Flexibility

Because of my background I’m somewhat used to working in a flexible arrangement.

When I was with Nortel, I’d pull 50 hour weeks with no sweat because there was flexibility. I took ownership of the work, of the sites, and sometimes that meant maybe 20 hours exra on the weekend or staying late to 10 pm. On the odd occasion it meant an overight which was accepted as part of the job. Nortel was very progressive with their flexibility – we had flexi days, I worked from home for 18 months and we always had decent remote access facilities, including mobiles and laptops.

When running my own business I had even more flexibility – that happens when you’re the boss though obviously you have work to get done. Likewise there were times that working until 2 am was completely necessary and considering the state of my first marriage, I’ve also pulled a couple of overnights there as well.

Last week, I arrived in the office every day at 7-7.20 am (with one exception) and I left the office usually between 4:00-5 pm (one evening was a 5:30). On top of this I worked on Sunday too. I don’t begrudge the extra hours I put in but today I found myself to annoyed to work for the last hour. My reason? The exception.

On Friday last I went to the dentist. I’ve had a lot of dental appointments as they replace old fillings and generally give me a cleanup but last Friday I arrived in at 11 am and got to work. At 3 pm was a talk about new VoIP technology being deployed into the company (which wouldn’t have been out of place in 1998) which I also attended (as the person tasked with being the pilot for teleworking in our group). At 4 pm I left in disgust due to the poor quality of the information provided.

Today I was criticised for “not being around” on Friday. That pisses me off that I can pull hours well over my contract, fulfill all of my obligations AND give two members of staff their goals settings for the coming year (putting me ahead of any other project leader in the group) and the response was a dressing down? There’s something not right there.

Flexibility is important to me, indeed to every parent.

Flexible working impacts on the bottom line – research shows that companies embracing it are seeing an increase of between 15% and 31% in productivity. It can also result in reduced overheads – in areas such as property. In fact, in some cases every full time home worker can save a company approximately £6,000-£9,000 per annum.