And finally, the sun is shining! We're struck by that most British of urges - to throw caution and our cardigans to the wind, and turn our faces to the light. We find ourselves smiling at strangers in the street. Our hearts swell a little at the crescendo of birdsong, heralding the arrival of spring! Oh wait. No. No, that's not birdsong, actually. That's the repeated pinging of your work phone. It heralds not the onset of a new season, but of a new project. It signals not the turning of the earth, but rather the turning of your planned evening into several hours of answering emails...
The concept of always being "on" - and the ability to be contacted by your employer outside working hours - is increasingly seen as an inevitable part of modern working life. Partly it's a hangover from the pandemic. After all, who can forget those days when many of us had to work at irregular hours, whilst swapping in with our partners for our next childcare shift? It was completely normal to arrange meetings at 9pm, once our responsibilities for teaching long division and subordinating conjunctions had finally - finally! - been discharged. But thank goodness, those days are gone. No more frantic Twinkl printing or grammar googling is required - we should in theory be able to return to more predictable working arrangements.
Curiously, though, the practice of emailing colleagues at weekends and late into the evening - and expecting a response - seems to have stuck. This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, and this year the theme's "Anxiety". Is the need to always be connected to our working lives bad for our mental health, or is this concept so deeply embedded in our workplace habits that it's now just a necessary part of getting senior jobs done? Does it blur the lines between work and home so much that it damages our work-life balance, or is it simply a trade off for the flexibility that we all gained from the great Covid flexible-working experiment? If we were to change it now, would it reduce our anxiety levels, or would it put the brakes on our normal pace of work and hamper those of our colleagues who prefer to work at non-traditional times - often colleagues who are balancing their paid roles with caring responsibilities?
Well, we may be about to find out. The Labour Party have declared that they plan to introduce a new "right to disconnect" from work, if they form a government at the next election. The idea is that employers would be restricted in their ability to contact their staff by phone or email outside working hours. Similar provisions are already in place in France, and reports suggest that Labour are planning to look across the channel for inspiration.
In the end, we can't help wondering whether the answer to this conundrum might just lie in that most basic of workplace concepts - respect. It'd be disingenuous of us to pretend that flexibility doesn't ever need to be mutual - if we want flex to operate well for everyone, then it's probably true that we all have to give and take a little. If you're engaged in a job share, for example, then perhaps the occasional email response is necessary to share information, rather than leaving your team worker in the lurch for the rest of the week. If we want flexibility to make our own lives work, then it seems only fair that we support our colleagues in doing the same. If a client needs an update and you won't be back at work for another few days, then it's only reasonable to let a co-worker know so that they can cover the project on your non-working days. If we want the dial to move on flexible working, then maybe it's just common sense for us all to work together to show organisations that everything will still run smoothly.
Of course, that's very different from an expectation that employees will be available to drop everything in their personal lives and pick up significant amounts of work at a moment's notice. At a time when work-life balance is increasingly important for many candidates, companies who can't draw the line in the right place may find that their reputation precedes them. Ultimately, as with many things in life, it's probably not rocket science - we all know that mutual respect goes a long way to making sure that we all feel buoyed up by our colleagues, and nobody feels taken for granted.
If you feel that your organisation hasn't quite hit the nail on the head, then perhaps it's time to take a look around and consider what other options might be out there. We're always delighted to chat through possibilities, and we pride ourselves on working with a wonderful group of enlightened and forward-looking employers. After all, look out of the window. This spring, wouldn't it be great to have the time to go outside, turn your face to the sunshine and take a deep breath? You might hear the birds singing, or you might just get to enjoy a moment of silence.