Flexing is Not Optional

Image from People Matters

There is no rule of the universe to say people will only have to deal with one tough thing at a time. For us, a family medical crisis swept in during my project crunch.

Let’s not go into detail. (Privacy and all that…) But my wife has remarked about how impossible coping would be if she still had to go to a job in an office. Working from home in a more flexible role has gotten her through the past couple of weeks. She gets plenty of understanding from her employer and latitude has allowed her to fit her work around our disrupted schedule.

It doesn’t always go like this.

When I wrote about things going awry, I was talking about work. It happens in the rest of our lives too. Demanding that people carry on with their work as though all is normal when life goes completely abnormal is both mean and unrealistic. A little flexibility and compassion go a long way.

So where are we now?

In both of my countries, there aren’t enough workers. That’s happening elsewhere too.

Most workplaces and schools haven’t been made any safer against the spread of diseases than they were in 2019. As a result, people get sick over and over with everything infectious.

In the UK, government, schools and many businesses respond to this by cracking down on absences, then wonder why people who don’t get to recuperate fully between infections drop out due to long term illness.

Again speaking about the UK, some people take early retirement because they physically can’t work any more, at least not as much and not at the pace employers demand. A recent survey found that the majority of these can’t really afford early retirement and fell into poverty. They don’t have any other feasible option.

UK government and business complain about how many people have become “economically inactive,” by which they mean not working when people in their age bracket are normally expected to work. They acknowledge how many are out due to long term illness and talk endlessly about needing to make such people work again.

People can’t work full time without any adjustments to the job if illness has robbed them of that much capacity. People can’t work at all if they are too ill. People can’t work a standard schedule when family emergencies demand some of their attention during standard business hours. People have that situation more often in environments that encourage everyone to spread every available pathogen with each other.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Government and business can shout as loudly as they like about demanding to impose rigid schedules, working conditions and expectations on the workforce. They can shout and they can want, but they cannot actually impose what people are literally unable to tolerate.

Coming up with ways to be more flexible about work is treated as a nicety, sometimes a novelty, no more than a quirky option.

The world has changed. Much of the way it has changed was created by policies of Powers That Be. This is part of the price of their choices. Flexibility is not optional. It has become essential.

Flexibility used to be something they might offer to attract and keep the best, most capable performers. Now, in the warped new world they have done so much to create, it’s gradually becoming something they will have to offer to keep going at all.

Frankly, it’s long overdue.