family-friendly bosses and motivation

[hatter]

I'd be interested to know if anyone has a similar experience to me. My team at work is extremely "family-friendly" - there is never any issue at all with taking time off with sick kids; with working from home; swapping days around (I work part-time) and anything else you could possibly ask for. But what actually happens is that deadlines slip, work plans change and are revised downwards. The result is a distinct lack of motivation. Perhaps this is personal to me and my managers but I think there is a fine line between being "understanding" when things can't go quite as planned, and not actually caring. And sometimes it feels like they don't care! I like my job and I sometimes feel frustrated by this. It's not a moan as such - I know the other side of the coin could be much worse. I'm just interested if anyone feels similarly.

Hmm, I know what you mean. My boss is so laid back that she'll sometimes tell new staff that it's ok to take sickies because we all work so hard most of the time..I kind of understand where she's coming from, but it's the rest of us who have to cover for the ones taking endless days off. HOWEVER I recently went back to work and because of drop offs at nursery had decided to shift my working day back and leave later..which was quite depressing as no one in my office works particularly late (not because they don't care, just because we basically close at 5), and also because I wanted to rush home to be with dd after leaving her at nursery all day. And on my first week back my wonderful kind understanding boss noticed i was staying late and asked me what on earth I was doing and basically told me she didn't want me to make up my hours, she was more interested in keeping me in the job. Which has massively increased my motivation and loyalty, though I sometimes have a pang of guilt about working less time than i'm payed for (but i make it up by working lunches etc and its not very much time overall). So, I have to say the family friendly attitude is a huge boon to me personally at the moment, and I would say that generally people on the team are very committed, and would go the extra mile when they could.

I have a very understanding boss and when the mommies in the team need time off he lets us go

We arent as laid back as your team but we know that our boss understands that family comes first

Can I have one too please? And if it makes you feel better about it you can have some time with mine who thinks "you gave up having a life when you decided to have kids", so you're top of the list to spend extra time in the office rather than impacting on the social lives of all the single males I have to work with

Us with family friendly bosses and teams are very lucky - I know i am
BUT: I do agree with Hatter.My DH works in a small team of 3. The other two are women with 2 children and 1 who has just had her first - so no guesses for who ends up running the company with no extra money /benefits...and who hasn't had a day off ( except Xmasday, box day and NY day) since our family holiday in August....not very family friendly for his family
BTW: I don't mean this is a reflection of all us working mums - just these 2 ( well one in particular)seems to have absolved all responsibity when it comes to work...