It’s a subject close to my heart as well, but as an employer rather than an employee.
If ‘flexibility’ becomes a perk to be offered to senior or proven employees, you’ve already lost. That’s not flexibility.
Flexibility needs to a universal ethos and principle. I would see it as a natural and inevitable result of a work environment built on mutual respect and trust.
We try – and I emphasise try, we’re by no means perfect at it – to be as flexible and family-friendly as possible. Aside from being humane, it’s a simple equation – work is only a part of people’s increasingly pressured and complex lives. Flexibility helps them manage that complexity better, which means that they’re happier, which means they’re both more productive and more creative. Wins all round.
There’s actually quite a lot of really interesting stuff being written in this area at the minute – about the importance of autonomy and happiness in productivity and performance. Daniel Pink has written quite a bit about it (http://www.danpink.com/) as has Teresa Amabile (http://www.progressprinciple.com/books/single/the_progress_principle). Perhaps the most interesting work is the notion of the Results Only Work Environment, (http://www.gorowe.com/about/about-cali-jody/) which trashes the notion of time-based work entirely.
But all of this is a massive challenge to employers and managers, because it forces a degree of rigour and planning in their approach that isn’t always there. If you are going to implement a Results Only Work Environment, you have to be very clear what results are expected of everyone, and in my experience, that’s not always the case in business. Too easy to just expect workers to turn up, clock on and clock off.
My attitude is I don’t really care where you are or when you work, once you get the work done. It seems like common sense to me.
