What does flexible working mean to you? Share with Mumsnet Talent - £300 TK Maxx voucher to be won

[LucyBMumsnet]

As a parent you often have to juggle seemingly never-ending responsibilities, meaning flexible working becomes a crucial requirement when looking for a job. And it's not just parents who suffer — a lack of flexibility can be detrimental to anyone with care responsibilities, outside commitments or disabilities of their own.

That’s why Mumsnet Talent is dedicated to making parents' lives easier by promoting flexibility in the workplace. We believe it's possible to have a career without compromise, with a job that supports your lifestyle instead of dictating it. That's why every role we host is flexible or home-based, and why we strive to represent every sector and every level.

As champions of flexible working, we’d like to hear what flexible working - outside of times where employers have no choice - means to you. Do you have a flexible job right now? What form does flexible working take? Perhaps it’s a job share or part-time hours? Maybe it’s the ability to work from home regularly or flexi-hours so you’re able to drop your children off at school? What elements of ‘flexible working’ are most appealing to you?

Whatever flexible working means to you, share it on the thread below and you’ll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 TK Maxx voucher (to be spent in TK Maxx or Homesense).

If you're looking for a new job, look no further than Mumsnet Talent. Sign up here and explore more than 3,000 flexible roles currently waiting for your application.

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

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To me it would mean working for a set amount of hours but being able to work them as and when is convenient and where is most convenient.

Parents need a workable solution for having a sick child - it could be paid leave, work from home, unpaid leave, making up the hours, but something which doesn't mean that you end up losing your job if your child or children have the usual amount of childhood illnesses because right now too many people cannot keep their jobs because of this and it's a sign of a highly disfunctional society that is failing to support working parents.

To me it means not necessarily having to work 9-5...

Sorry , pressed too soon...so I mean you can start a bit later and finish later when needed, work around school hours if need be, different locations if needed etc

I have a very flexible job, but have it contracted as I learned the hard way in previous role. I work 100%. 2 full days from home, standard office hours. The other three days I leave the office at 2 to collect from school and log in back after the kids are in bed. I manage a team in the US so this works out better for me that just standard UK hours. Also my boss is in the US so I'm broadly unsupervised.

The key is that I am trusted to do the work, and be in the meetings I need to be in, and build the right relationships to get work done. Also, as we are a genuinely global company, there is a lot of remote management and international cross-functional work, which quickly demonstrates how unnecessary, and impractical, it is for people to be at their desks 9-5.

My job has flexible working and I am incredibly appreciative of it.
For me it means being able to make use of flexi time, so any additional time I work I can claim back as/when I want and need. So I never miss any school production, event or sports day.
It also means that when my child has appointments in my working time, I don't have to ask permission to start earlier or finish later to accommodate the appointment without taking annual leave.
We're never critiqued for taking carers leave for our children and other families we care for like older, and frail relatives.
We have so much flexibility as predominantly the majority of our organisation works from home. So we don't worry about commutes and have great work-family balance. They are also always keen to know about our children, and they regularly appear in our staff weekly magazine which only reinforces our parents are respected as employees.
I feel proud to work for my organisation and their flexible working policies demonstrate some of the reasons why.

Before Covid I worked from home 1 day a week and for me I valued the headspace. It would literally be the one day of the week where I was alone. It gave me tome to think through my output more and therefore improve.

For my team, it means responding to messages and emails during the standard working day and being available on the phone if needs be, but the total hours can be completed around childcare commitments.

I think this....

To me, flexible working means flexibility both ways. I need to be flexible and so does my employer. It also depends a lot on trust.

and this

So many responses and expectations are 100% focused on the person and how it suits them. The cold hard fact is businesses aren't there for your convenience, they are there to make money and be successful. But it should be a mutually beneficial agreement, not one that only suits whatever the employee decides is best.

.... are really important.

There are often people (you see them on here quite often) who are somewhat unrealistic with their expectations - no, of course you can't work whilst caring for a baby, toddler, or small child.
Then you get people who put "working from home" in inverted commas, even when talking. I'm not talking about the extraordinary circumstances we are in now, I'm talking normally.
Then of course, there are lots of jobs where physically you have to be where you are working - be that retail, carers, zoo-keepers, crematorium workers, teachers, surgeons, tree-surgeons, road tarmac-ers, or a plethora of other jobs.

It’s give and take.
I work 3 set days, but with enough notice for childcare I can work extra or move my days around. I also often need to leave early, but can make the time up from home later on.
My boss just says as long as the work is done, he trusts me to manage my own time.

My job suits part time hours, but there is a promotion that I have considered a couple of times however the requirement is full time hours. It’s a shame because I’m not ready to increase my hours yet but it is a great opportunity. Having said that I understand the reasons they won’t consider part time.

Oh and I’m finding out now that my job can be done from home (wasn’t even considered an option pre COVID, apart from minor admin tasks) but impossible to do while caring for children. My dh is home at the moment but he will be going back to work after Easter (key worker) and I’ll have to be a bit more creative and flexible with my hours.

For me it's more than just being able to work from home, it's having an employer that understands that life doesn't always go as we'd planned and so we may need to work odd hours or leave the office early one day but leave late the next day. I think it's about offering the ability to have a job that's flexible around the individual and their needs, for instance my employer allows people to request to work a 9 day forntnight, and in the current circumstances are allowing people to work around their childcare and work on a weekend if they would prefer - I think this is incredible and is something I really value.

I think it should be outcome based work, and the hours should fit around your family life, with you being in charge of the when you work, and for how long, as long as the work is done. I wfh processing data and updating spreadsheets and producing reports. I can do my job in the morning before everyone is up (from 5 til 8) and 12 til 2 and 6 - 9. My boss can see from the output, that I have been productive, and I have the time with my family.
A work life balance makes you a better parent and happier employee, more likely to give the best output, stay with the company, and produce good work.

for me it means being able to work around your own schedule

It's about the mutual understanding between employer and employee that work needs to be done, and done well, and done on time, but that the people undertaking that work are human beings who all have lives outside of work - families, caring responsibilities, households, interests and needs etc that also require (and deserve) their attention and commitment.

It's about acknowledging the whole person, about banishing cultures of presenteeism and competitive busyness, about trust and about integrity, on both sides.

And it's about understanding that happy employees with a sense of control over their working day are overall more productive and more loyal!

Could I ask for some help from people who have flexible hours please? What gets written in your contract for this? I’ve asked my employers for a contract that has 80% of core hours in the office during set times and the other 20% on a flexible home working arrangement where I am available for calls/meetings and work a certain number of hours outside the office. I’ve been working this way for a year just not getting paid for the 20% flexible working. My employers are keen to get me to commit to set hours in this 20% home/flexible time but that doesn’t work and takes away flexibility as no week is the same with children, I can commit to getting the job done and being available for calls/meetings and sharing my hours but not ‘I will be sat at my desk between x and y on z day’. How do those of you who have this flexibility manage it with your employment contract? Thanks in advance for any help on this.

Outcome based is unfair

So much depends o the job though @alwaysataldi. That works for you and your employers as it sounds as if
a) they can 'measure' your output
b) you don't have to meet / consult / share with other people or train them or receive training. Nor meet customers / clients / service users. Not 'be available' when people need you.
c) your job can be done anywhere, unlike Soooooooo many jobs.

@Raffathebear - why ? (unless you are a teacher or a medic)

For me it's about give and take. I've worked
PT and am now moving to compressed hours, ultimately both are underpinned by an appreciation from my employer that my personal life shares priority with work, but I can still achieve what I need to by managing my own time.

Flexible working isn't just about an employer saying they offer flexihours or the option the WFH. It needs to be engrained in the culture of the business.

I'm a senior finance manager and work 3 days a week, 8 hours a day. I can swap days, I can work 5 shorter days, I can WFH, it's up to me. My boss fully supports it and knows my family will come first but I'll get the job done.

However, through the company, I get a lot of 'here late again?', 'leaving early?', from the men in the office. We're trying to work on this but sadly people still believe that long hours means your doing a better job.

For me it's the ability to be able to start at 7am one morning and finish at 3pm once a week, or finish at 4pm to take the kids to activities but come back and do a couple of hours in the evening when I get back.
I had a truly flexible job that was measured in sales performance, so as long as the work was done it didn't really matter when. It meant that I was 'on' all the time but when the kids were tiny it was a godsend as it meant I managed my own hours completely so could be doing paperwork at 5am if I wanted, or 7pm so was never behind.
I rarely missed a school/kids event, and still got some time to myself to take a run a lunchtime etc.

For me flexible working means trusting your work force to work from home and allow them to flex their hours as needed. It also needs companies to move past the idea that a job can only be done in 37-40 hours a week and be receptive to part time, annualised hours, compressed hours and job shares. Also in my companies you can only request a change in work arrangements once a year. Things happen and flexibility to review a work arrangement should be offered to support employees if things change in that 12 month period is important.

IT that works!!

My job is fairly flexible but the majority of time I need to be in the office. I can do the odd day from home and obviously at the moment I am fully working from home.
I find it a lot harder working from home due to the set up, much prefer being in the office.

I am a teacher of a specialist subject (not school-related). The flexibility I get is in the type of work. Hence my job is flexible because it is split into two parts: 1) the teaching 2) creating handbooks and other working material.

Hence when I have more time or more flexibility with making sure my children have someone to watch over them, I can go in and teach daily. When I had my children I could no longer teach but I could create the workbooks from home without going in. It requires research and collecting data, text and being able to design which does require time but I am able to manage by creating a Montessori environment at home for my younger children when I need to work. They can keep themselves busy for a long time with puzzles, sorting and stacking and following their interests and providing them an activity/toys/learning material based on their current interest. For example, my three year old loved sorting things by colour so he would spend ages sorting the magnetic toys, Lego Duplo or any other building type of toy by colour.

My employer is happy to arrange other teachers to take my place when I need to be at home and I focus my work on the more physical material. I guess my job is very interchangeable towards one goal.