I am a mother. My children are in primary school which gives me the day free. Well, I say the day but actually, I'm free from around 9am until 3.20pm. School finishes at 3.30pm and on the days that they have no after school activities, it's a flurry of homework and getting dinner made. There are times when I do not sit down from the moment we get home from school until I eat my dinner around 5pm. Let's not even go over what I have to do on Thursdays, when one has football and the other dancing lessons!
One of the reasons for starting Jellybean was out of frustration for the lack of flexible working opportunities available to people like myself. Yes, there are part-time jobs but unless it's in a school, there is the issue of what to do with them in the school holidays.
During termtime, childcare that wraps around school is also expensive. Our school does not have its own breakfast and after school club but it does share with a nearby school. It's my personal choice not to use that facility. There are childminders offering a similar service but the best ones are booked up. Childcare costs are ever increasing as this report shows.
Thus, it is my choice (and my budget limitation) that I don't currently put my children into any wrap-around childcare. The work I do has to reflect this demand. In addition, it's great that I am able to make time to attend events in the school day sometimes, without upsetting a boss by having to take time off to be there. I know that when I go, there are children there who cry because their parents are not there, and my children's faces always light up when they see mine at the back of the hall.
You'd think that employers would recognise it is better to keep hold of good employees and offer them work that will allow them to work around their children, but I haven't once seen such work offered in the industry that I used to work in. I found it a struggle to get my own employers to agree to part time working as it was - even though there wasn't enough work to keep me busy full time! Madness. They actually agreed a compromise of a jobshare but that jobshare partner was never found - when they realised they could manage without one and would save them money.
Surely that is the point. Employers don't see the bigger picture - if they retain good employees, they don't have to spend as much money on recruitment and training, and it's been proved many times that people who work from home are often more productive than those working in an office. They have fewer establishment costs - so why are employers reluctant to agree to flexible working from home. I can only assume it is an issue of trust. They don't trust employees to get on with their work, and assume they'll do nothing if unsupervised, but the fact is, work from home employees aren't distracted by other colleagues and are probably less stressed. Managed properly, they can be a very effective resource to call on. And the key is in the word flexible - if I do not work in the day, I can make it up in the evening or the weekend, if I choose to.
Why do you think employers do not offer true flexible working to their employees? Will attitudes ever change? I, for one, doubt it will change wholesale, although there are more people working from home with the technological improvements that have allowed this over the last 10 years in terms of faster broadband and, more recently, smartphone usage.
I'd love to know what you think.
