For most organisations the necessity to have people working in the old way of turning up at a certain hour, doing work for a certain number of hours and then going home at a certain hour has gone. This is even true in many areas of manufacturing where prior to the implementation of automation and AI people were effectively part of the machines and so standard shift patterns were the only way of working. We know that flexible working is the way ahead for almost any organisation that wants to be effective but it is important to remember that flexible working has to be flexible on both sides.
Many organisations have been very slow to adopt flexible working and I think there are several reasons for this but there is one major one which seems to never be discussed. So let’s put that right now.
Whenever flexible working is talked about it is always from the view point of the employee. We know that giving employees flexible working so that they can spend more time with the children or look after sick relatives or just plan their day more productively can produce benefits for both the employee and the employer. However, if the employer is to allow the employee to be flexible then the employee must also allow the employer to be flexible. Employees must flex their time to deal with the fact that if a large order comes in and needs to be prepared over the weekend or a sudden problem comes up that needs sorting now, even though it is three pm, and the employee normally leaves early to pick up the children under their flexible working arrangements. Will they be flexible enough to return to work after the school run to sort out the problem?
I’m not talking about things that happen due to poor planning by the organisation, I’m talking about the same sort of unavoidable, unpredictable things that happen to employers as well as employees.
Flexible working can only work properly if both sides are flexible. Employees need to learn to be flexible in return for the flexibility granted to them by their employers. Anybody can tell you if you have something that is flexible on one side and rigid on the other then it’s going to break. Relationships between employers and employees are the same. Flexibility v rigidity leads to disaster.
At the moment we see too many poor employers expecting good employees to be flexible whilst they are rigid. You can see this in badly run organisations where employees are pushed to the point of burn out. As we move to flexible working we must not go too far the other way where poor employees expect good employers to allow them flexibility under their terms only.
Give and take works but, you give and I take doesn’t. Flexibility on both sides is the answer.
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