“Flexibility is the biggest shift in American working conditions since the five-day workweek,” says Carol Evans, president of Working Mother Media.
Ms. Evans understands the priceless value of flex time for modern working mothers. Their lives are more complicated. They’re trying to support their families. Not only financially, but with endless work that nobody sees, and emotional investment that perhaps only a mother can understand.
This is all before commuting to the office and sitting down at your desk to concentrate on a full list of things to do. That’s why she launched National Flex Day a couple of years ago.
I applaud Ms. Evans for standing up for working mothers in hopes of winning some relief for them by challenging employers to recognize the value to themselves and their employees of “flex” and offering it as a company benefit.
Flex time is where employees take their work home for a portion of the week and are trusted to perform the way they would in the office, or better.
It is commonly understood that employees respond with loyalty and greater productivity when the company they work for shows it cares about them and actually tries to address issues affecting their lives.
Unfortunately, Ms. Evans and many like her are fighting a tough battle. Many employers who went ahead and developed a flex program are calling their workers back to the office. Evidently, it is a hard benefit to keep in place because managers have more managing to do if they are dealing with people who are remote.
That may be true, but in this day and age where every type of digital communication device is available to your 4-year-old, the argument doesn’t really hold water.
Management may be placing their personal convenience (having you nearby) above your frenetic situation. It’s especially maddening when the person next to you is hiding behind a computer screen playing Candy Crush. But, he’s in the office and that’s what matters.
This is where I pull to the side of the road and got off.
I understood the need to support my family, absolutely. But not at the expense of a happy family life, and, in all honesty, not just to fulfill the ambitions of my employer.
When you have kids your life changes. In fact, it doesn’t look anything like it used to. Fitting work into space it used to occupy feels like trying to squeeze back into those size 5’s.
It can be a huge effort especially if your heart isn’t in it because you don’t love going to the job as you used to.
If your employer doesn’t seem interested in helping to make life manageable by offering time flexibility, take heart, you can do better.
I love going to work. Time flexibility was my number 1 objective when I started looking for something else to do and found the perfect solution.
Not only did I find time, I discovered passion, and abilities I never thought I had, like growing my own small business successfully.
Best of all, I got away from the rat race and was really able to watch the kids growing up. That is true contentment.
I started a weekend business and transformed lack of time and flexibility from a problem to one of my greatest assets.
It completely changed my life by not having to wake up every day wondering how I was going to steal a little time from somewhere to take care of everything on my plate.
It went from being “flexibility starved” to feeling grateful for the abundance of time and flexibility in my life. Now that is a change for the better.
In my business, every day is National Flex Day, because it is simply the nature of it.
Time is everything. After all, what else is there?
I can help you attain it by offering the exact roadmap I use to run a successful weekend business.
The Princess Tea Party business is fun, flexible, and lucrative. Now, with nearly 20 years of experience, I am helping other women achieve the same joy and satisfaction I have experienced by offering my “Business in a Box.” It is the exact road map I followed to start and operate a successful business made easy for those interested in the business for themselves. No prior business experience is necessary, and no franchise fees. Learn More Here
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