When you hear the words flexible working you may think of, starting later and finishing later or maybe working from home one day a week sometimes.  Some employers make it hard for people to even discuss or ask for flexible working options. I wanted to share my experience with you on how de Jong Phillips supports flexible working at a whole new level which has allowed me and my family to make some fabulous and precious memories while still being able to perform my role effectively. Two key factors have made this possible:
  1. The team at de Jong Phillips viewing all forms of flexible working as the norm.
  2. de Jong Phillips use 100% cloud-based technology (ie. Xero, Slack, Karbon, Dext, Sharefile, Zoom, Enpass, Toggle, Syft, Harvest, Float)

Why is this relevant to you?

In the current working environment, flexible working is something employees highly value when working for an organisation.  Current statistics suggest over 70% of millennial’s value flexible working.   As an employer flexible working is something you can offer your employees.  Communicating and demonstrating by example to your employees that flexible working is important to you and your organisation is the first step. Openly engaging with your employees to find out what flexible working options would work for them so you can determine the technology and structure you need to support that comes next. Your friendly business advisors de Jong Phillips are more than happy to assist with this process.

Here is my story….

Joining de Jong & Phillips

My initial discussions with Pam about the role involved flexible working as a key part of the discussions, which was refreshing and appealing. Once I joined the team I realised how true that is as I am able to work 5 days in 4, giving me Mondays off to spend precious time with my 18 month old daughter.  I also work 3 days in the office and one day at home. Whenever school events, family sicknesses or other life events arise I am able to flex my hours around these events as necessary. 

What a flexible team we are!

I am also surrounded by 6 other colleagues who all do different flexible working in both hours and location.  Everyone uses flexible working in a way that allows them to help manage that balance between their work and personal life. This approach works as everyone in the team ensures their deliverables are achieved by the timeframes required but also are open to helping others out or asking others for help when needed.

Working from “la casa”

I then took flexible working one step further by working from Spain for one day during October half term.  This meant before and after work, I got to enjoy fun in the sun with my daughter during her first half term after she started school in September.

To Infinity and Beyond!

And then flexible working got taken to its furthest level yet…no it wasn’t working from space…but almost as far! In the first week of Jan 2020 I worked a full week in New Zealand. I had taken my children to visit their extended family over the two-week Christmas and New Year period and wanted to stay a third week to make the most of the family time after flying for 26hrs to get there.   So I worked the third week, while my children spent lots of precious memory-making time with their grandparents and aunty, uncle and cousins.  All I needed was wifi and I was fully operational and able to flex my hours around my childcare, whilst ensuring I was working during some UK working hours so I could be in contact with clients and the team.   The only “downside” was that the NZ keyboards didn’t have a £ sign on them!

Here is my view while working in NZ!

new-zealand-flexible-working