Flexible Working
In the modern age, life seems to be more multifaceted than ever and, as a result, the demands being made on our time are constantly increasing. This being the case, many professionals in a variety of industries find that working their contracted hours in a block in the middle of the day is incompatible with their desired lifestyle.
As a result flexible working, or flexi-working as it is often known, is becoming ever more popular, giving more and more people the freedom to tailor their working hours to the rest of their commitments. When we consider the fact that the average level of pay is rising slower than inflation many people, feeling that they are unlikely to see an increase in real earnings, are using the motivation of a better work/life balance as a reason to switch jobs.
Benefits Of Flexible Working
There are many different ways in which flexible working can be made to work for your situation. For example, if you work in IT, or even if you just carry out the majority of your work on a computer, as long as you have the required equipment you may be able to work from home for some, or even all of the week.
This can allow you to keep your own hours if your schedule demands. The fact that you might break up the working day to go and collect the kids from school is of little consequence as you can easily make up the time later. It’s not as if the office needs to lock up!
Furthermore, if you are a commuter, even being able to work from home one day a week could save you a considerable amount in travel costs over the course of the year, not to mention a huge amount of your own personal time. Just imagine, you finish work for the day, turn off your PC, step out of the office and there you are, home instantly.
There Are Some Drawbacks
Obviously, there are some drawbacks to flexible working, whether it involves working from home, or simply starting and finishing and a different time to your colleagues. For one thing, it is possible that you will get a sense of isolation working from home on your own, missing out on the office gossip and the general atmosphere of camaraderie that most modern work places aspire to create.
Missing out on this side of working life can, as well as taking away a valuable aspect of your social life, place an obstacle in the path of your career. It will, needless to say, be easier for your boss to overlook you for promotion if you have no visible presence in the workplace, even if your work is of a very high standard. If you aren’t around as often, your superiors might feel they lack a sense of you as a person. In extreme cases it could feel as if you’re not really apart of the workforce at all, but rather that some of their work gets outsourced to you.
On top of this, if you work from home there is always a chance that, rather than finding a better work/life balance you will instead find it harder to separate your professional and personal affairs. Due you really want to bring the stress of the workplace into your home? It may create the feeling that work is inescapable.
Before deciding if flexible working is a solution that would work for you it is well worth considering these questions at length before rushing in and trying to remould your current working patterns. For many the old, tried and tested routine of working 9-5 works. Without such a structure you will certainly need a good sense of self motivation if you’re to succeed.