Flexi Star series pt 1: Meet Katie Dickerson....

Katie Dickerson, better known as SquirmyPopple online, shares her flexible working journey with us as part of our Flexi-Star series, celebrating flexible work in action. Here, she fills us in on how flexible working benefits her family and how she makes this work....

1. Tell us who you are and a little about yourself…

I'm Katie, a Glasgow-based digital content/service designer with a three-year-old daughter, an archaeologist husband, a very loud ginger cat and a pretty serious cheese habit.

I'm really passionate about flexible working and write about it a lot on my blog, The Squirmy Popple, where I also write about feminist issues and funnyish parenting stuff.  

2. What’s your flexible working purpose?

I work four days a week, Monday to Thursday, which allows me to stay home with my daughter on Fridays. I can flex my starting and finishing times, work from home when I need to, and stay at home with my daughter if she's sick, so I feel like I have a pretty good work/life balance.

3. What encouraged you to start your flexible working journey?

When I was returning to work after maternity leave, I knew that I didn't want to work full time. Not only could I not afford childcare for five days a week, but I also wanted to spend more time with my daughter.

I submitted a flexible working request after discussing my options with the management team, and we eventually agreed on four and a half days a week. My husband and I starting off splitting the childcare on Fridays. After my husband got a new job and could no longer watch our daughter on Friday mornings, I asked my manager if I could work four days a week instead and submitted a formal request to change my working hours, which was accepted. 

4. What’s your top tip for those seeking flexible work or those who need to ask for this at work?

When you make a request for flexible working, don't make it all about you - make sure you show your employer how flexible working can work for both of you. Instead of saying, "Working from home would be easier for me," say something like, “Working from home will mean I don’t have to do a long commute to the office every day, which will mean I have more time to work on my projects.”

If your employer seems reluctant to agree to flexible working, ask for a trial period of a few months so you can prove that the arrangements can work and iron out any issues. There are also plenty of articles about how flexible working can benefit employers and examples of companies that are using it - don't be shy about giving them evidence to help back you up!

Across the UK, professional women and men are waking up to the reality that the traditional 9-5 is not working for everyone.  On 12th September 2018, 9-2-3 Jobs would love you to join us as we launch our National Flexible Working Day. It's a chance to join in with our panel discussions about the benefits of flexible working, see it in action and give you a chance to network with like-minded people and forward-thinking businesses. Register here for the event or join in the conversation online using our hashtag #LetsAllFlexTogetherDay. Share your own journey and pictures on the day across our social media platforms. Help us to really shout about Flexible Working and all its benefits!

Could coding be your new flexible career?

When thinking about your flexible work options or a new career change, have you ever considered coding?  

Most of the websites and apps you use every day have been built from code. Essentially, coding is telling a computer how to perform complex tasks through different programming languages. Everyone can learn to code, you really don’t need to be a maths genius or tech geek - these are just outdated stereotypes. 

23 Code Street is a women’s coding school. For every paying student, we teach digital skills to a woman in the slums of India. Below, we’ve rounded up our top 4 reasons about why coding makes a great flexible career. 

1. Work remotely and banish the 9-5

How does no longer working from 9-5 sound? 

To be able to code you just need a laptop and some good wifi!  Due to this, lots of coding jobs can be done remotely either at home, in a cafe or wherever you prefer within the hours that suit you. If you don’t want to work for a specific company, you could freelance and work with different clients that interest you. Lots of our graduates are working mums who learnt to code to be able to work from home flexibly and have a better work/life balance. 

    2.  Learn an in-demand skill

There’s currently a huge digital skills gap; employers are looking to hire people who know how to code and have a technical understanding. As our world becomes more and more digital, the number of tech jobs is increasing. This report found there are over 7 million jobs which require coding skills and programming jobs overall are growing 12% faster than the market average. By learning to code, you’ll know an in-demand skill and have plenty of jobs to apply for. 

3.  Put your previous skills to good use

Coding is a great way to combine your old and new skills. All our students come from different backgrounds and apply the skills they’ve gained from their previous jobs when learning to code. One of our current students is a language teacher which is helping her understand the syntax and functions of the code. Some of our graduates have gone on to use code to enhance and upskill their current professions too. 

4.  Enjoy a rewarding career

Let’s face it, not all flexible working options are that rewarding. Coding definitely is. You can’t help but feel excited after you’ve started to learn to code and build your first webpage or feel proud after you’ve been working on a project for weeks and see the finished outcome. You’ll definitely feel a sense of achievement and want to show off your work!  Read how passionate our graduate Halimatou felt after learning to code. 

If you're interested in learning to code, click here to find out about  our new pilot webinar course starting in July and if you’ve  got any questions just drop us an email via hello@23codestreet.com

#dadsflextoo - A blog by Greg

Written by Greg, dad to two, husband to one...doing the best he can!

I spent last weekend with my family, enjoying the weather ( a lot) and the cut and thrust of Chessington World of Adventures (a lot less...). This weekend, however, I am working late shifts both days and will be home from work long after my two young children have gone to bed. And so it goes with shift work…

When most people hear that I work 6 on, 3 off shifts, they normally comment on working six consecutive days. Usually, it goes something like this:  “You work SIX days per week?! I couldn’t do that.” But it doesn’t take long for people to soften their view. As a result of my shift pattern, I work fewer days per year than someone on a more ‘standard’ Monday to Friday pattern and my leave goes further too. These two revelations get people’s attention but there are other benefits too… 

I’m sitting on my sofa, it’s a Thursday, and in addition to shoehorning in a bit of NETFLIX I have done half the school run, taken my son to his swimming lesson, enjoyed a meal out with my family, helped with homework, read a bedtime story, put the bins out and worked a 7.5 hour shift. Oh, and cobbled together this badly written diatribe... A good example of how you can make shift work...work, and work well. 

I have had a number of jobs over my relatively short working life most of which have maintained what you would call normal business hours, apart from the odd temp job in retail-there is definitely therapy in stacking shelves.

You know when the best time to do almost anything is? On weekdays. Everything is a touch less crowded, which makes the shops nicer, the roads quieter and taking my daughter to the park a little bit more peaceful (sometimes). Admittedly I quite like spending time by myself and also seek quieter environments with my family so perhaps I am a little biased but I find I spend less time in competition with others for space, or jostling for my place in the queue... 

I don’t know how people get to the doctor or dentist or get their car serviced etc when at work during the traditional work pattern, I find an awful lot more flexibility in my work rhythm despite essentially being contracted to the same number of hours a week. These more mundane tasks tend to be far easier to sort with my current regime.

If there is a downside, perhaps sleep patterns are one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I get enough sleep, but the timing can change depending on work. Some people probably benefit from greater routine on that front. Also, the rest of the world arranges many things for the weekend (obviously) which means I can regularly miss them unless I deem them vital enough to take annual leave... 

Work-life balance. I will finish with this as this is what most people strive to achieve when it comes to their lives. I certainly have it and consider myself very lucky as a result and get this, it certainly doesn’t involve a 9-5.

So what is flexible working anyway?

You’ve most likely heard the term a million times, especially of late, but some of you may be wondering what it means to work in a flexible role.

It’s our speciality, we recruit for roles that support this way of working and won’t accept anything less for our candidates, so we’ve seen a variety of methods offered by companies to help supply the work/life balance and flexibility modern working families require.

Flexible is the future!

We have a large pool of talented parents, men included, that absolutely need this way of working. Most feel that they’re unable to work due to the inflexibility most roles offer - add this to the growing number of employers we speak to who are in need of finding talented individuals and what’s the solution….Flexible working!

9-2-3 helps businesses tap into this pool of talent. Our candidates are motivated, driven, keen – they WANT to be in the workplace. Research by Workplace Flexibility shows that flexible workers are more engaged – they also have fewer sick days, there’s greater staff retention and increased productivity! The climate is right for 9-2-3!

So what is it?

So we’ve established – I hope – that flexible working is a good thing. Good for both employees and employers. But what is it? It’s not just part-time hours… 

Here we list some of the most popular ways of flexible working:

• Working from home / Remote working is one of the most popular and productive ways of working flexibly - it avoids the commute to and from the office, better using this time to work. Many employers will offer this one or two days of the working week which allows time for the all-important nativity or sports day and means you can fulfil your working duties at times that suit you and your family.

• Flexible hours - It can mean so many things! We speak to businesses who have core offices hours and allow employees to flex at either end of the day. It can even mean that you can do the school run back and forth each day, working in-between these hours and perhaps working additional hours in the evening - making that juggle a little easier.

• Compressed hours – If you don’t mind working long days, then this could be the perfect arrangement for you, working all your contracted hours in fewer days. For example, fulfilling full-time hours over 4 days. Some companies are even offering Annualised hours which can really help with the school holiday juggle – allowing employees to work all their hours in term time.

• Job sharing - It makes so much sense when you think about it! The business essentially needs a person to do a full-time role, yet they’re unable to fulfil this due to the inflexibility of the hours. So how about hiring two people to share the job? Two brains and two lots of experience in one role. The salary is divided, as well as the hours and we’re seeing this method rise in popularity. If you’re coming along to our NatWest Markets day on June 27th you’ll see this for yourself as we’re lucky enough to have two senior NatWest Markets employees join us to tell us how they make this work. (Why not come and join us for the morning – we still have some tickets left: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-9-2-3-club-at-natwest-markets-tickets-45973658450 )

So the workplace is changing…

It’s not just about mums wanting to have flexible working arrangements. It’s about dads wanting to do a weekly school run. It’s about those who have caring responsibilities for elderly/sick parents. It’s about those wanting to fit in a bit more exercise or healthy cooking or general life! Younger “millennials” are increasingly looking at 9-5 desk jobs as old-fashioned…and we can totally see why.

Flexible working is for everyone.

We’ve explained the most popular ways of flexible working, however, there are so many other ways that this can be implemented within a business, as showcased by insurance giant Aetna…

Aetna

Aetna is a company that uses flexible workspaces to boost its bottom line…

• 35,000 employees
• 14,500 do not have a desk 
• 2,000 employees work from home a few days a week
• 47% of the company’s workforce uses flexible workspaces.

Thanks to these policies, the company has been able to get rid of 2.7 million square feet of office space, giving the company savings of about $78 million per year (once you add utilities, housekeeping, mail service and document shredding). Not to mention a reduced carbon footprint.

Amazing stuff and I feel that it’s only getting better!

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