Flex for parents and carers? September’s struggle 😩
This week Terri White, former editor of Empire magazine, gave a blistering interview on the Media Voices podcast about how she was forced to choose between her baby and the job she loved…
The problem, of course, were the long hours—she talks of 19 hour days and watching her baby son while he was sleeping because she didn’t get to see him awake. She describes the increasing pressure in the print media sector to deliver more with fewer people.
She is right of course, print media is exceptionally high pressured, but it’s a trend people are experiencing across so many sectors.
Fewer people + doing more = massively longer hours.
What has this got to do with flex?
Loads of us have been campaigning for ‘flexible’ work for years with the intention of making it possible for parents and carers to continue to work to their potential, by helping them to choose their place of work and their hours.
And some see the arrival of hybrid as a ‘nirvana’, as Joeli Brearley from Pregnant Then Screwed put it to me last week.Sadly this isn’t what I’m hearing.
ALL of the parents and carers I’ve spoken with in the last two weeks are struggling to make the flexibility of hybrid work because:
It is less PREDICTABLE. As a dad described to me this week:
“My client canceled an off-site at the last minute, after my partner had changed her in-office day to cover me. But then the client wanted to reschedule it two days later, leaving us undoing and redoing a complex matrix of childcare—generating stress across our jobs, teams, bosses, and clients”.
It’s even worse for solo parents
2. Flex has fewer BOUNDARIES. Meaning people work longer.
3. Finally, as Pregnant Then Screwed and Mumsnet have highlighted with a massive report this week (front page ofThe Guardian), CHILDCARE remains unaffordable. Even though those that provide it are appalling paid.
And it’s patchier than it was before COVID, due to staggered start and end of days, reduced before and after school clubs, and increased pressure on nurseries.
My view
For hybrid to deliver for parents and carers, it has to include two things: predictability and boundaries. If you’re a boss, wondering why your women and carers are leaving, these are the things you provide. Meanwhile, the government HAS to sort the childcare bit.
Next week:
The absolute worst version of hybrid I’ve come across. (So far…)
Christine
