What if flexible working actually meant… flexible working?
My ideal working day would probably look completely ridiculous to some people.
I’d happily get up at 3am and work for a few hours.
Stop. Get my daughter up and take her to school.
Come home and work for another few hours.
Stop again. Do the school run.
Then finish whatever hours I have left later.
Same working hours.
Same responsibilities.
Same outputs.
Just not necessarily delivered in one neat block between 9 and 5.
And for me, that would be genuinely flexible working.
I’m a wife, a mum, a caregiver and I’m disabled. I also have a career that matters to me.
I don’t want to choose between those things.
But sometimes it feels as though work expects us to behave as if we don’t have families, while family life requires us to behave as if we don’t have jobs.
The maths isn’t mathsing. 😂
And let’s be real: most of us work because we need to earn money.
That doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy our jobs. I do.
I like working. I like solving problems. I like learning and achieving things. I genuinely wouldn’t want to not work.
But I also don’t want my career to be the main objective of my life.
So perhaps the future of flexible working isn’t simply choosing between home or office.
Maybe it’s also questioning when work needs to happen.
Obviously this couldn’t work for every role. Some jobs need people in particular places at particular times.
But for roles where the output matters more than the exact hour it was produced…
Should we be measuring when people work - or what they actually deliver?
And if you were given complete flexibility over your hours, when would you work?
#FlexibleWorking #FutureOfWork #WorkLifeBalance #WorkplaceCulture #DisabilityInTheWorkplace