I know a lot of people reading this will be thinking, nine to five? Yeah, I think I managed that once, back when I was working for free as a grad. Fun times...
It’s an outdated concept, with its origins dating back to the 1940s in America. Today’s meaning of nine to five is more associated with presence in the office rather than an eight-hour working day, which, let’s face it, is a distant dream for some. Either way you look at it, I’d argue it’s time for a change.
So, why hasn’t the change happened already?
For starters, like many other industries, working in advertising and media has deadlines. There are costly repercussions when these deadlines aren’t met. Client’s want campaigns turned around in record time, with increasingly low budgets. Hardly the environment for embracing flexibility.
See also: What adland talent shortage? Part-timers are ripe for picking
But it could be. Hear me out.
Firstly, we need to think about flexible work differently. It’s mostly thought about in terms of working part-time, and mostly for mums. Secondly, the focus is usually how it can benefit the employee, not how it can benefit the business. And last but not least, Flexism is rife in all industries, so it’s time for a ‘flex for all’ style approach.
Let’s start with the ‘part-time factor’. Why do we automatically default to part-time when talking about flexible work? Quite frankly, it’s a terrible solution for both the individual and the business. It leaves a role un-filled for about 40% of the time, and the person working part-time usually totally over-services the role out of fear of losing their job. Resentment bubbles up from both sides.
There are so many other forms of flexible work that could be a better solution, there’s job sharing, where a full-time role is split between two part-time staff. Much better than part-time because there’s full-time cover for the employer, and the staff members have cover on their days off. There’s working from home, compressed working weeks, flexible start and finish times, purchased leave, the list goes on!
For the record, not all flexible work options involve working less, it’s just working differently. Most people still want their full-time pay. They just want time to do other things too. This is a good thing, especially in advertising. Staff need to be able to bring more to the table than their degrees and an opinion on last night’s Bachelor episode. In order to do that they need time for hobbies, and well, life!
The next issue is that it’s often only thought of in terms of how it can help the employee’s needs, and not in terms of business objectives. Flipping the thought process behind a flex work request may be the difference between getting a yes or a no. And on that, if you’re asking for flexible work, remember to offer flexibility in return, it’s a two-way street.
A crucial and mostly overlooked factor in flexible work is a team approach. Most people submit an often poorly thought through flexible work request to their supervisor. This leaves one person the power to approve a change that affects a whole team.
For instance, maybe person A wants to start work later and finish work later to avoid peak-hour traffic. If put to the team, there may be a person B who is wanting to start earlier and finish earlier. Person A and Person B could agree to provide cover for each other, and the business has just gone from operating from 9am – 6pm to 7am – 8pm. And yes, I know, there’s usually always someone there until 8pm anyway, but believe me, not because they want to be. There’s a big difference!
Then there’s Flexism. It’s the look you get when you leave the office before 5pm to go pick your kids up from school. That, ‘it’s alright for some’ look. Flexism is also felt by non-carers, who feel they don’t have a valid reason to request flexible work because they don’t have dependents. It goes both ways. Sometimes it’s overt, but most of the time it’s subtle, and it’s corrosive.
We also need to consider diversity. There are many studies that prove creativity flourishes with diversity. Diversity is not just your ratio of men to women. To have a diverse workforce we need to open up the talent pool, to open up the talent pool we need to change the way we hire, to do that we need to redesign the way particular roles function.
Despite the many ways flexible work can be used to the advantage of the business, there is always push back. A lot of it, from my experience.
Managers will be squirming in their chairs, fearing they’ll open the flood gates if they approve someone’s flexible work request. Well, firstly there are no flood gates. It would be an extremely rare anomaly if everyone decided they wanted the exact same flexible work option. They won’t! And, anyway, remember the ‘team approach’. Don’t hide behind the ‘floodgates’ because they won’t open.
I hear this one a lot. “If I let them work from home the work won’t get done”. For me this isn’t a flexible work issue, this is a trust issue. And my counter argument (because I have a lot) is, if you don’t trust your staff to work from home, they probably aren’t particularly productive at work either. Dedicated workers will work hard no matter where they are, the difference is they’ll stay if you trust them, they’ll go work hard for someone else if you don’t.
Flexibility is a two-way street. Both employers and employees will benefit from a well thought out approach to creating a culture of flexibility. It might not be easy, but it will be worth it. The results will speak for themselves.
By Jobs Shared founder Simone McLaughlin