Rewarding good practice
Wednesday was the Workingmums.co.uk Top Employer Awards and a chance to promote the very best in flexible working, diversity and family friendly practices. The venue was abuzz with people swapping ideas and wanting to take the best of what other people were doing and see whether they could innovate further. It's also quite an emotional occasion as many feel passionately about the issues. There were some powerful comments from some of the winners, many of whom had their own direct experience of how flexibility had made a difference to their own lives.
The debate which followed the award presentations was lively and a genuine attempt to share opinions on what worked. Remote working and how to support workers seemed a big issue. Comments such as how many women might see escaping the home as a bit of a relief chimed very much with my own experience. It always seems easier for the home worker to take on things like GP visits, taking deliveries and doing the school run when sick. You are also a prime target, of course, for all the sales calls that regularly occur at key meal times and for neighbours' children knocking endlessly at the door.
However, it is a great exercise in helping you to focus better. When I eventually do go back to an office, I will be able to get most of my work done in half the time! It also means I can now work in absolutely any conditions, just as I can change a baby in the smallest of small spaces.
Many people spoke about the need to create boundaries between home and family life. I am afraid I do not totally succeed on this score. The nature of journalism is that people often can't do normal hours for interviews so you end up doing weekends or evenings. Which is fine and in some cases better for me. And I know for a fact that 9pm seems to be the regular time that every working mum I know logs on to check emails. It is perhaps the best time of the day to have an email exchange and get things done. The main thing is to have regular time off with all gadgets switched off, even if that is just a Friday night under the duvet with the kids watching a film.
This weekend we are off to the cinema. Daughter three proposed it. I am just a little suspicious as we had a big talk earlier in the week about her propensity to leave vegetables on her plate untouched and to fast forward to pudding [she has a very sweet tooth]. I told her no sweets or sweet-like substances [eg popcorn] until she starts eating more veg. She is very strategic and I have a feeling the cinema extravaganza is not due to a sudden interest in film, but more to an overwhelming desire for a slush puppy.
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