Recycled Bullsh-IT

I’m sure there were a lot of flexible working requests flooding in on Wednesday morning from the 20 million English fans who celebrated after watching 22 blokes chase a bladder around on Tuesday evening. Who were then interrupted by their own bladders through the night…

 Does your company support flexible working? I don’t mean when they ask you to ‘flex’ your 35 hours next week to 70 hours with little notice or paid overtime. Or when you have to bend over backwards to accommodate ridiculous, and usually last-minute, work requests?

 In this (soon to be ‘irreversibly’) post-lockdown age, a lot of you have got used to spending less time commuting and being stuck in large factory-farming offices with the assorted menagerie your organisation has inexplicably hired. See T’working from Home

 Companies are wrestling with how to get enough of you returning to these empty caverns so they can feel back in control of their business, when many of you have been much happier & more productive working from your garden recliners. Consequently, execs have increased the range of flex working options (through gritted teeth); but which ones are right for you, and what are the gotchas?

 Flex-time

Starting and ending your day at different times can be attractive to some, but only if it is your choice – otherwise it’s shift work.  However, few offices are 24×7.  I worked at one company where I would unlock the door at 8 in the morning when I arrived and lock it at 6:30 when I left. Not every day, of course, but the 9-5 culture is still more common than many thrusting execs like to think. Also, it gets difficult to arrange your (still time-wasting) meetings if half your colleagues are still in bed or already down the socially distanced pub.

 Reduced hours

Some of you may wish to work fewer hours or days each week to suit your personal circumstances. Cutting down your working week can also be a useful transition when you’re approaching retirement. Even if your boss agrees to you only working a three- or four-day week, be careful you aren’t expected to deliver the same output as those still full-time. Of course, there are always skivers colleagues who in fact already do work less than you but still expect to get paid the full wage as no one has found out their expertise in presenteeism. Also, as furlough unwinds you may be asked to ‘voluntarily’ move to a shorter working week with the commensurate pay cut.

 Compressed Work Week

Some companies (mainly new, entrepreneurial, and wanting to make a name for themselves) trumpet moving to a 4-day week. The concept here is to do all your hours in 4 days or fewer, then enjoy a longer weekend. That you’ll spend sleeping after your longer working days.  These ‘visionaries’ obviously can’t hear the majority of hard-working small business owners screaming obscenities at them as the owner-managers struggle to keep afloat grafting away for 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

 Tele/Remote Working

 After the initial shock of being sent home last March and struggling to cope with juggling work, family, and hobbies all in the same room at the same time, many of you have got used to the experience. Some of you now prefer to avoid The New (Ab)normal. We’re likely to see variations of this continuing, from allowing full-time home working to carry on (for those about to be outsourced/offshored), through fixed (1-4) days in the office, to fully flex: come into office when needed. These hybrid models might prove a management headache, so expect increasing pressure to troop back to your workplace stall so you can be milked more easily.

 Time in lieu

 Having time off when you have worked overtime has been around for a long time, typically when you have pulled all-nighters and/or worked weekends and bank holidays. Given UK workers work 42 hours a week on average, you are gifting your exploiters employers up to an extra day a week gratis. As many of you now prize your precious time more, companies are finding more resistance to unpaid overtime, so time in lieu is being offered to stem the grumblings. Of course, you’ll be expected to make up the time you’ve missed as you’ll come back to find no one has done your day job while you were off.

 Leaves & sabbaticals

Many of you have dreamt of or have realised your dream of taking a few months or a year off work to pursue your around the world road trip, your “white saviour” charity volunteering in Africa, or your vanity degree/post-grad qualification, with the assurance your job would be there when you came back.  Probably.  With travel impossible, universities going online, and a real fear your job will disappear forever, not many of you dared to dream this last year. As restrictions ease you may be tempted to let loose, but your employer might take a dim view and add you to the ‘volunteers’ to be rightsized as furlough ends and costs (i.e., you) need to be cut.

Of course, some of you will just be happy to get back to a normal office life. But don’t be surprised if your office has fewer colleagues in then before as many of you want some of this flex rather than t’working all the time.

John ‘Work till you’re muscle-bound, all night long’ Moe