).

We have flexi at work and we tend to build it up to take all at once. We can have up to 1.5 flexi days a month.

It'll probably be X number of hours per week with a minimum and maximum credit or debit allowance. You might have to do some core hours but it will really depend on your employer and your actual job

We have flexi working. Our core hours are 10-4, we can work anywhere between 8-6 and can take a day off every 4 weeks as long as we have accrued enough hours. It's a fantastic system and godsend with DD who has special needs and seemingly endless appointments. I'm a single mum so have no one else to rely on for things like that.

Right so it might be that there are core hours but some occasional flexibility built in ... That is incredibly civilised

it completely depends on your employer. In some places it just means you can decide to work 8.30-4.30 if that is better for you than 9-5, other places it means you can do whatever you like so long as you chalk up 38hrs over the week. I have core hours (which I sometimes flout when I need to do an early pickup) and keep a spreadsheet of the work I do because some parts of the year I work 70 hour weeks and I can then work 30 hour weeks at other times to get the time back.

The factory that is my base (I had an office there for 5 years, have been home based for last 6) have flexi time - core is 10-4, except Fridays where it is 10-12, and you can work between 7.30-6.30. Just about everyone works their hours to be able to leave at 12 on a Friday, and it makes a lot of difference. You can't carry hours over

Best to find out if it's official "flexi time" or just "flexible" as in not clocking in and out.

I know plenty folk working as Specialstuff describes, you'd log the extra hour a day or whatever, and take a full day off in lieu. Often limited / restricted in terms of how much time you can log (e.g. No more than 15 hrs per month), and / or restricted core hours (e.g. You must be in the office 10-4, but can do 9-5, 10-6, 8-4 for a basic day or 8-5, 9-6 etc racking up the extra hour). This will likely need to be agreed in advance.

My workplace is flexible, but not "officially" - we work with different time zones, and management dealing with overseas colleagues and clients are trusted to just put in the hours. So that might mean a 7am call with the Far East one morning, a 7pm call with the US west-coast another, so you might finish early or start late that day, or you might do a "normal" start, then you might finish sharp on a Friday. But no formal recording of hours. I find that useful in terms of not needing to use annual leave for the odd day / afternoon!

Mine is core hours of 10-2 but can work any hours outside if that. However not truly flexitime as anything over 37 hours isn't paid and no time off given if hours owed.

We have core hours 10 - 2, and can work between 8 and 6, but need to cover the office 9-5 between us. I work part time, 3 days a week, usually Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, but can shift my days about to suit. My boss is great about time off for kids if I need it, couldn't get much more flexible really!

Oh and I can work from home too. I usually work 9-3 in the office and then do 2 hours at home, making sure I'm logged onto the network, so answering emails, logging calls etc.

In my place it's as above, core hours 10-12pm and 2-3.30pm and otherwise just do the total hours per week build up to 2 days in hand that you can take off. Also people do compressed hours eg do their hours over 9 days and every other Friday off. Can also work from home a couple of days a week.

12 on Friday!

How things have changed in 10 years! That is amazing.

I don't have contract yet but all thus sounds very encouraging.

It also explains why the traffic is so terrible on Friday afternoons!

I'm the same as noisy toys, and then they did away with "core hours" 10 - 4, because there really wasn't much point in having an arbitrary line!

Its worked fantastically well for the organisation, I really don't mind working on demand as I get it back without any quibbles.

I work flexi. I am a SW. I work 22 hours a week which are not attached to days but I work set days of my choosing. It's actually brilliant for me as obv I don't clock in or out and I'm on the road a lot and work from home also anyway but compared to friends in private sector I seem to have a good deal

Our flexible working is much more than working flexitime. A lot of our staff are very rarely at their desks, so they have become flexible workers, set up with tablets etc so they can work from home, work from another office, or just another floor of our building. They have no allocated desk, just a locker to keep valuables. We still have flexi time too, with core hours.

I have recently gone back to ft work in the public sector.

We have flexi-time so I can start any time between 8 and 10, lunch up to 2 hours between 12 and 2 and finish from 4 onwards. We can take 1 day off every 4 weeks, accrued flexi time.

Also, I can work from home whenever I choose, which I do roughly one day per week, but some of my colleagues do it nearly every afternoon. (Another good point is that my job is not entirely office based - I spend maybe 2 hours a day in the office if I go in.)

I would not have countenanced ft work if flexible working was not available. My dh also does it - he is home roughly 3 days per week, so between the 2 of us, there is always at least one of us home when the children are.

This way of working is a Godsend to parents and makes the work/life balance so much better.

Yes DP is self employed - so flexible - so he will do pickups but even just one day a week when I could pick up the girls from school would make an enormous difference to him

When I went back to work after having ds my husband and I negotiated nine-day fortnight - 10x7.5 hours spread over 9 days. We each have every other Wednesday off but opposite ones. This way ds is only in nursery 4 days saving 1/5th on fees plus nice to have a day with him (and grateful when he goes back to nursery )
I also enjoy the day I don't have to take him to nursery and pick him up (nursery is on site where I work.) It reminds me of my pre-motherhood days!

Also public sector. I work a 9 day fortnight - agreed before I started the job. I make up the extra time by having a short lunch break and starting a bit earlier. It's the first time in 20 years that I've recorded my hours and I'm shocked at how many hours I must have worked for free over the years. DH, who is also public sector works from home one day a week, and dials into meetings if he needs to be at them.

I work flexibly i do 9.30- 14.45 (25 hours a week) term time. But in holidays I work my hours over 3 days . Dh then uses annual leave for child are (he gas mire than me).

In addition to all the examples above (core hours, some home working, nine day fortnights etc) in the small company where I work, the "flexible working" also means two things:

1. If you have an emergency, people are fine about you making up the hours after you've sorted it out. (If if it's a big emergency, we do get personal leave instead, but it just takes the pressure off in the short term).

1. If you're a parent, you have the right to request specific flexibility if you put your case together (see the excellent guide on www.gov.uk). This tends to work best if you do the thinking about what could work, and then make the request. Sometimes it can be harder for the manager to make the imaginative leap unless you sketch it out!