FLEXIBLE HOURS - My biggest wish!!
One of the first plans when I was preparing what I wasn’t sure yet would be as a concept and idea, was to think about who was going to lead it?
Not as in which person would I ask outside to lead the concept - No!
As in with what mentality and ideology to how the business, concept, idea was going to be led by.
In the beginning, I focus on the classic elements based on my own experience as a Scandinavian coming to London and living with the long, not always very productive, strict rules to be in the offices and my all time favorite hate phrase “put in the hours”.
Firstly, let’s break it down - Not everyone finishes or start or process an assignment the same way. In an exam room, there’s some who finishes quickly, precisely, with the right ways of going, while others are writing while the examiner is collecting the papers and haven’t full-filled all the forms of handing-in.
It’s up to the single individual to find out how they discipline them themselves - Not the workplace or the examiner's assignment to tell you too - It’s your responsibility!
Sorry if you aren't in for hard truth - Give up already reading!
So when I founded Style Fuel, I wanted to build it on an idea of everyone having flexible hours, being able to work from home, pick up kids and spend quality time with them in the afternoon, inspire to be the modern new move coming through.
Problem is, how do you take an employee who’s got experience in a high control environment and tell them here you go - flexibility, you are responsible for yourself and your work... At first, it’s pleasant, woohoo, I’ve got all this time, no one to check if I’m out of my Pyjamas, no one to check if I’m doing slacking - But that’s not the truth.
Too much freedom without knowing how to discipline and work constructively under freer frameworks can be a prison for some people, as they simply haven’t through their educational, their work career or even their social confrontment learned how to do so!
It’s not your fault you don’t know yet how to work in a framework without strict telling what to do - However, it’s your responsibility to teach yourself - not your employer, not your teachers at school, not your husband or wife - It’s yours!
Same as working from home, is a lot harder, because you technically can just put a load of washing on, eat half your fridge, bake that homemade bread only your house-wife/man friends got time to do, update your Pinterest, paint your nails, just do that grocery shopping - or whatever it could be!
However, that’s rarely the reality! Reality is you often work a lot more because you want to compensate for being firstly able to work from home, and secondly because if you did one or several of the things above you feel like you owe the company to produce more for them!
Thirdly, as you rarely have colleagues at home you can’t compare and consult with them doing the work day to see how and what your productiveness are in comparison - even though if you aren’t one of the types who would compare yourself, we do as humans and we are compared in a scheme of a workplace by the employer.
Therefore, when I started coming with the idea of how I wanted my business to look, I realized that providing the team I would initially build to have flexible hours might be more challenging for them, that I would want them to feel simply, because the groundwork for flexible hours haven’t been founded through the educational time, the previous employers history, or the social surroundings. So it’ll have to be gradually introduced and nurtured to make people feel both in balance and productive for the employer but far more for their own! Freedom under responsibility isn’t freedom if you don’t know how to handle the responsibility of yourself!