Flexible work arrangements - it's a give-and-take

Recently, the government rolled out mandatory guidelines for employees to formally request for flexible work arrangements (FWA) and for employers to fairly consider and respond to such requests within two months.

The intent sounds right. FWAs could allow workers to better manage work and caregiving duties. But from what I read in the news and online comments, there seem to be plenty of misunderstandings and misgivings. And it's not just the employers feeling nervous. More admin, fear of higher business costs, fear of losing employees, fear that employers will hire foreigners instead, fear of upsetting boss and colleagues, fear of taking on more work due to colleagues on FWAs, etc. 

Seems like we have not matured as a society to give moral support to one another. At some point, all of us will face caregiving duties - for the young, for the old, for spouse, for siblings, and even managing our own health. Don't forget pets too! I truly believe that with good support from employers and colleagues, workers can integrate work and family needs.

And many people seem to think that FWAs are just working from home (WFH). But that's not true. The news explain it all but I guess people don't read everything *.* 

But thanks to the pandemic, we're all very familiar with WFH, or more generally, flexi-place, which became the norm for non-essential office workers. Before COVID, my office already allowed it on both ad hoc (e.g. when expecting delivery at new house) and, upon request and approval, regular basis (e.g. every Monday and Thursday). In fact, many office workers already WFH after office hours aka OT *.* Back in the day when I had only dial-up at home, I even worked in Macs for its free WiFi when I got too hungry to continue in ulu office!

 

Now, some offices have embraced the whole flexi-place thing and allow workers to WFH a couple of times a week. And some go further - hotdesking to reduce office space requirements or to accommodate a growing workforce since not everyone goes into office every day. 

I was at RI's place for Raya gathering last last Saturday, and heard that my old haunt would have "permanent hotdesking" in the new office, i.e. you have a fixed seat but it's shared with another chap from other division who comes into office on a day different from you. There was even talk of jacket hooks coz how to put own jacket over chairs when chairs would be shared??

Wa, that totally put me off going back to work. I'm the odd ball who prefers to work in office - more desk space, easier to discuss things with colleagues and aircon. And I'm territorial. I don't like hotdesking. And I don't mind the commute where I could read or just blank out.

See my last office desk - so nice right?

And I stole a stool from a meeting room to put next to my pedestal cabinet (not in picture but at a wall corner on my left) so that people who came to find me could sit there instead of on the floor! My desk then became known as the clinic :p

Ok, I'm digressing... Back to FWAs.

So WFH or flexi-place is probably only applicable to office workers. Client-facing roles for one would not be able to WFH. But there are other forms of FWAs.

My fave is flexi-time. I have been lucky that my work allowed me great flexibility - I used to reach office before 8 am after sending Kai to school and leave promptly at 5.30 pm when my phone alarm went off so that I could fetch Yang and Yu from child care and have dinner with the kids. If an internal meeting over-ran, it was ok if I just up-ed and left. For the rare external meetings past 5.30 pm, I would be there. Once, my alarm went off in a ministerial meeting, oops... 

My bosses had all been very accommodating to my hours. One key reason was trust. And of course, when I left office at 5.30 pm, it didn't mean work ended for me that day. As a full-time office worker, I could leave office but the office would not leave me. Work continued after the kids went to bed... So I switched to flexi-load in my last two years of work.

Actually, it's fixed part-time la - six hours a day, five days a week. Unlike flexi-place and flexi-time, this involved a pay cut. Since there was a pay cut, I guarded my hours too so no more logging in at night for sure! But I would still be there for important meetings, even in the evening. I also took short WhatsApp calls during my off hours if needed.

I was lucky that my bosses and team were supportive. Unfortunately, this is people-dependent so when my direct boss changed and my team also moved on, part-time became unsustainable. So I left work :p

While flexi-time may or may not result in pay cut, flexi-load almost certainly affects pay and in fact, also progression.

However, I do believe you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Really, cannot. If you want to manage work and family needs, something must give. With flexi-time, I had less leisure or even sleep time for myself. When I was on part-time, I was very aware that while I could keep up my quality of work, I was unlikely to be promoted not lest due to the longer time to achieve the required years-in-grade but also because others were putting in double the effort. And that is fine by me.

I was thinking about this on my way to the supermarket last Friday and wondered whether there were jobs that simply could not do FWAs. At first, I thought of teachers - school hours are more or less fixed; timetabling based on students' subject combinations is already challenging. But then I recall YC who told me her school let her skip assembly so that she could send her children to child care, which started ops from 7 am. She was still taking full load.

Point is, FWAs don't have to mean huge changes; small changes or some flexibility can already be helpful.