10
Helpful Guidelines For Negotiating Flexible Working With A Stubborn Boss
by admin ·
There is little to match the exuberance or ecstatic feelings that you and your whole family share when a new arrival is on the way. This is one of the most momentous times of your family life and for an expectant mother can be simply amazing.
Friends and acquaintances will also be over the moon and will all look forward to the big day with much anticipation.
As your feelings of happiness know no bounds, you would be forgiven for thinking that all the World would be happy for you as well and while this is largely the case, certain elements of negativity may, however, still arise.
While your boss might be a relatively happy person normally, he or she may be particularly concerned about the business operation and may not be as enthusiastic as you might think. You may soon come to realise that the business is classified squarely in first position in the eyes of your boss and if you want to consider flexible working hours as you go forward, you are going to have to be really persuasive.
You may come to find that your boss is really a dinosaur and can be very inflexible, unfortunately, so you will have to call on all your powers of creativity and persuasiveness.
If you have a friend and co-worker who has been in your position before, now is the time to have a down-to-earth chat and to see whether she was able to achieve any two-way communication with the boss and how she handled the situation. While you are at this research stage, talk to other friends in other industries or professions and see what solutions they were able to come up with.
This is the time to be very creative and forward thinking and consider telecommuting or working from home. As companies around the World realise that they need to save on their overheads, this concept is becoming more and more acceptable. If the kind of work you do supports this, all the better.
Don’t forget, that you must work out what would be the ideal situation for you, first and foremost. In other words, be careful what you wish for!
At the top of your list should be an ideal scenario, but you should also have options available in a less-than-perfect situation. Look at your home commitments first before asking for something you might not be able to accommodate.
You should always be careful when you are discussing options with colleagues and you might have to exercise some strategy. In a situation where you collectively share the workload in your office, see how you could come up with a more flexible schedule by dividing up the work creatively. You must be willing to pull your weight in other areas and above all else make sure that you are confident it would be a win/win/win situation for the colleagues, the employer and yourself.
If your job essentially allows you to complete certain tasks regardless of time, or what used to be known as a “job and finish” situation, determine whether you would be able to do this during your personal time as part of a newly revised schedule.
The more you can show your boss that you would be equally as productive, if not more productive by working a flexible schedule, the more the dinosaur is likely to stop chewing the vegetation and listen to you!
In most situations, online life coaching can be another excellent source of research for you. Luckily, coaching for women can generally help by suggesting various options for a variety of situations. This is far from being the private domain of executives or sports players and you should turn to professional coaching, as well!
Amanda Alexander, Director of Coaching Mums, helps pressure-cooked, stressed working mums who long for more hours in the day. Through her coaching programmes and online life coaching courses, Amanda shows mums how to create fulfilling and successful lives. For your simple 5 step guide to balance as a working mum, download our free eBook today!
Tags: business, coaching, family, parenting, work-life balance
