We're one week into the Summer Holidays and our feeds are full of posts on the topic - from already exasperated parents to incredible examples of flexible working to help parents navigate the summer vacation.

We have years of experience stirring the 9 to 5 pot by encouraging businesses to embrace #flexibleworking - showing them the benefits including the wealth of talent they can attract by flexing their working patterns.

And so, with that in mind, we bring you nuggets of flexi summer holiday guidance to get you all through the summer holidays…

Hot Dogs - The rise of the pet-friendly office?

We’ve spent many a happy hour writing about flexible working over the years. We’ve pondered the leaving of offices, the return to offices and the commute to offices. We’ve written about family-friendly offices, environmentally-friendly offices, returner-friendly offices and bottom-line-friendly offices. But we’ve never yet written about pet-friendly offices. This is a new horizon for us too, but one which seems to be gaining increasing traction in workplaces across the globe.

International Women’s Day, now well into its second century, has long celebrated the achievements of women – whether economic, social, cultural or political. This year, however, IWD’s calling on each one of us, individually, to Break the Bias. We’re being encouraged to stand up and demand an equitable world, where difference is valued and celebrated.

Whatever your working pattern of choice – part time work, remote work, compressed hours – there’s no question that flexible working has made a huge difference to our lives. Forget Biff, Chip and Kipper - for millions of us, flexibility has been the magic key to unlocking a better work-life balance. It’s enabled us to cheer on our kids at sports days. To provide a listening ear for elderly relatives. To volunteer in our communities. For some of us, flexible working is what makes our worlds go around.

As the New Year dawns, with the added joys of lockdown #3, you might be forgiven for thinking it’s a rather grey and uninspiring dawn. However, here at 9-2-3, we’ve been thinking about the months and years to come and we’re feeling hopeful about the post-pandemic landscape for businesses; there are definitely signs of a brighter future shining through the clouds.

If we let one person work flexibly, then everyone will want to!” is often the argument we hear when speaking to companies who are resistant to introducing flexible working arrangements.

And at 9-2-3, our response is: “That’s a good thing!”