Welcome to Working on Work
Hi, I’m Kathy Yates, owner of concurrence consulting, welcoming you to the podcast, “Working on Work”
When my son was in elementary school I referred to myself as a full time working, stay at home mom. I had a gig providing project management services. I was not an employee, so I set my own hours. I dropped my son off at school, went to the place of business for 6 hours and picked him up when he got out of school. I worked intently for 6 hours and I got the work done.
I was grateful that I got to make that choice with my time. But it also put me at a disadvantage. I wasn’t getting any company retirement contributions, I paid for my own health insurance, and I wasn’t really building a career. That was the tradeoff for the flexibility.
It seems a bit crazy to me that we have a work day that doesn’t align with the school day, and that each family is trying to figure out how to get their kids taken care of while they work. While schools do their best, they don’t have the capacity to support every student. For every 1 student in after school care, 2 students are on the waiting list. And this doesn’t even cover the machinations for early childhood care, before children are in school.
It is time to change this built-in tension of a two-hour time gap between the school and work day. In the U.S. in 64% of two-parent families, both parents work. 23% of children live with a single mother and 4% with a single father. There is no one sitting at home ready to care for these children, which means either a good portion of pay goes to after school care, or children are left on their own.
We have seen a lot of technological advances that have benefit companies, but workers have not seen a consistent benefit in a way that recognizes their most precious, non-renewable commodity, time.
I wrote that introduction about three weeks ago. And every day, I realize that which I described above, is not where we are today, and not where we are headed.
The truth is the quarantine imposed in response to COVID 19, has led to a lot of discoveries about our work. While it has been an affirmation for working at home it has also revealed that not all jobs are suitable for “remote work”.
What happens for the people who need flexibility but are in jobs that don’t offer it? And, now that we are faced with social distancing for the near future, how can we adapt our work day, and possibly our school day, to make the necessary changes for health, productivity and equity.
On May 12, Twitter announced "If our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen.”
The “if” their role and situation enables them to work from home is what captures my attention.
Flex time does not just mean working from home. Flex time is a range of options that work for the company and for the employee. Options include remote work, split shifts, job sharing between two people, a compressed work week with longer hours but fewer days, a completely flexible schedule where you decide when to work, or a flex schedule where a set alternate time is followed. Some companies don’t focus on your time but only on the results.
Each option has pros and cons, and some are more suitable to a particular type of business, or person. Companies need to consider the range of possibilities to find the ones that work for the nature of the business and the needs of the employees.
I invite you to join me and my guests we explore how to expand our flextime options for the benefit of employees and companies, in this rapidly changing environment. We will explore best practices, discuss the painful lessons learned, identify technologies, and uncover barriers to getting work done.
I look forward to our journey of discovery.
