By Amanda Szylo-Duncan, Strategy Director

Back when my children attended school five days a week, and putting on ‘work clothes’ was a daily habit and not a special event, I’d started writing down some thoughts on flex working.

After five years of practising it, I felt it was still often hidden by those doing it and the workplaces supporting it.

Now, as entire industries are working from their kitchen benchtops, we’re seeing a greater acceptance and understanding of flex working, albeit by necessity.

I like to refer to this moment in time as The Great Flexperiment.

If we’re to make this type of working the new norm, post-corona, sharing our experiences will be key.

Here are four things I’ve learnt, often the hard way, that have helped me make the most of flex working over the years.

What if we threw away the construct of 9–5 and replaced it with the hours most suited to each individual’s productivity and lifestyle?

Do you focus better in the early morning? Would a 7AM start time work best for you?

Perhaps you come alive slightly later in the day? Could you do 11AM — 7PM a couple of days a week and see how that fits?

Maybe you’re moonlighting as a primary school teacher from 9AM — 1PM most days now, so you’ll need to clock on from 1PM for the foreseeable future?

Whatever the reason, now is our chance to truly exercise our right to flex. It’s not simply a matter of geography: flex working is about place and time.

Of course, this needs to be balanced across teams and organisation-wide, to ensure enough time for contact between individuals and clients.

But while we’re all in this new remote boat together, why not indulge in some flexperimentation with hours?

Simple? Yes. Effective? Very.

All this talk of flex hours sounds great, but please remember: it won’t work if you don’t talk openly about it with others in your organisation. This was true pre-corona, it’s true now.

If you’re like me, you’ll need to fight the urge to go under the radar and find a way to consistently update teams and colleagues about when you work.

This might be a weekly update on a shared Teams channel, adding your hours to the notes section on your studio scheduling tool, or sending a calendar invite to your direct team blocking out your hours (be sure to click ‘Free’ and take the alert off).

Proactively letting people know your hours and your days will help a lot. Sounds simple. And it is. It’ll also save you from the friction this oversight can cause. Reminding everyone of your hours daily or weekly may feel a little uncomfortable at first — do it anyway.

Whether you’re working the ‘normal’ office hours or taking a more elastic approach, right now the compulsion to work at all hours is most likely strong.

Flex working doesn’t mean 24/7 working, though.

We all have lives and selves to maintain. Creating healthy boundaries is critical to making this flexperiment work.

So yes, be nimble where appropriate, and where you can, make the meetings. But also protect your time.

After all, that time you once spent on your commute — that was your downtime. You need to preserve those pockets of time throughout your day, for you.

Flex working shouldn’t turn into non-stop working. If it has, you’re doing it wrong.

As we’re all getting used to working from home more and more, company-wide meetings are going to be put in the diary.

If you work flex hours, and find you’re missing a lot of these, you’ll quite quickly feel isolated from the team.

Try reaching out to the organiser and asking if they’d consider moving the meeting out a little? Or if not this time, perhaps the next one could be shifted? Chances are, they didn’t remember your hours but would be happy to accommodate you.

This won’t always be feasible, so remember to put in your own connection points with your team. They can catch you up on anything you’ve missed (be it work or Netflix).

If a meeting can’t be moved, that’s just another opportunity to connect with a member of your team later.

As we’re all being forced to adapt during this uncertain time, let’s welcome others into The Great Flexperiment.

Speak up about what is or isn’t working.

Know your limits.

Be honest.

Find ways to connect with others, even when you’re alone.

Together, through trial and error, let’s dismantle the remaining stigma surrounding flex working and shape a new normal for our industry.