
“For many people, flexibility at work can be a liberation.” - greifswalder
https://www.sitra.fi/en/articles/for-many-people-flexibility-at-work-can-be-a-liberation-matthew-taylor-chief-executive-royal-society-of-arts/
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exelius
Flexibility is the solution to the diversity problem; but all it really means
is a new set of expectations around when people are available.

I have some medical issues that mean I often have to visit specialists on a
work day; but rather than me have to get approval, block off my calendar, etc.
my employer is flexible enough that "I'm busy that morning" is good enough.
There's no expectation I be available all day, every day; just that I
communicate the times I am available and show flexibility with others
schedules as well.

I found in less flexible environments, I was forced to reveal more about my
personal problems than I want to let on to people at work. Don't get me wrong;
I have friends and mentors who I do confide in about those things, but it
isn't necessarily something I want to be common knowledge.

There's no need to justify why you are busy, nor is it considered
inappropriate to attend to personal matters during work hours. That's for you
to decide. Need to take a 2 hour break in the middle of the day to go to the
dog park? Cool. Kid's doctor appointment? Also cool. Ramadan prayer service?
Don't care what it is, just communicate your schedule and be flexible with
others :)

Anyway; many projects are global these days. Which means you'll have early
meetings, late meetings, and some time in between you can split between
personal and work. It really does work better IMO.

~~~
distances
This is how I've done it all my working life. To be honest, I've assumed this
is common to all software development jobs, but now I realize it may be I've
just had very flexible employers.

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Tomte
Another kind of flexibility is worth a lot, too, namely flexible working
hours.

Examples:

My boss at a previous company used to come in at six a.m., then leave again
for family breakfast. After breakfast he drove his kid to kindergarten (by
bike), came back, and left again at noon, to have lunch with his family. Came
back to work and worked quite long to make up for those long breaks, but there
were zero problems for anyone in the company. Everyone knew when he was
present and when he wasn't. He was predictable in his flexibility.

A co-worker at the same company used to come in around noon. He always said
that the company can have his evenings, but the mornings are his.

Those are extreme examples, but I also find work time flexibility extremely
helpful, e.g. with doctor's appointment. "Sure, I can come in at ten". Also
everything with the city bureaucracy.

~~~
gingerlime
I'm not sure this meets the definition of flexibility by most people. In the
casual sense at least. I imagine most people think of flexibility at work to
mean they can come in late when they need, take a long break for errands,
finish early etc. I think the key difference is that the latter type of
flexibility tends to be largely unplanned, and at best communicated at the
last minute, or even not at all ("sorry, I woke up late...").

I can certainly see the advantages of the latter form of flexibility to each
individual, and the freedom it provides. but for a company or a team that
needs to work together and rely on each other, this unplanned flexibility can
cause lots of problems... whereas your boss's flexibility is complete easy to
work with.

~~~
icebraining
While there's no free lunch, I disagree that it creates lots of problems, and
in fact it provides more benefits beyond that freedom (and the respective good
will).

By removing the predictability of each other's presence, everyone is shaken
off their complacency and is compelled to actually coordinate their shared
activities, like meetings. This, in turn, is very useful for employees who
require long stretches of uninterrupted time to be the most productive, since
it allows them to better plan their days. If you're in the office and you
refuse to join an impromptu meeting, and which might threaten a deadline, you
look bad. But if you're not physically present, and that's common and
accepted, then it's the meeting organizer that looks bad.

I worked in an office where there was not only such flexibility (people
arrived late, picked up kids early, etc), but also some colleges had a lot of
offsite meetings with clients, and it was fine. We just talked to each other
(offline or online) in advance to set things up. No problems.

~~~
gingerlime
Just to give some context first: I work in a small remote-first company, and
some people are in different time zones (or even travel between time zones).

I totally agree that this can overcome if you "just talk to each other" (or in
the remote/online sense, update your calendar or post a message on slack).

The problem however I see is when communication is broken, which happens too
often in my experience. The "Sorry, I woke up late", or "Sorry, I forgot to
update the calendar" after-the-fact communication irks me personally and hurts
collaboration. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my perception is that a lot of people
associate flexibility with lack of accountability ("I'm flexible, I'll just
take a break right now, and I don't need to tell anyone, because, well, we're
all flexible").

To summarise, I would say that clearly-communicated flexibility works great.
But it's an essential prerequisite for it working.

~~~
closeparen
This sounds like you still expect colleagues to be available for immediate,
unscheduled interruption unless otherwise noted. I think the idea is to
reverse that.

We should be accountable to getting the work done, not to being available for
unscheduled communication.

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EZ-E
When flexibility is advertised in a job position, it usually bends in the
employers favor.

Finishing at 11pm? Gotta be flexible to meet the deadline. Leaving before
normal time? Be ready to be silently judged

~~~
fernandotakai
feels a lot like "unlimited vacations" \-- sure you can take a week off, but
are you ready to be judged?

~~~
pavel_lishin
This varies hugely by employer. We have two coworkers off for long vacations
right now, during a semi-crunch. My boss and another coworker took Monday off
to see the eclipse. Nobody's judging anyone, and my boss leads by example.

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WaxProlix
> As long as we get the right framework and people are not being exploited, I
> think flexible work is a great thing

That's the crux of it there, isn't it? I don't suspect that the newer
generation prefers their lot to the stability and long-term viability of their
forebears, for the most part, but rather that structural changes have sort of
foisted these circumstances on them. It'd take some additional evidence to
support the notion that people have shifted their preferences, rather than
there just being a dwindling of opportunity.

~~~
ehnto
There are a lot of factors to consider, but there is a difference in the type
of work the newer generation is doing. I think there is still a lot to learn
about how best to enable productive thought work, and we are learning that
8hrs at a desk is probably not the one size fits all key to productivity.

To speak nothing of the normalizing of "permenant overtime", it is simply not
sustainable for everyone to have their mind occupied for the majority of every
day. It leaves no room or energy for individual endeavors, and I think many
are simply waking up to that fact and exploring alternatives.

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BillFranklin
I'm worried about the impact of this report on self-employed people, as it
sounds like it'll be used to increase taxes on them.

One piece of tax relief a self-employed person gets is a reduction of their
socialised health care tax: National Insurance. If you're self-employed you
pay this tax at 9% rather than the 12% that employed people pay.

The government that commissioned this report tried to remove this particular
bit of tax relief earlier this year, but was stopped as people were really
annoyed about it.

We have this thing in the UK called 'Zero Hours contracts'. For example, an
Uber or Deliveroo driver is on a contract where they can work as many hours as
they like. The Uber driver is self-employed, and isn't an employee, so they
have to do their own taxes etc.

The government claims that A) Zero-hours contracts are being used to provide
less stable contracts for the employers benefit, as a zero-hours contract can
be ended without notice (this is definitely true, though I'm not sure how many
self-employed people are on zero-hours contracts), and B) that self-employment
is overly incentivised in the tax system.

It sounds like this report will be used to raise taxes on all self-employed
people because unscrupulous employers are abusing the tax reliefs. But this
will have a detrimental effect on all self-employed people (small business
owners, actual freelancers, software engineer contractors).

~~~
tiggybear
Well what's the justification for the tax break? If it's "well, self-employed
people are important so we should just throw money at them" then that's not a
very good reason. Why not have them pay 0 taxes?

While I'm personally for single-payer healthcare, I don't see why going off on
your own means you should get to pay less in taxes than someone who has to
work under a boss. Does it incentivize economic growth? You're not hiring
anyone...

~~~
BillFranklin
That's a good question. Sorry that I didn't answer it in my original comment.

Self-employment comes with personal financial risk, but the reason for their
lower national insurance contributions (NIC) is to do with pensions. The UK
chancellor this year:

> Historically, the differences in NICs between those in employment and the
> self-employed reflected differences in state pensions and contributory
> welfare benefits.

Self-employed people are more unlikely to have a pension, and the state
pension is about £7,000 per year.

In contrast to this, people who are employed have access to a workplace
pension, where an employer must contribute to the employee's pension. The
average teacher will have a workplace pension of £25,000 per year.

So, the idea behind the reduced NIC for self-employed people is that they'll
put the money into their savings / personal pension. If you're self-employed
and adding 3% of your income into your pension each year, then the 3% savings
on NIC would be the government enabling you (as your own employer) to 'match'
your own annual pension contribution.

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pavel_lishin
It seems that when this guy says "flexibility at work", he's talking about the
gig economy, not being able to come four hours late into work because you need
to get some dental work done:

> _Meanwhile, freelancing and flexible work is becoming more common. The
> number of self-employed people, approximately 4.8 million in the UK, is at a
> record high and around one in five British workers now have so-called “non-
> standard work arrangements”._

> _He will also examine how flexibility can be maintained, while also
> supporting job security and workplace rights._

> _“As long as we get the right framework and people are not being exploited,
> I think flexible work is a great thing. I also think it’s a great thing if
> it’s increasingly possible for people to work for themselves. I’m in favour
> of self-employment, I’m in favour of flexibility at work as long as we make
> sure it’s not exploitative and that it’s not having detrimental effects on
> the capacity to raise taxes to pay for services. If you can do the work,
> make the contribution and be your own boss, for many people that’s a
> liberation.”_

So everyone who's giving examples of their bosses coming in late and staying
late, or claiming that flexible work schedules solve diversity issues - neat,
but you should be talking about your bosses driving for Uber in the morning,
and non-white-males being bike messengers over their lunch hour.

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SirLJ
I think flexibility and similar benefits like working from home are not coming
from legislation, but should be initiated by the employees... in my case, I
work for a big old telco and few years ago told my boss I am not coming to the
office anymore and now mos of my team are working exclusively at home even
tough the official company policy is for everyone to work from an office...
bottom line, if you are good at your job, have the respect of you peers and
bosses, deliver on time and are ready to help in case of emergencies, you can
change a lot of the "official" rules in your workplace....

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irickt
This seems to be a good overview of the work:
[https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/627671/good-
work-taylor-review-modern-working-practices-rg.pdf)

